What happened to individuality?

While I was at work today, a mom came in with her two twin sons, who were about 10 years old. For about 20 minutes and they persisted to ask me question after question like "Why don't you have DC and Hurley in the flat ones?" "Is that corn?" "Why is that a fish?" Normal (I guess) questions young children ask for no apparent reason other than they don't understand. But that aside, these kids, all they cared about was what other people were wearing and if they looked cool. One of the twins, the one wearing a yellow shirt, was checking himself out in the mirror for like 10 minutes, switching between hats and throwing them on the ground when he was done with them. The mother, who was overweight to say the least, didn't seem to mind this one bit.

Shortly after the father comes in, the boys head towards the counter and THROW their hats in my general direction and land almost off the table where I ring things up. The dad doesn't really say anything either and the boys just stare at me with the stupidest expressions on their faces I think I have ever seen.

It saddens me that the next generation is already getting sucked into the corporate game and the rat race of 'who looks better in what and what's the new style that everyone is wearing'. It makes me sick. No one stands up for their own beliefs anymore. Corporate companies are just running a train on the American people.

I'm done with Alcohol.

I don't know why it took me so long to realise it. I had signs and experiences that screamed "STOP ALL TIES WITH ALCOHOL!!" There were blantantly in my face and I whole-heartedly ignored them. Let's count them down shall we?

1) My mom's dad was an alcoholic.
2) My best friend almost died in my arms because of alcohol poisoning.
3) Another good friend got so drunk that he threw up for 30 minutes, while he was still in my car.
4) Every time I've ever been completely smashed I've thrown up and made myself look like a complete idiot in front of random strangers and my best of friends.
5) I've lost many very close friendships over the stupidest shit revolving around alcohol.

A few months ago I went on a camping trip with my 2 best friends at the time; Brandon and Dillon. Brandon's girlfriend Tony tagged along with her friend who I absolutely couldn't stand to be around for more than 10 minutes or I'd start slamming my head against trees. Very, very long story short; Dillon and Brandon were so drunk they had convinced themselves that I was the reason that nothing went right that whole trip. They eventually got kicked out of the campsite because they were so loud and obnoxious, and left beer cans strewn about the campsite. And guess who got to drive ALL the way back to the campsite after I'd gone home, so that I could pick up THEIR bill? Yeah, that's right; Me.

But tonight was the final, goddamn, straw.

My really close friend Matt and I drink together quite often. Since I stopped smoking, I started drinking more, already there's a flaw somewhere in my logic. Shortly after getting off work, Matt calls me and wants to do something. I tell him I have $5 on some drink and he has $5 as well. Pick up Matt, drive to the convenient store and get the brews, and we're off. Lately we've been drinking under a bridge near my house because it's remote, it's dark, and it's safe. I didn't know this beforehand, but Matt doesn't like that spot anymore. So after we get at my house and park the car, Matt's phone rings. It's his friend Justin and Jordan, who have $30 and want to drink. For a little background, Justin and 2 of his homies one night, beat the SHIT out of Brandon because they were absolutely just hammered. There's #6 on my list. I also have to be up and functioning at 8:30 in the morning, tomorrow. So Justin keeps telling Matt that I should go buy them beer, and we'll all be merry and drink. That's fucking stupid. First of all, I don't want to drive like 10 minutes to get money, 10 minutes back to the convenient store, 10 minutes back to his homies place, drink for awhile, THEN DRIVE HOME DRUNK! I explained this to Matt very level headedly about 3 times. Matt kept telling me if I really didn't want to chill with Justin and Jordan (whom I really have and still have NO desire to drink with, let alone see with my retinas), that it would be cool and we'd just drink. I told him that I didn't want to drink with them 4 times and each time I told him that, he just got more upset and was like "Why?" "Why? It's better than drinking under a dark-ass bridge." "Why??" etc etc.

So after 25 minutes of this horse shit, I finally just give up and buy them alcohol with MY FUCKING GAS MONEY. After I buy their shit, we drive all the way to homie's house. I park, pop the trunk and hand Matt all the alcohol. Matt looks at me with a confused look. "So you're not gonna chill?" And I yell, "Dude! I went over this like 4 times in the car! I don't want to hang with your homie, he beat the shit outta mine for no reason!!" Then Matt storms off saying that he hopes I have fun being gay and a bunch of other mumbles and grumbles. So I'm officially done drinking for a very long time. It has done nothing but cause me bullshit and more bullshit.

Sorry for swearing so much, but I swear when I'm really angry. I'm heated, to say the least. Mostly because I think that I lost Matt as a friend. Matt is one of my few comrades at the moment, most of them have moved on because I don't smoke anymore or because they found someone who is more of a piece of shit than they are. *sigh*

I hate this fucking town, so much.

Medical Woes

I have decided to stop smoking marijuana. I know I sound like a stoner when I say it, and I still feel weird even mentioning it, but dammit I love weed. It makes me feel more at peace and chill than my medication EVER has. In the state of Washington, depression isn't a viable illness to use medical marijuana. Which probably is a good thing because: A) I smoke WAY too much in for the first place, and B) I'm going to really start working on getting into college, and working on my portfolio, and C) It's way healthier for me.

I plan to just keep along this path for a few months until HOPEFULLY, I've had my mom paid off the $460 I owe her, my good friend Benny and I will find a cheap apartment or little house and then start smoking again. I'm tired of hanging out with kids that are 3-5 years younger and 5-10 years stupider. I'm assuming this process will take 2 months, so... *fingers crossed*

Chapter 1: Hello. My name is Charlie.

I never really know how to start something like this.

Whether it was a homework assignment that I had 3-months to finish and started the night before, or if it's an entry in a blog I created no less than 10 minutes ago, I still find difficulty.

My English teacher Ms. Kettwig always told me to grab your reader by their throat as soon as they start reading, and never relinquish that grasp until your piece is finished. I never really imagined my writing having that quality; being able to keep someone so immersed into my writing that they'd never want it to stop.

Maybe that's why I stopped writing.
And maybe that's why I decided to start again. To rise up from the ashes, like the phoenix; fire burning with intensity in its belly, and create something so astounding that any person who happens upon this, may shudder and feel the immense weight of its power and realise the awesome potential within.

Or perhaps...

I'll start with a blog, and see where that takes me.

Either way, I'm going to tell stories, I'm going to speak my mind, and I'm going to grow; as a writer and as a human being. I always felt like something was missing from my very simple, yet complicated life. And this may possibly fill that void, or another void that has been empty for nearly far too long. On another note, I just realised you have no idea who I am.

My name is Charlie. It's not my birth-given name, but it is a name that I've adapted to and made my own. I use my real name, which isn't Charlie, just for "serious" things, like bills and job applications, but I like using my "nickname", even though it was never deemed my "nickname" by anyone except myself. As I grew older, that being 13 years old and on, I always felt like I was 3 people in one body.

There was the person I was at school, the person behind closed doors and the person who yelled and screamed and pouted when he didn't get his way. Charlie is the person who came out of that whole part of my life. I found my love for photography, music, and writing in that period of my life, which are the 3 most important things to me, besides my family and friends. Eventually I found that I wasn't schizophrenic or losing my mind, as I once thought, but with a few counselors and my doctor's help I found that I was bipolar. Come to think of it, I did a report on manic-depressives in 9th grade. Huh. Just remembered that. Anyway!

My point is that I was living a double life, multiple actually. Everyone nowadays it seems is living a double life or lying all the time about their lives, myself included. We even steal each other's own identities. Of course this isn't news to anyone, we know it's going on and continue to let it fall by the way side.

What if though...

One day it happens to you and suddenly you're the victim now, you scream, "WHY WON'T ANYBODY HELP ME? I'VE BEEN RAPED AND SODOMISED, PLEASE SOMEONE!" But no one's listening. They're all like you: averting gaze, muting everything around you, except for what is important to you and what you have your sights set on. The cycle repeats itself, day-in-and-day-out.

I hear you saying, "What about you 'CHARLIE'? I know that's not your real name!" Believe me, I know I'm a hypocrite, preaching about double lives and being raped, while I sit here in my room, still living at home, typing away at a laptop that is only 1/4 of the way paid off, working a dead end job at slightly more than minimum wage, yearning to be the next great Photographer in TIME or in National Geographic, but enrolling in college and sitting around hoping that it will happen is the way I think it's really going to happen. SPOILER ALERT: It's not how the world works. I know that, I'm just lazy, and you all know it too, but you're lazy like me. That's why you're reading my blog and I'm writing it. We've become a nation of consumers and that's about it.

There's nothing you can really say to defend it, especially me. I weight 310 pounds and I've been "fat" most of my goddamn life. I always complain about being overweight, yet I never go to the gym, eat the right foods, and continue to consume candy and soda like there's no tomorrow.

But I want to change, I really, really do. I want to make my generation be the one that people see in 40 years and say we were the ones who flipped the way that the world was going, that they saw the light and shined those lights, ever so brightly upon the rest of the world, but with Eco-friendly light bulbs of course, as to not piss of Al Gore. You get on his bad side and he'll send Leonardo DiCaprio on yo' ass.

Sarcasm and humor aside, I love America and I love the people in it. America is the dictionary definition of a melting pot. It's absolutely ridiculous how many diverse people there are here. People even sneak across our borders daily, just to get a shot at it, to find that "American Way" we always hear about. Whether we like it or not people, we're all interconnected. What you do in your life will eventually impact someone else. We all have the same hometown as well; Earth. What you do to it and in it eventually impacts someone else the same. If we're not careful, we will lose it. If we lose the earth, we lose each other, we lose our heritage and we lose everything we thought was valid.

Many of you do not think how I do, and that's what's awesome. We as Americans have the right, to say what we want and vote for who we want in office. I consider myself a republican of sorts. I consider myself a democrat of sorts. I don't want to choose a side, simply because there are those who would ridicule me for simply being a democrat or say that I was dumb and stupid for simply being a republican. I believe there is a god, but I don't believe that Jesus was a real person. I like chocolate WAY more than vanilla, but both of them together is a treat to my taste buds.

But I think Bob Ross, my favorite painter of all time, said it best, "This world's all we got boy... We need to stick together."