Have't been up to much--just working, seeing a few flicks and, of course, saving my money back up. After moving back in with Momma and co., things have settled down all nice and calm-ish. It's nice. Plus, I get the awesome bonus of not having to drive quite so far for work anymore. That's always great.

In other news, I finally transferred my cell to be in my name only. It was in Jen's. She got a bit ticked off when I did it, but after what she let Stew (Remider: My sister's husband) get away with saying I don't really give a crap. (Note: We kinda dropped off a cat on a county road. She was evil and attacking all the other animals. Not fun. Momma and I didn't like doing it, but... *shrugs* Stew said that Momma, of course, would have a problem ditching a cat since she ditched Jen and me as kids. I could hurt him. Really, I could.) I got a pretty new phone out of it though. I'm happy about that. Need to name it though. Cuz I'm dorky-cool like that. :P

Other than that, I went and saw Zombieland this past weekend. It was awesome. Really funny. Now, I want to see Law Abiding Citizen pretty badly. :( This coming Sunday I'm supposed to be having lunch with Jen, Stew (pray for me), and both my Daddy and step Mom. Wish me luck, okay?

Anywho, I miss you guys!! Whatcha been up to?

X's and O's!!!! *mwah*

Hi, everybody! How's everyone been? Great I hope. Me? I've been up to lots of stuff. Like getting ready for my b-day and the trip to Schlitterbahn that it entails! Which is just awesome really. I'm excited. Can you tell?

Anywho, been busy at work with lots of birthdays in August (weird if you ask me that there's so many of us there at the courthouse that are August babies... *quirks eyebrow*). We're actually trying to fill the vacant full time position now too. That's more than awesome--it's a salvation. Less stress on the rest of us and a whole lot easier of a time too. It will be nice to have another person to help out. Can't wait!

Other than that, not much going on. My tv did just die (my he/she rest in peace....or pieces) tonight so I'm a little bummed about it. I am still saving money to move back out again though (which might have to be broken into for a replacement for said dead tv) and dealing with the days as they go by. Looking forward to Wade moving ( :P ) and am way beyond happy/proud that Dad's a-ok with his DL again. Go Dad! I'm also wishing him loads of luck on all those difficult (at least to me and I'm sure a bit to him) tests he has to do for his work. Know he can do it though!

Well, that's about it folks!

X's and O's.

Well, here's a quick update about the goings-on in my life. Seeing as we only have dial up at Momma's, I haven't really had the patience to finagle with the net to update all of my stuff. Ya know?

Anywho, I moved back in with Momma cuz things got...well, a bit rough with Jen. Her and Stew (her new hubby) made living with them practically impossable. Things are better now. Living with Momma's not bad though.

Other than that, the only other major thing that I'd like to say is that the lady at work that was a total pain in the you-know-what had retired! Finally. She cracked her heel and still came to work and I was almost to the point of snapping her (fire and brimstone and all that jazz). It was horrible. I get her crimper (for seals) and her key to the outside door, so I'm pretty stoked!

What's been up with ya'll?

Here's the last part I've rewritten. Tell me what you think!!!!

Chapter Two:

By the time I made it home, flopping down on my bed and just lazing about for hours on end sounded like the most wonderful idea I’d ever thought up. It wasn’t that Holden had ruined my day, even if he was in all but three of my classes. No, it was the almost constant chatter and inquiries that tired me out beyond belief. He was like an overly friendly Energizer Bunny. One that, no matter how many times I reminded myself that he was my polar opposite or that I could simply ignore his steady banter, I still found myself answering if only so that he’d shut up.

It wasn’t like me to chit chat though. Maybe I could blame it on his being new and someone I wasn’t all that accustomed to ignoring just yet. Still, I so easily brushed aside everything else. My life, school and books—these things were so much more important than the annoying students that cared more about materialistic and juvenile things.

So, it came as no surprise that by the time I’d actually managed to trudge to my front door, I looked like some weary traveler who hadn’t had a decent sleep in days and was bone weary. I fumbled with my keys in the lock and practically collapsed into the relative safety of my home. At least there weren’t any talk-aholics here.

On some inner level, I made the same critique of my house that I always was want to do. The first thing people noticed of course when stepping into the place—not that many “friends” came over—was the almost frightening number of crosses and other religious paraphernalia. My mother was well known for her huge collection of Christian collectables. Lots of kids my age called her a “holy roller” or an “insane bible hugger.” I wouldn’t really disagree with either. How could I when we went to church at least four times a week? How could I when the bible had been used for my bedtime stories as a child? No shock, right?

Kicking off my tennis shoes, I headed up the stairs to hop in for a quick, but hopefully still relaxing, bath. I plugged up the tub and turned the knobs so that the water was a little bit cooler than it was warm. Grabbing the hem of my t-shirt, I struggled out of the offending and dirty piece of clothing.

Plop.

Jumping and whirling around, I looked alarmingly back at the bathtub. An almost empty bottle of shampoo floated along the surface, bobbing up and down. A shudder ran rampant down my spine. Baths never brought good memories for me. Most kids could remember bubble baths and rubber duckies. Not me. Baths always reminded me that my life had its own forms of torture that wasn’t physical pain at all. They reminded me just why I despised the happy-go-lucky fools that went to school with me.

It was so easy to remember back when I’d finally realized that my family wasn’t like any other I’d ever known. I had been rather young, perhaps six or seven years old, when I’d been reading some fairy tale book about some princess or something in the suffocating silence of my house. My father, always the workaholic, wasn’t home, but in some office building in some part of the town I’ve never really had the interest to know about. I hadn’t thought too much about the other little kids in my private school; I mean, I so very rarely spoke to them and interacted with them even less. I knew, even at that young age, that I was somewhat of a loner. It had come as a huge shock though when my bedroom door had slammed open, crashing into the wall behind it. There was still a dent in the wall, a constant reminder, to this day.

“You.” In that one word, I’d heard rage and anger I’d never before witnessed in my always gentle mother. “Did you think that I wouldn’t find out? That you could hide it from me?”

Confused, I had simply blinked up at her and asked, “Mommy?”

The disgust on her features was even more unexpected for me as a little boy than the door being slammed open like it had been. She hadn’t even paused in her predatory approach when I’d begun to lean away from her towering figure. It had been very horrifying as a child to see such hatred and lack of love in one’s mother’s eyes. She’d snatched my arm in a vice like grip and continued her insane ramblings.

“Sitting next to you all that time, unnoticed and infecting you with that, that revolting disease. What kind of school lets that in?” I hadn’t known how to answer her, startled, confused, and terrified of how she was acting at the time. I’d felt so weak then, letting myself be dragged and, all the while, unable to make whatever angered my mother—the woman I loved so much-- go away.

It wasn’t until she literally shoved me into the porcelain tub that I had realized I’d been brought into my mother and father’s master bathroom. I remembered looking up then, into her slightly deranged eyes, before I felt the scold of the hot water burning my exposed flesh. My mother had not allowed me to leave that smolderingly hot tub until she had deemed me “cleansed.” It had been a long wait, crying and her telling me over and over that my pain was only for my own good and that I’d be able to see that eventually.

We’d had to go to the hospital later that evening, when she was done. I’d swallowed water and missed school for a week.

It had taken me years to understand what had set my mother off that day. Forcing myself to calm down, I locked the door and climbed into the chilly tub unable to keep my thoughts from turning to that poor little girl. She had sat next to me in my first grade classroom. Her parents had not been real parents, at least not by my mother’s definition. They had been a lesbian couple. It seemed pretty foolish to me, working up such a rage over something like that, but my mother had gained support and the little girl had found herself expelled from our elite private elementary school.

Shaking the heavy memories away from myself, I began to scrub away the grime of the day. A sudden laugh escaped before I could stop myself. It was a stray little thought. One that shouldn’t have really mattered all that much, but somehow it brightened my mood just a little bit.

“So, did that Sherra girl remind you of some evil flesh-eating demon the way she was all leaning close to and touching me?”

Cressent. He’d held up his hands, making them into some kind of make-shift claws and had hissed. I couldn’t help but think how ridiculous he had looked at the time, doing something like that in the middle of the hallway between classes. At least in one way though, he’d ended up making my day just a bit more bearable, so like one of my many beloved books.

Here's the first actual chapter and I'll post the second one in just a sec!

Chapter One:

It started out as all horrible Mondays following a long break do, groggy and dull. Rain pitter-pattered rhythmically on the pane glass windows of the classroom and every single soggy student in my class slouched in their desks with their drenched heads propped on crossed arms, our teacher running late as usual. It was one of those atypical dreary Mondays that was picturesque of exactly a “bad start to the week”. But to me, it was a day like any other monotonous day when all those Jedi powers were nonexistent. So it was that I began my week with an extremely bad start—at least that’s how it appeared to me. What with the thunder and lightening and the heavy rain, it was a wonder how any of us made it to school instead of ending up flowing away.

The tardy bell rung out, annoyingly loud even with the roaring of the storm outside and the class settled in for just a few more minutes before Ms. Goodnight burst right on in. It wasn’t that she was a bad teacher who didn’t care for teaching any of us. No, it was just that she was what she was and that was a Theater teacher. She wasn’t really middle aged, not really, but she wasn’t what I’d call a spring chicken. Not by a long shot. No, Ms. Goodnight was a slightly rounded woman, who wasn’t quite fat but wasn’t thin either. Every time she stepped into a classroom she seemed to radiate this sort of joy, a happiness that she carried around her like she was perfectly fine right where she stood doing exactly what she loved. It was almost, but not quite, annoying the way she was so bubbly and happy all the time. But, Ms. Goodnight was manageable as far as teachers went and was much easer to tolerate than others.

Right around the time that I was going from bored to downright bored-out-of-my-mind, the door opened. We all kinda half way sat up, knowing we should at least put on the front of having been “anxiously” waiting for class to begin. That’s about when the murmuring started. Oh, it was like having some annoying little bee in your ear, all the low humming of voices like a group of bees’ buzzing. I glanced over out of the corner of my eye to see what exactly the holdup was. And there he stood.

He was pretty petite for a guy, probably not one that could easily be one of those guys that would take a fight for a pretty girl. He had honey blonde hair and striking sapphire eyes that really seemed much too bright in the dim lighting. The moment that his eyes locked with mine, I knew. I knew that there was just something about him that I wasn’t going to like. From how he nervously shifted from one foot to the other to how he attempted to smile ever so slightly at the room at large, was grating a bit on my nerves.

He reached up then, fidgeting with the collar of his black turtleneck sweater and I only slightly hoped that he was as uncomfortable with me as I was with him. I mean, it was obvious that he was way too innocent to be in a high school classroom, like he’d really just stumbled on in on complete accident instead of actually belonging.

“Hello. I’m Holden, Holden Cressent.” His—this Holden Cressent’s—voice was soft and gentle as the nervous smile he’d given to us, very much one of those soft guys. There was no doubt about that. I mean, what kind of guy starts to chew on his lips when he’s nervous? Not one that I know of.

And that was like the cue for our theatrical teacher to make her entrance. Ms. Goodnight bustled right on in to stand at the front of the classroom along with petite little Cressent. Without a single hesitation on her part, she clasped a hold of his shoulder and smiled one of her brightest smiles. She really was one of those kooky, fun-loving and all around high-on-life people. Sometime it was very obvious.

“Well class, I’d like you to be warm in welcoming our newest student, Holden,” she said. Her voice always sounded like a cheerful thunderclap if you asked me. “Now I know I was a little late, but that just means you all got here on time, right? Let’s see where we can put you, dear.”

She looked right at Holden with her joy filled muddy brown eyes and a chuckle made it past her wide lips as she took in his widened, overwhelmed eyes. “My name’s Alaia Goodnight, though all these little brats call me Ms. A. Okay, Holden, you’re going to sit by Jake.”

Poor, poor Jake. Had to sit next to the “new kid.” Well, better him than me as far as I was concerned. Now the poor, unfortunate soul—if I could quote Ursula for just a sec—was charged with getting all the juicy insight into the newest member of our student body. See why I was so very glad with the whole him-not-sitting-next-to-me-thing? It of course helped the whole I-didn’t-really-like-his-whole-innocent-routine-thing. Yeah, it helped loads with that.

As soon as Cressent, plopped—okay, sat—down in the seat Ms. Goodnight had pointed to, she started booming out in her thunderous voice her plans for the spring play we’d all be forced into. The dreaded “pair assignment” was dished out for us to discuss ideas for costumes, music, anything really. I knew, though, that anyone who was made my partner for the period wouldn’t ask my opinion for anything. The quiet kid routine certainly had its perks.

Still, it came as quite the irksome realization to find myself watching—along with everyone else in the class—as Holden was paired right on up with Sherra. Oh, she was your horribly cliché blondie-miss-prep-a-lot. She probably could have been pretty if it wasn’t for the overkill in the make-up department. She was too thin, tried way too hard, and was dumber than a rock. In other words, she steered clear of me with my sharp tongue and zero tolerance for stupidity. It was just a tiny bit gratifying to see him try to take her all in. And I was unable to resist smirking when she actually dared to snatch some worn notebook out of his hands.

“I think that the music for the kiss scene should be like in those cheesy romance movies or something,” she said and I had no idea how her nasally voice could ever have been mistaken for attractive. It was almost painful to watch her pretending to care about the school play just to flirt.

“Um…,” Holden reclaimed his kidnapped notebook, “maybe something softer than that, since it’s a tragedy and she’s going to die right afterward. The louder bit should happen then, don’t you think?”

She gave one of her patented “breathtaking” smiles—though if they were really breathtaking then I was a blind man—and batted her mascaraed eyelashes a bit. I was pretty sure that she thought of his innocent seriousness as something “cute” or “attractive.” But, he, on the other hand, seemed completely oblivious to her rather predatory look. All these cat and mouse antics that teens my age went through were ridiculous and not even entertaining. Once you saw one, you knew how it went. The new kid didn’t stand a chance, not with all the girls in the school after him. Good for me though. Being the quiet guy who people just sorta left alone gave me some immunity to the hormone driven frenzies. Cressent, apparently, didn’t.

Shrugging mentally, I looked away from the scene. I wasn’t going to concern myself with all this “new kid” stuff. No. Instead, I settled on into my seat and flipped open The Giver. It was one of my favorite books; it was one of those books that left you with a small, little piece of itself long after you’d read it. When a week started out with the strong feeling that maybe it wouldn’t be all that wonderful of a week, I always would snag one of my favorites from my bookshelf. Somehow, having one of those books would make the week seem just a teensy bit more bearable and I’d be able to struggle on through it. I found myself able to drown out everything else and focus solely on the fantastic story each printed page contained. The Giver was one of the tops of that list. It held you in this fantastic story that was woven into gold by its author. Really, a must read for any intellectual—which I considered myself to be something of the sort.

I had just gotten to the part where the kids were assigned their jobs when I felt a weighty stare. It was like a ton of bricks had just steadily growing on my shoulders until I just couldn’t take it any more. I glanced up through my bangs, scanning the class for the culprit.

My eyes met shocking green. Cressent. I watched as his eyes widened—in surprise?—as he caught me staring right back. Hah! Caught in the act weren’tcha? He quickly looked away. The whole staring thing left me a bit irritated. What kind of dork sits there and stares straight at someone like that? As long as Mr.-I’m-so-pure-and-innocent didn’t bother me, then I wasn’t going to make the effort of letting his little problem of watching people upset me in the slightest bit, even if it was beyond weird to me at least. I mean, who people watched now and days? There wasn’t anything interesting about any of the students in this class. I let myself be pulled back into my book and ignored the feeling of being watched.

By the time theater ended, most people had completely forgotten what we’d been assigned to do. It wasn’t as if many of them cared about our pathetic play. I turned in my not-so-well-thought-out-ideas on my way out, not listening one bit to the idiotic dribble of the others.

Changing out my textbooks at my locker, I heard someone clear his or her throat behind me, a laugh catching it at the end. A feeling of maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to turn around swept over me. I had to fight it off just enough to force my feet—now with concrete shoes included for my personal Hell—to turn me to face whoever there was to face.

And there he stood—my spider senses were going crazy—Holden Cressent. He smiled or at least tried to pull of something that was probably supposed to be a smile before giving up in the face of my unfriendly, I-wish-you’d-just-go-away look.

“Um…” Real articulate, ain’t he?

“I’m a little lost.” Did he really think that I’d just jump at the chance to play tour guide for the new kid? Not a chance.

“I’m looking for Mr. Maxton’s Chem class….” Well crap. That’s what I had. Dang.

“Come,” I resignedly said. From the knowing smirk he flashed momentarily, I knew he’d known, somehow, that we were headed to the same place. Manipulative prick.

“So, is Mr. Maxton as nice as Ms. A?” He had fallen in step beside me now.

Did I really have to answer that question though? No teacher I’d ever met was anywhere remotely close to her overtly bubbly attitude.

“No.” I’d always been awfully good at the one word answers. Talented, I know.

“I’m Holden.” He flashed another of those bright smiles.

“Zack.”

The two of us made our way down the hall to chemistry—him talking 90 to nothing and me trying oh-so-hard not to hit him just to get a few seconds of peace and quiet.

After the whole Jen-getting-married thing and moving back to Caldwell, things have started settling down. Remarkably, I've been in the writing mood. Thus! I am going to post the rewritten parts of my story "Ripples on the Shore." Also, ya'll have a great Bunny Day!!!!

Here's the intro stuff. Ta-daaa~!




Ripples on the Shore

“It is said that there are two kinds of people in this world. The first are those beings that come and go like a blurred mosaic background to our daily lives. They are people we pass along each morning on the street, but never allow to press upon our lives too closely.

The other kind is rather different and, though they may leave us, we are never quite the same as that which we were before they played their roles in our lives. They are the pebbles tossed into the ocean of life, sending ripples to break upon the sands of the distant shorelines. These people send ripples over our hearts and change the sands of us forever more.

They are few in number, but are the greatest of all treasures.

Here is the tale of one such pebble whose outward spreading ripples ultimately altered the shores of so many for all of time and, whose soul continues on in the hearts of each and every one of us until forever has come to pass.”

Prologue:

Have you ever met one of those people who, with just a single glance, you come to the conclusion that you’re just not going to like them? Your whole conscience screams at you ‘He’s from the Dark Side, Luke! The DARK SIDE!’ And you can’t get your mind around that heebie jeebie feeling you have that you’re going to despise them with every ounce of hate you’ve got. Well, that was how Holden was for me. The moment he set foot into our homeroom class on that Monday morning, I would have confidently bet anything and everything that the two of us would be like cats and dogs.

I didn’t realize at the time that Fate or Destiny or whatever else you want to call it has one wicked sense of humor and I didn’t stand a chance. I couldn’t have escaped from Holden even if I had wanted to.

Well, as I'm sure many of you could have guessed by now, we've been in the new place for a while now and the packing has finally been finished with. Everything's going decent I suppose. Nice neighbors and stuff. The only bad thing is that I bumped (like a little bitty bump and a bit of paint damage) the lady across the street's car. That's a major suckxars thing. Luckily, I talked to her and she's not going to file on my insurance if we pay for it to be repaired. Momma's said we'll just have to charge it on her credit card and I'll make payments to her. Been a big damper on my mood.

Work's going great though. My boss wants to start training me to do the marriages and all that kinda jazz asap since some of the other ladies have vacations still to take (like a week's worth each).

Other than that, the only other great thing to report is that Jen and Stew are going to be possibly getting married next year in the fall. He's moved in with us and is just awesome all around. During the aforemention horrible problem, he actually calmed Jen down pretty well and even made sure I stopped crying. He was all Super Stew: The excellent big bro to be! *insert theme music here! :)*

That's about it. X's and O's!

Well, at last, we're in the new place. It's a wonderful duplex close to A&M (for no real reason for us really *shrugs*). We moved in starting on Thursday and finished bringing stuff over on Friday. Dad, David, and Stew get all the credit for moving the major bits. Kudos, love and extreme thanks goes to those three most assuredly. Still putting up the last little touches and the nick nacks need to be put out on display, but, for the most part, it looks like home. Hopefully, by Tuesday or Wednesday I'll have pictures of our new place to show the ladies like they want so badly.

We also had a party on Saturday for Grandma's birthday. It was fun. Ashley, Stew, Kristi, Jacob and the family all went over to her house and we had loads of awesome food that Momma and Dad spent a while cooking. It was great to see everyone (specially Kristi who is a friend of Jen's that I hadn't seen in forever it felt like and missed a whole lot! ).

Other than that, not too much to report. My 20th birthday will be this coming up Saturday so I guess I'm a little excited about that. I think that our new student worker, Savannah, is more excited though since her boyfriend will be coming back from Africa then. *shrugs*

That's about it. X's and O's.

For starters, this week just hasn't been one of the best for me. Nope, definately not. It's been one on the other side of the spectrum. Way out in left field, ya know?

It all started with Monday. I literally felt like a chicken with my head cut off. Between answering the phones and helping people at the counter, things got just a tad bit crazy. It didn't help matters taht we had some difficulties when we started closing out for the day too. Luckily, by, oh 5:30-ish (that's 30 minutes after work that I wont get paid for), we'd settled it.

Then, we had Tuesday; not quite like Monday in its awfulness that givs all Mondays a bad name, but close. We were still a bit busy and all that. Still, my alarm didn't go off, so I had to get ready in exactly 10 minutes and I was still late by 5 minutes since I had laundry to drop off at Momma's. Then, we had this quirky marriage that we had to call support to complete.

Both bad days all around, but both paling when compared to the utter horror of Wednesday (ie: this morning).

Woke up on time and got ready pretty fast which I thought was a good sign for the day. That was until I went down to my car and, as my "wonderful" luck would have it, discover my car's been broken into. The small triangular window on the back driver's side was smashed and my radio was broken quite a bit (the face plate is in pieces and the frame think it sits in is pulled out and broken, BUT it still works!). The only good thing is the fact that nothing was stolen (including my gas). Had to wait about an hour for the police to finally show and now I'm taking 1/2 hour lunches for a few days to make up for the tardiness it caused. Dad's going to fix it as best as he can, but I doubt I'll have an actual radio that's not cracked and stuff for a while.

The only thing that I can say is that if bad luck really does come in threes, then that almost promises that Thursday will be a good (or at least not bad) day. If anyone wants to contribute to a happier/better Thursday, then you're more than welcome to!

Well guys, it's official. I've graduated from college with my AAS and Certificate (as of this past Thursday). It went fairly well. I was very happy that my Paw-paw and Mee-maw, my Aunt and Uncle with their two kids, my Daddy and Mom, and my Mother's family (grandma included) came down for it. We ate out a Chinese place which is definately awesome in my book. We didn't get back home until about 11-o'clock (which did suck since I had work on Friday) but we all had a great time. We had a bag full of the gun poppers things that shoot out the streamers of confetti and stuff. Those were lots of fun and was part of the reason we were so late. All in all, I had a great night with everyone and am so happy that so many people I love came.

On another note, Tay's b-day was on the 6th and we celebrated this Saturday at Bounce. That was loads of fun and, since I was using the new camera my daddy got me for graduation, I got to chase everyone around snapping picks. That was great since I got out of most, if not all, pictures of myself.

Also, on the other bestest note of this past week, I was asked to stay on at work. I accepted and am so happy about it. Granted, I do have to dress nice from now on, but that's fine with me since I love where I work and the people that I work with.

That's about all there is so X's and O's!!!