Let's see, I'm going to try to write this thing while I'm off-line and see how it works.

I've been seeing this girl since around the time of my birthday and she doesn't quite "get" me either. What the hell is wrong with people. Sure, I've lived an intresting life, have had a lot of bad things happen to me. But just when you start getting to know someone, they start to freak out and don't know if they can believe you. Why can't I find someone who understands what life is really like? I've seen and done things that would shock and amaze most people. I've also done things that would disgust most people, all in the name of doing what I needed to do to get a job done. LIfe is a zero-sum equation. You come into this world with nothing and you leave with nothing, but you can at least do your damnedist to survive. I've had one of my best friends from high school commit suicide, found my grandmother dead, and even had to take the life of someone to defend myself. Does any of this make me a bad person? I don't know, but I sure feel shitty most of the time about these things and about the fact that once I get close to someone, they don't know what to do.

When Nolan (my friend) killed himself, it was right after he got back from his second tour in the Gulf. He was having problems at home, his wife was running up an incredible amount of debt. He didn't make a whole hell of a lot of money, but he did have sea-pay, so it helped a bit. The day before he did it, he called his parents up to see if he could sell some of his things to them so he could raise some money. He told his mom that he wasn't planning on getting a divorce (he was Catholic), but was going to go to marriage counseling. I tried to call him about 3 days prior to all of this, but his bitch wife answered. Let me tell you something about her, she was just like the BITCH QUEEN. When Nolan got married, I wasn't even invited to the wedding. I went anyways as a friend of the family. At the recieving line at the end of the ceremony, everyone was happy and smiles until I got to her and her face just dropped. I had a big shit eating grin and said, "you couldn't keep me out of coming to this if you had tried." She even tried to get someone else to be the best man at the ceremony instead of Jason (my other best friend).

I lost it when I heard about Nolan killing himslef, but I kept on going. I had a job to do and I was going to do it. I found out the day of the funeral and was nowhere near where the service was going to be. I managed to get to El Paso the next day and spent about an hour with his mother, just talking about things and let her know that if there was anything she needed to let me know. She told me that the bitch had burned all of his things and she had nothing to remember him by except for pictures. I then took off my Navy ring and told her that it was his. I told her that he gave it to me to hold onto in case anything bad were to happen to him. I don't know where his parents live these days, but I hope I gave thim something to hold onto.

More later.