?? ....... ??????

An actual blog post, I'm so sick of these blogs, these stupid things, all of these reviews and everything. people talking like they know things. Well, here we go.

"Derek is not his name" is going in a different direction, and I'm not going to pretend like people care but I just figured I'd write something and this would motivate me to move forward. I have the last chapter written, and I have some others written too. But what I want to do is rewrite the first section, just edit it a little bit, keep it raw, then post a chapter at a time. I don't expect this to be published, ever, I don't know how good at is and I'm sure I'll look at it in a year (or maybe even when I'm rewriting them) and be in shame. I'm not a writer, and I don't like when people call me a writer.

Film always comes first, and nowadays, so does my happiness. I thought the whole story was an interesting concept and I was really affected by the whole thing, so I wrote. And then other things happened in my life, kioerfk, it59, and it worked in the writing too, so I wrote that. But it's all so defeating, I grew sick of things, and here I am with the last chapter, on paper, not typed up yet. It's going to be weird getting back into things, it won't be fake because I'll have to dive back into that mindset. Right now, Derek is gone and that's fine. I think we grow up and we realize that we need to stop being selfish. The whole story, the whole time, it was all really fucking selfish, undeniably selfish, and why should someone that doesn't want to be friends with me (or anyone, for that matter) be forced to? It was all funny, the search for Derek, planning a trip to go find him, but it's not like something happened and where did he go, he removed himself for a purpose, and I can spend my whole life wondering why, and through this writing I didn't learn why, but I learned to just shut the fuck up. I have plenty of people here that I want to be with and they want to be with me, and there it is, it's like when someone gives us a compliment and it means nothing but if someone insults us it goes the whole way. Oh, out of commission for two days. Well, forget that. It's all a joke.

So the whole thing will go on until it is done and I willput it upfor free and clean upthesite and make it look kinda nice, and I will still be practicing my Thomas Bernhard for section two, so we can all look forward to that, well, some of us, I suppose.

I'm also going to change all the names in the rewrites, take out some of thesillier stuff, some of it, some of it needs to stay raw. But yeah, sorry Katy, you'll probably be Amanda or Jill or something.

shrug. well wellwellscooters vacation fall who wants to go on a trip?

Dr. Noonan

The woman opened the door and my grandfather guided me in. The doctor would be in in a minute, she says, but I knew this would take long. It took up time that could've been well spent working on other things, beating a video game for the sixth time, but at least I didn't have school. There was a long table with white paper covering most of it. This is where I sat, and there was another seat for my grandpa.

After a long period of silence due to our vast age difference, actually he might've told me "and you better - something and something", the doctor came in, this Dr. Noonan was old and bald and apparently friends with my grandfather. As they caught up, I wondered how many other people my grandpa knew, and if I would know this many people when I was older. I wondered if we ever interacted with people he didn't know. Things would be much quicker if the world (town) was filled with strangers, or even acquaintances.

I looked around the room because I had to, I don't remember what they were talking about - I was in for a check up, and I had just started a habit, a strange habit of clearing my throat a lot. I can't remember how new it was, only because it seemed to have always been there. Did I really never do this before whenever it was? Dr. Noonan checked me out and said I was a healthy, and that clearing my throat was probably due to stress, to which my grandpa asked me what I was stressed about. I shrugged and said school, but I didn't really know what else to say other than that. I pressed the paper cover and bent it in different spots, I searched for the clean smooth spots and bent them.

The conversation was already over and a new one had started. Is it better to be in the waiting room, at the kids table that doesn't fit ANYONE, playing with that toy that's not a toy? The thing has a wooden base and a bunch of different colored wires, with one shape per wire and they went back and forth. It's not a fun thing, and it makes the entire trip much sadder, because it's dark in there too, and when my grandma coughs - she always does two rounds, first round cough coughcoughcough cough... coughacoughacough cough.... a woman with a baby, eating out of a microwave popcorn bg looked at her concerned - even though it was another check up for me, and that's what she did all of the time, and don't stare at my grandma.

Dr. Noonan's story seemed entirely pointless, he told my grandpa about a mean doctor, he had a patient and he took her hand and asked if it hurt, she said no, then he pressed harder and asked Does this hurt?! There was also a detail of a paperclip that he always wore, the mean doctor, and in between these different vignettes, the paper clip was somewhere different on his white coat.

His stories never added up to anything.

I could never tell if my grandpa was too nice to say we had to go, or if it the diagnosis never properly finalized - there was no concluding sentence, it was something small and then we veered off subject, which ended up in me veering off, so I never knew if he actually verbally finished with me or not. Chances are, I'd still be clearing my throat after this visit, and probably for a very long time. But would I ever know how consistent it was, or is, do I do it a lot or is it so common that I do it and don't know it or do I really not do it all the time and only when I'm stressed?

My dog was in the kitchen, he had fungus on his nose and it must've hurt because he didn't want me picking at it. It needed to come off though. It was golden brown and bumpy, and from far away you really couldn't see it. The night before I had pretended to be stuck to the refrigerator, my arms locked into the door handles, just to see if he would do anything. I yelled help a few times and he started barking, then I released myself and hugged him. He must've felt like he helped me, there's no way that he knows I tricked him.

We finished up at the office and the ride home was fine, there was one embarrassing ride home when my grandpa and I got burger king and took it to a park to eat, and it was really hot on my lap, and I told him They don't make them like they used to. And he said Nope. 

It's all finally over.

So if I found all of this, and it wasn't about Derek and it was about me, I'd be very uncomfortable. Right. But this is a character. It's not me. It's mostly me, sometimes not mostly... I don't walk down the street thinking Derek. I'm not always ailed by his disappearance and in bleak confusion over my role in it. Does bleak work? It will, for now.

I only think of him when I write. (That's not completely true - Ed.) I only write when I feel compelled to. I can't imagine ever reading this outloud, memoir, whatever it was just became diary bull shit. Me me me, derek derek derek in lower case for some reason. If I stop writing, well, obviously it'd be in my best interest to stop. I'm worried about legal action or someone (okay Derek it's you) taking this terribly personally in a negative way. One thing's for sure, we will never be friends again. Maybe if I didn't do this, I'd find him in 20 years and we'd be okay. Maybe not, of course, but we'd have that possibility. That's all we have is that slight possiblity. That's all we got going. This is all embarrassing me.

?

Walking walking walking to the/away from

The characters are real, or they become real, and:

Now I'm scared that this will all blow up in my face. It's harassment, isn't it? Why can't I just let it go? It's terrible. I'm screwing everything up with all of this. What garbage. This is the most permanent thing I've ever felt. My grandmother passed away. I can never see her or talk to her again. That's selfish. She can finally rest and not have to struggle to breathe or deal with anything else that ailed her. Fuck me, her death had nothing to do with me. Why did she have to go, this and that, but she did. And she's not in pain anymore. It has nothing to do with me and If I think it does, I'm a terrible person. She's at rest, I love her.

So by that... so by that. Is derek dead? Don't know. But I can't see him or talk to him again, his choice. I want to. Is that selfish in the same way? Yes. But clearly that is selfish of him too. However, it is also, in the same way, he owes me nothing. He doesn't have to do anything to me or with me. And here I am.

I compared my grandma's death to Derek's disappearance from my life. I've done it before but now this is the first time it's in writing. It used to say "Hey, pathetic." right there but I erased it out. I don't really need to mention the fact that it is pathetic, nor do I need to creuctt the amount.

He can't do it.

It might have been too much for Derek to be the person everyone smiles at and depends on for a laugh. I tried many times to be that person and I've either failed, put in very little and extremely lazy effort, or completely lost interest in making people that didn't even care about me laugh. I can understand that it might have been overwhelming. Long Island is also a miserable place; much of the school year took place in Winter. There were dark days, well, grey days (or gray) and they had no interest in helping you through your mood. Take some it took it all to get through those fucking Winters. No one knew how to dress any warmer, and I remember the days I spent looking terrible in a button down, sweater, goodie, and jacket... and then seeing someone walking around with an "I don't give a shit" look with an open jacket, short sleeve polo, and smoking a cigarette. I shivered the entire way to class. I slipped on the ice that the school refused to clean up, and as I fell and stood up (making both look as ridiculous as possible, mind you. I f people want to watch, they deserve a show I think) I wondered why they didn't get rid of the fucking ice. Too easy.

So how would Derek trip, or how did Derek feel about Winter? I could guess, but I don't really know. Now that you mention it (I mentioned it, well, mention makes it insignificant and its not, at least I am still trying to prove to myself that it isn't insignificant) Where to... go back, so Derek snowboarded and lived in Vermont. So maybe he was okay with it. But maybe he wasn't. You know, oh okay hold on. I didn't really know him that well. Maybe better than most, but did I, I don't know. I don't think so. I'm fairly private, but it's only because I think people don't care. If they want to know, they ask. When people ask why I live with my grandparents, it's uncomfortable because it seems weird. It's not, but the situation is one that people don't know how to react to. Which is fine. But aside from being very out-of-the-ordinary (maybe I'm normal, let's not start saying that I'm self-stamping myself, if I am or amn't it is neither a good or bad thing). I had a regular childhood. The worst part is that I don't know who my Dad is, the worst part about that is that I think my Mom slept around in high school, the kicking part of that is that I might never know who he is because she doesn't, and what's worse with or in that is that I want to know and to beat everything, I only want to know because I feel that at this point in my life after not caring for so long, I feel like I should.

Speaking of self, dot dot dot dot, because that's what I'm doing, we can I can go on about how this is supposed to be about Derek. But I don't know anything about him, Maybe that's why it's no big deal to him. Big deal. So I end up writing about myself, my experiences with him turn into my similar experiences, etc. How about stopping? Who wants to write about how they're doing it all wrong, then read it over? Well, there you go.

I invented a frisbee game. One team versus one team. I was 11 or 12. My cousin Matthew was on the opposing side. Team A got the frisbee and threw it to B, back + forth, whoever did not catch it, Iwhatever team threw it got a point. And we all took turns throwing. Matt was terrible and we laughed at hi, he couldn't throw well. He got upset and said something like "Try this one!" and was absolutely serious when he said it. He jerked the frisbee, well he jerked his entire arm around in every direction (one of us counted, I later proposed we study the move to see if it at all would prove useful in other recreational/professional activities/battles) and threw it, it landed directly on the ground and rolled towards us. From whatever show he saw that in (he was 8 or 9), where the underdog does this strange maybe not strange but does something and wins. The reality was actually the show with someone about to do something serious, then it blows up in his face and we get the punchline.

This isn't writing. I toyed with the idea of doing an open mic, only because I just went to one, but what is this? Self-satisfying, self-gratifying, there's modesty and insecurity, but do I really feel that way? How do you know? It's garbage. What will I do with this?

I don't know Derek, he doesn't know me. He has no problem forgetting me and everything we had as friends. I can't , and there's no answer why. I'm not discovering anything, it's all just terribly warm, isn't it? Isn't it warm there, old friend? Did you just think or me, or was it someone else, like Ryan? DO YOU KNOW THAT I'M THE ONLY ONE THAT CALLS YOU DEREK, IN FACT, IS THIS FOR YOU, DEREK? AS I WRITE ABOUT MYSELF and fall into your stories, lightly, maybe it's really for you. And I get scared, I get nervous because everything you've done and said enforces this thought - the existence of this writing, it goes on and on, it will bother you. You will hate it. And I write this, knowingly. Would you take action? Legally take action? I wouldn't put it past you, or blame you. Know this, though - I just want to be friends again. And I really try not to make this creepy, but the mind is creepy. I guess. I don't know, that's awful. That's not writing. But don't take any of this as a threat, I'm so scared that this will be taken the wrong way, my hands are not the hands of old Chapter 27. 

I was too nervous to make that phone call, but I will soon, I think.

Help is on the way

Junior year, we had a brilliant class. Our professor told us to come up with one scene that would be one shot. This was probably the best directing practice I've ever had, and, of course, the class was a one-time-only deal because people complained to the department head. It's a shame, I should tell her that it was a good class.

So I think about this class, then Derek's idea, which he didn't do. I'm pretty sure that he pitched his idea for the American Soldier Suicide Bombers, but that was rejected. I'm thinking of his other idea.

It had something to do with a man hitting on a woman... and then there were gunshots. The woman then reveals that she is a man, and an undercover doctor of some sort. It sounds silly but that's only because I can't remember the exact details. She tries to help the hurt man, and that's about where it ends, with the man bleeding on the sidewalk, the man doctor still looking like a woman but has already revealed himself, and the man who was hitting on the doctor trying to help in anyway possible.

These things, such as his script ideas, other things too, it all didn't seem like anything to me at the time, they didn't represent anything bigger or really affect me until now. Sure, if you boil things down, if you make them vague enough, you can fit any situation. 

See: Nostradamus & 9/11.

It's not perfect, and nothing really fits that well, but if I sit down with it for a long time, it just might. I spoke to Ryan last night for a long time, and we were just honest with each other about a lot of things, which is good, and we spoke about this and what we're trying to do. He was worried about writing, not this but something else, as he didn't want to get sued or anything. I encouraged him to do it, who cares, whatever happens happens, and then I said that he shouldn't be nervous about that person but this person is the one he should be nervous about.

With a smile he mentioned that every time we spoke about Derek, weird/mysterious/scary music should play. That amused me, but I couldn't help but shake a little bit, and then spit out "Something's going to happen."

What did that mean? Something's going to happen? I said it four times, I think, and I meant it. He'd find this, and something would happen. He'd catch wind of the script, when we did that, and something would happen. He'd see the movie, he'd hear of it's completion, and something would happen. And from the tone of my voice as it came out, it wasn't going to be good.

We wouldn't die, but would it go legal? It could. I wouldn't put it passed him, and I also wouldn't blame him. 

Ryan also mentioned that we think about it so much, but he probably doesn't think about us at all. I never really thought about that, and now that I am thinking about it, it makes me seem much more creepy and it makes me wonder if I should just get over it or not, stop exploring my feelings and memories because nothing will come of it.

That's something that should be taken into account. What will come of it? You write something personal... I always felt that if you were to do a film (or it could be any art), you should present a question... an argument... some sort of idea, a statement, something. If it's personal, that's great too, and if the story's good and it engages the audience, that's Great Three. But what could this be? It can't be an effort to "get him back"... like, it can't be this that will make him realize that we were good friends and nothing major happened to really justify him cutting ties with us. I haven't made him seem like a great guy or a terrible guy, just a human being, and if I was trying to praise him so he could see that I did care about him, I failed. I think, I think you can see that I care. That's obvious. But this, in no way imaginable, will get him to start talking to me again.

It's not to understand why it happened in the first place. I don't think. It's getting a bit more clear, but it wasn't really foggy to begin with. I'm realizing things I might have done, and remembering things he had done, and its very obvious why things never got resolved. As things become more and more clear, it helps me less and less. So how much I harass someone, directly or indirectly, before... well, before what? Before they tell me to stop? If he messaged me, or called me, something, and told me to stop, what the hell would that prove? What am I trying to do here? Memory after memory, after this after that, what is it?

Derek worked at some garbage place in Vermont. Ryan found his phone number, he was listed on it's website. We don't know if he's there or not (how could we) and I dared Ryan to call him. He said he would, and he didn't. Then I said I would.

Next week, I'm going to call him.

No no.

Visited school the other day and saw a lot of old friends. Graduating wasn't that big of a deal. It was a great thing to accomplish, and it made my Mother and grandparents very proud. And I'm glad. Loans attacked me months later, but it was fine, paying loans, that is, it's what people do. And I still visited school as I still had a lot of good friends that had a year left. But now it's May, and now this is it. Everyone's going, and what's the chance that I will end up on that campus again any time soon? Visit a professor or two, but those that I would visit I'm close enough to go out somewhere with anyway. See somewhere else. Why would I go there anymore? It's over, there's nothing left there for me anymore. It's gonna be pretty empty soon. I don't need it.

Use and throw away, there you go. Let's go!

As I was at the film festival, one of my professors sat behind me. I hadn't seen him at any festivals prior to this one, and he left before my film "Behavior" was shown. This festival was a good experience because I was practicing not walking out of the room while my film is being shown. And it worked, but I was interested in what the professor thought of it, just because I admire him. And so on and so on, yes. I'm proud of my film, it's not perfect, surely, I failed in some areas, but I absolutely learned from it, and if anyone actually likes it - I can never tell no matter how many times they come up to me - I'll be very happy and excited. The aforementioned professor, a few sentences back, he stayed for the first half of the festival. During the drag of the longer shorts, I began to think of previous festivals. The unfortunate immature laughing that we all partake in, that I'm absolutely a victim and perpetrator of, and I thought of what was shown. I thought of the professor and thought of the time that Derek showed his film to him.

I stayed later after class and watched it with Derek, the professor, nameless number head student who I never saw again. The film was a one take long shot, with American soldiers strapping bombs to their chest, thus resorting to a battle tactic that general Americans despise, look down on, and can't understand. It was smart, it had something to say, and it was handled very inoffensively. Appropriately. The student very pointlessly pointed out that, during the dolly shot, you can see the camera. During the film, of course. Rude, sir, you are rude. Cross the line. The professor liked it in the end. But, in the end, it did not show at the festival. I never received a copy of it, and I have high doubts that it ended up in the mailbox of any festival. I had worked on that, and it was a good time, and I was hoping there were many more to come. But there weren't. There were supposed to be, there's always supposed to be.

Ryan and I worked on a film we called "Mural". People laughed at it during our school's festival. So I heard, and it hurt, but that's okay. It wasn't ready at all. The script, I mean, why were we writing about what we were writing about? I think we had an interesting question to raise, but... it needed work. The execution wasn't there. It was about a house cleaner taking pictures of the home's young daughter's underwear and such, then getting caught by the father. Everything in the draft was intentional, like the non-ending and the slow pace and the still shot of the underwear, but it didn't seem to work. Needed more work, that's right. You live, you learn. I'm glad we did it. Derek was supposed to shoot it. A week or two before the shoot, he started to disappear. We couldn't find him. Ryan no longer lived with him, Ryan was an RA. As we hustled the script, we sent him a few drafts and wanted to meet with him and show him movies like The Son so he could get a good idea of what he wanted. Then, Derek's roommate told Ryan that he went to Florida. We figured he'd be back before the shoot, we figured, he knew the date of the shoot. He reserved the equipment! He's into it, he wouldn't ditch us.

Paragraph break for effect, he did. I called him a few times to see if he would make it, to see if I could get an explanation of some sort, an apology of some sort, and neither were given to me. That's fine. Ryan saw him and Derek apologized, but never explained. Did we need one? 

Well, I think now I want one. For everything, probably, but I also don't want one. Because if someone apologizes to you, if someone really means it, they don't need to explain what happened, because it's none of your business. That's right, correct? Isn't it none of your business.

So I think about the blur of the weeks after "Mural". Ryan edits. Derek in and out of class. Texts to Derek saying that I would forget everything, texts to Derek calling him out for things being unresolved... biting stuff. Nice stuff. None of it worked, and if I stood my ground and stuck with one way or the other, it wouldn't have worked either. I saw him in class and I didn't know whether to be okay with him or not. It felt weird. I wanted to be okay. This is the way to do it. Forget what happened and just act regular. But there's a point where something happens, anything happens, and it's not the same. And one person will try to act okay, and they'll still feel it but they're acting, and the other person wants to do the same thing and will even make that decision before they enter the door but it just doesn't work like that. It's hard for me. I am a coward.

I couldn't do it. I walked around the building I worked in with my friend Tim. I explained everything to him, and Derek walked out of the building. We said hello to each other. It was weird. Tim saw first hand what was frustrating me so much, how I just wanted everything to be okay, even if I wasn't making the proper effort. One of us was always giving when the other wasn't ready. And I suppose that the game just got tiresome.

My own graduation consisted of hanging out with Tom and Kyle, both with the program since the start, but I had never really spoken much with them. We had worked together in the last few months, and I really became good friends with them. The 3 hour commencement passed nicely with my new friends, and it felt good, and it also felt terrible because I was now friends with people that it would be much harder to see. Then, I see Ryan with Nick. And apparently, they're okay and walking and sitting together. It's okay. He smiles and gives me five or something like it, and it was great! We're all happy. We had a bad few weeks, hey man I had a bad few weeks and I don't want to talk about it but we did it and we're off and out.

Commencement was 3 hours of award giving and speeches and we're all tired. Then at noon we head to our respective tents and shake the hands of our department. We get a fake diploma, a picture, then peace. Derek was with Ryan as we walked out of the building in a line into the huge white tent. We passed by family, I saw my Mom and Maxine, and I spoke to them briefly as they took my picture. My Mom was really proud, I think. I'm too shy to make my family watch any of my movies, but I get upset when they don't ask about them or what I am doing.

Derek's family and girlfriend were there. Ryan saw them. They sat down and as I joked around with Kyle and Tom, I yelled stuff across the tent to other people. Just having fun. Some to Ryan and Derek, but not too much. I couldn't see them but they could hear me yelling and I'm sure they laughed. So I didn't talk to them across the room, but they heard me.

During this 3 hour commencement, Derek leaves. He gets up and walks away. He says something to Ryan before he leaves, something Ryan can't remember. Something so ordinary that he can't remember, something so unnecessary that Ryan didn't really hear but he nodded anyway. Ryan took his tone and understood that he would be back.

Derek never came back. Derek was from Vermont. His girlfriend was from Florida. His girlfriend had flown out for graduation, his parents had probably picked her up and drove to Long Island. 8 hours in a car? How long in a plane? It's quite a bit. It is terribly, terribly strange for this journey to take place, both ways, so closely to one another. Walking, absurd for the students but important to the parents. I don't want to judge but I am trying to understand. Why would they leave? It occurs to me that maybe he didn't say he'd be right back, maybe he said something else and watched the rest of the commencement with his family. But why? As we walked over to the smaller Visual Arts tent, he never showed. He never received his fake diploma or his picture. All we have is the cliche and overdone memory of an empty chair next to Ryan, it screams at us and fucking bleeds and we can't even think about it because it's become overdone and meaningless. It is absolutely meaningless that Ryan had to sit next to an empty chair during a 3 hour self-satisfying $10,000 event that only parents cared about before they actually realized what they were watching. It is not important to anyone that I sat there, able to see the back of Ryan's head and not realize that Derek was no longer there, and how it was the last time I was ever going to see him, and that never I now that time keeps going and it's been so long since then and I can't help but think of all these different things and I write to try and figure out htings that might not need to be figured out at all, and my grandpa says to just be done with it and nobody else even understands that I had a friend that we had a friend and he is just where is he is he in Vermont is he in Flrodai what did we do t ohim and that graduation, what ever he did say to me because, I can't remember that either. I can't remember what he said to me just lke Ryan couldn't either (is that what it is? My grandma died the night I watched Pygmalion. I didn't talk to her that day. Did I?) Is he here is he there? Is he dead is it worse that he's probably not dead that he's out there but I still can't talk to him?

Was I really, really that close with him?

Does it matter if I was or wasn't? Does it mean anything.

I sit at the festival and I want to ask one professor if he showed up that one day. I sit at the festival and think about the time we watched his film in the classroom with the other professor I mentioned. I want to ask him if he's heard from Derek at all. Yeah, I'd use his real name. I didn't ask, I'll probably end up doing it in an e-mail. I think I don't really want to know if they saw him or not. What would it even matter? Confirm his existence? Is that what I need? Perfect things to end on.

1. What do I need

2. Does it mean anything

3. Is it important that right now he is getting what he wants

4. He is getting what he doesn't want, isn't he

5. It's all such a mess.

I don't like living in a dirty town

I always wonder if I'm being too obsessive. I talk about Ryan and how he's in it with me, and that we're on the same page, but look at me in comparison to him - look at what I'm doing! I can say why this bothers me enough to write something like this about Derek, and anyone who won't spend more than a few seconds thinking about it will write me off as "obsessed" or "in love with him" or "get a life" or "leave me alone" or "leave him alone". But even those people who will spend more than seconds thinking about it... will the conclusion be much different? They'll understand, yes, sir, I can see why this bothers you. But...?

People come and go. We've all grown up with people and had friends that you can no longer talk to for whatever reason. Be it change in interest, growing apart, something... that's always been strange to me. Do people change that much? I don't think they do. I mean, of course, sometimes people are friends because of convenience - you work with them, you sit next to them in class, that goes without saying. I do find it odd, losing touch with someone in this day and age - the age of social networks such as MySpace and Facebook (which people only use to talk to people they already know anyway: we all know that trying to make friends through these sites is a failing mission, we know it already so don't think anymore about it). Friends of convenience is bothersome because it takes one person to declare it and one person to accept it. That means that, well, we'll take it from the top. Two people are friends in history class. Man, this teacher is the worst. Eventually they find other things to talk about. Eventually they hang out, and then the year ends. They don't talk much over summer, and in fall it's different. But why? We've already moved on from the history class and done so much else to this friendship, it has evolved. The one person, upon seeing or hanging out with the other, has taken that awkward first-day-back encounter and decided that it is no longer convenient or comfortable to put effort into this friendship, therefore, they decide that they will not try. Yes we should hang out! Empty words make empty sentences, my friend. We should do that, yes, well, I'll get lunch today. The other person will try and bring it up, and eventually they'll just come to terms with the fact that that person no longer wants to be friends with them for a completely lazy and offensive reason.

That sounds hateful. It's annoying to me. But I'm not talking about Derek. Derek's case is different. 

I was eating with a few of my friends yesterday. A bunch of school friends, and Jack (I will say Jack so his students don't search for him and find this blog, then he'll just have to hear about it.) It was a very successful collision of friends, things like this don't usually work out, but Jack was well received and he liked everyone as well. I was happy. However, of course, Derek came up. Then again, of course, I brought him up. Nothing upsetting, I just wanted to get a thought cleared.

I asked Nee if Derek had been on the "Siblings" set. It seemed right, had he been? He said yes, that he came for the first day but not for the others after that. But he was supposed to. I think I even brought it up to him, and he said he didn't want to or he didn't think they needed him, or he didn't know why they needed him. I could be making that up, though. Memory is very unreliable. Which is why we held that conversation, and it's also why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Nee went on to say things like what happened to that kid, where'd he go? It didn't spread to the table and it didn't go much further. I shouldn't have brought it up, that's all I ever do now, well that's not true, but I'm starting to wonder if people are thinking that I think too much about him. A week or two ago I was talking to Alex, and he mentioned that Paul had saw him in a car on campus. This was important! So I asked Paul about it, and he said he thought he saw him in a red car with a girl outside of the film building. Red car, now, possibly, maybe he got a new car, or it was his parents' or his girlfriend's. I think Paul said that he waved to Derek, and Derek smiled and drove away, but it was so quick that he couldn't tell what it actually was.

Immediately I texted Ryan about it. This week I am going to school, and it just now occurs to me that I could ask the head of the department for some information, and I probably will do that. When I think of him on the set of "Siblings", I think of the production lab shoot that Ryan did, and how Derek was the DP for one of the scenes. He didn't load the camera right, or he didn't cover it properly with tape, and some light leaked in. At this point in the school year, we were all very irritated at the program and the professors, and even each other (I will go out on a limb and say that we still, to this day, all love each other, and if people disagree with me I think they should really think about it because we were all in it together and any petty argument and such about our undergraduate films are no large deal in the long run, and again I am not being specific, why do you always think I'm actually talking about someone? If I am I'll use their name. But no I'm not talking about anyone in particular, just when you're a film major the only reason to get mad at other film majors is because of projects you've worked on, there.) So, reviewing the footage, the teachers started to tell him he did it wrong, and it was clear to everyone that Derek made a mistake. So he was going to leave and opened the door, and the professor said something to him, and he laughed and said he wanted to leave. As he left, she called to him, and he just laughed the whole way down. 

I thought that was great! That's something you read, people don't act like that, he did, he actually laughed in that situation and probably laughed even though we couldn't hear him any more. I don't remember if they said anything about it afterwards, after he left, but it wasn't that good if they did. And good this was-

Today, at Coach, an employee came in, we will call her Fall because I don't know these people that well and who knows if they want to have anything to do with what I'm doing. My friends have no choice. Unless they tell me. But you won't know if I change their name or not. Usually I'm honest but I'll probably lie about stuff every now and then. So Fall came in and I said "There she is!" and she smiled, laughed, was happy, didn't really know what I meant by that, but knew it was a good thing.

Derek made that up. When a friend of yours comes in, usually unexpected, say you're eating with your friends and your friend Martin comes in, what do you say? Well you're probably happy that he's here. I would point at him and say "Yes!!". People who like to take a long time with everything would say "Hey what's up man why are you here?" and stuff like that. Takes so long. Or you would have an inside joke to say, or do something like "Martin's gay!" and then you hide really poorly so he knows it's you saying it. There are so many options!!

Derek, if he saw Martin, would say "There he is!" And this is always good. I don't like explaining things like this, even the jokes and lingo my friends and I use, I like it to just be there and to be accepted, because they're not that hard - this is the thing that gets to me - things that people will get if they had just thought about it for a little bit, they get frustrated because it is not completely familiar to them and spelled out to them right away. We, as a society, always keep up with ridiculous slang, it's brought up and dropped so quickly and we're fine with it - the word "mad" I used to say in a joke voice, it has entered my regular vocabulary on occasion and nothing upsets me more than that, as you can tell the pain in my voice as it leaks out that I don't like it - either way though, Let's get to the point, I'll explain "There he is!" and why it is good and for any occasion.

If you see Martin and say "There he is!" in a positive way, that makes Martin think that you've been wondering where was or talking about him in a good way. Of course, this all depends on the tone, but to say "There he is!" in any other tone is just a waste of everyone's time. So say it in a nice tone. So yes, people like to be thought about by their friends, it's good when you see a clear display of affection from your friends. People always need to be shown things, if you're friends with someone you should already know they like you, I mean maybe everyone's nervous about losing their friends - read above, it's completely legitimate, so I understand. But yes, that saying is a good one because it starts things off on the best foot you could never dream of having. It almost always brings a smile, even if they don't get it right away, they'll still enjoy it.

Deploy it, use it, it was Derek's but he was not selfish with his sayings and doings.

Well, I mean, maybe that can be debated. 

We can be obnoxious, immature.

It's been a few days and I don't know if this is the right thing. What am I hoping to achieve when he reads this? If he reads this, sorry, but this will be uncomfortable for him. This whole thing probably hinders my chance at ever reconciling with him. And am I writing this just to show him that I know this is probably wrong, and am I writing this because I hope that he'll look at it and know that I at least thought about that. And by writing that I just fucked up anything good I intended to do. It doesn't matter, though, I don't know all of the answers and I don't know why I do everything that I do. I'm still figuring things out, and here I am writing about something I'll probably never be able to figure out.

Derek would often point at people and laugh at them, in public. It was a consistent gag that I always laughed very hard at, it was not in the slightest bit mature and it reminded me of me when I was in junior high and high school and still trying to be funny. It wasn't the nostalgia that made me really like it, though, that I know for sure. I think it was how oblivious people were, and how far he took it. He would really point at people, laugh at them rather loudly or loud enough, and they wouldn't notice. And he'd do it for a long time. Now this is the most blatantly disrespectful joke I've ever been a part of, one so unsubtle that the fact that nobody ever noticed makes it even more hilarious.

Of course, when written down, it doesn't seem like anything more than a you had to be there joke. So maybe it is. The more I think about it, though, I feel guilty that he did this joke. It is a joke that I have done before, not the exact same thing, but it was a type of humor that I would perform back in the day, in fact I even still do it today, though not as much as I used to. But I almost feel like by encouraging him to do it, and not by telling him to do it but by suggesting he do it (Do that pointing thing) I feel that I had used him cheaply. I shouldn't have done that. Am I completely wrong? It's not one of those things where I said do this and he did it, right off the bat, it's something he did and I liked and I wanted to see again and again and again. Like in 7th grade when I did something funny, and people wanted to see it again and again and again and then it wasn't funny to them anymore and suddenly I was the one who was wrong, and in 10th grade when I stopped caring about making everyone laugh and I became ever more shy and unsure.

But it's not about me, this isn't, so stop.

And why use anyone?

And why write about Derek like this, in this fashion? What if I write something that is too far. What if then he contacts me, tells me to stop. Should I try to talk to him then, or would that be inappropriate? But it's my only chance.

Junior year, maybe Senior year, I forget what class it was, exactly - we had various classes in the same room - Derek would play online games. They're interesting, the internet games that play right in your explorer window, they're usually very simple and goofy. He found one that had you play as a guy waiting for the bus or for a taxi or something, bus makes more sense, but you're in a business suit and you're next to another guy. Now, you have to fart. So you have a gas meter, and that depletes the more you fart. But you can't let the other guy hear you! Or else it's game over. And you can't just not fart, because the bar will increase and then that's game over too. So obviously if you fart it goes down, and you need to fart when cars pass and such, because they're really loud. And if you need to, you can do silent farts, but there's a meter for that too if you do it too much. Plus, silent farts don't bring the bar down as much. They never do. If you fart while there is no noise to cover you, the man will hear you and look at you. Game over.

This, to me, was hilarious. There's no explosive finale, nothing overdone, the guy just looks at you. Very seriously. He knows.

So we joked about making this a short. With the game over as the ending. Pointless, but amusing. Why not? We were film-majors. We could do it. We never got past the idea, and it was only brought up twice or three times, but I don't know, I would've done it. And he would've been down.

Then I think of roll call in class. We had one teacher, he was from India, and he always had his eyes closed. Smart man, and as opposed to what other people think, I thought the films in class were good and usually enjoyed the films he showed (I'm tempted to list them, but that's not what this blog is about, and I'm actually thinking more about how I have to backspace every time I try to write Derek and write his real name instead). Now only in this class did Derek do his roll call joke, he had invented it sometime earlier, but it was here that he felt like he could do it. Any other class, the professors already knew us, so why would they call our names out loud? This teacher we had had had had had had had had had since freshman year, but, like I said, his eyes were always closed, so.

So Derek would wait, and as he called out names... Katy Azzarello, Chris Bell, Katie Dinardo, Corey Ditman (Corey Cock-tease), Keith Dorsch (Keith Douchebag), Ian Gilly (Ian Gil-gay), Adam Huston, Kelly Lorino, Peter Macaluso (Peter Macaluso), Derek (I stumble on making up a last name, what could it even be? I was tempted to write Pontiac, but I don't want to even try to make this funny or pretend that I think anyone with the last name of Pontiac is funny, as in, that's a funny thing).. is that in? I don't feel like going back and writing in Dan Kemmer, but he was there too. Oh, and Ryan Sartor (Yan). Tishana Miller. Trenece Frazier. Nick Deruve. Whoever I've forgotten is going to end my life sooner or later. If I've forgotten someone, I'm already something else for writing this, but man it would really make me look like something else if I write a story about an old friend and then forget another old friend. I think that's it, I'll stop talking about it because it might make everything worse.

So nothing against any of the people he made names for. I don't know why them and not others, I think we all pretty much got along. Why not? Film school is hard because you're all pretty much in it for the same reason, same position, etc. And you have to work together and it can be tense and competitive, but you know what, I love everyone there, everyone in my year, whether I was mad at this person or someone was mad at me, they were probably right, but everyone was just fine and I wish everyone well. I think they already know that but now I have it written.

Derek often made these jokes, and I have to admit that I was the main support for all of them. They were immature, yes, and I was immature for liking them, but they did no harm to anyone, and if they did it was unintentional. Does that make it okay? I'm not sure. I really don't know. Though what I do know is that at one point, maybe junior year, maybe sophomore year, Derek stopped doing these kinds of jokes for a period of time. And I never found out why. I could inquire, but that would tamper with this whole idea, on my idea of Derek. I didn't know then and I don't know now, and I'm really trying to figure out certain things about our relationship that could have caused him to not want anything to do with me. In a way. I think I'd like to know why he doesn't want anything to do with anyone from school, I think maybe I'd like to know why he doesn't want anything to do with people he studied with for four years in a small program where, inevitable, we all became family, a competitive family but a family nonetheless.

When Derek decided to stop making jokes, like fart noises and such (he had one where he would do one fluid wank motion, as if something was coming out of his penis, and make a fart noise, as if that fluid, not the fluid motion but the penis fluid, had made the noise. Impossible.), people gave him a hard time. Nobody really understood why he stopped. He brings us such joy and then he takes it away? Maybe he got tired of being asked to do this and this all the time. The truth was, he was a very intelligent and sensitive guy. He had a lot to say, he had a lot of serious things to talk about. Maybe he didn't feel that people cared enough about him, personally, just wanted to use him for laughs. And I know how this feels, of course, try being a class clown, that's what it is. Though, again, I don't want to talk about myself, and you know what - I don't want to say this is that for that reason and such. I have no idea why he wanted to stop making crude jokes to people. But there is this-

I had gone to the cafeteria, circa Derek not wanting to make jokes (it is a circa, because at a certain point, he decided the hell with it and came back), and I sat with him and a few others. This seems so clear to me and I don't know if I've already written it or not, I feel like I have, but I'm not going to look back, but I encourage you to skip this if you've already read it. Read a little bit to make sure you have, though, I just don't want to look back because looking back means correcting and then that would kind of clean it up to much, and thinking about Derek is messy because it is so fucking confusing.

So here I am, eating with Derek and some girls, Monica I think is there, Keith and little Christine I believe. So we're eating and I was only there for a few minutes. Derek makes a joke and somebody says something, not even about the joke, maybe he didn't even make a joke - what I really remember is how much this next part didn't make sense, and how it took everyone off guard in a way. Derek says that Monica made a face at him, and it's because of those kinds of faces that he doesn't want to be funny anymore, he says, that's exactly why (Well, I guess we figured that one out together, reader!), and he storms out. Strangest thing is, even though no one expected it.. I don't want to say that no one cared, but it seems like they had seen it before. Dealt with it. So it was no big deal, let him go, let him cool off or something. I don't know if I left that or ate and then left, but I called him on the phone. I remember being by myself, but I don't know if I went in by myself too. Either way, I knew he wouldn't pick up, so I left a voice mail and told him that I was just calling to see if he was all right.

We spoke about it.. I don't think he called me back, I think it was in person. But he apologized for storming out, which he often did, which will be a chapter, him apologizing when he didn't have to and he probably shouldn't have done, which I told him at this point, too. He didn't talk much, I did a lot of it, I think he was embarrassed, but I told him that I understood how he felt, that sometimes, moreso back in the day, but either way, people wouldn't take me seriously or would write me off as weird and nothing else, et cetera. Because of this, I told him that if he was bothered by any of it, he could talk to me about it. He didn't after that, but I don't remember him exiling crude comedy for much longer.

What he did do, before he let the crude humor back in, he did a few jokes for me every so often in private. A wank motion, a voice, what have you, and he wouldn't go far with it, and I think even once or twice he would tell me that he basically wasn't comfortable doing it but knew it made me laugh and would do it for me. Eventually he reverted back to the old Derek, but I'm wondering if that's the Derek he always wanted to be, without the crude jokes, and I'm also wondering if it was a bad thing that he still did stuff for me in private. I never requested this, yes, I did request the point and laugh thing, but that wouldn't be born for another year. The big idea is this. If the no crude joke era Derek is the Derek he really wanted to be, do we remind him too much of it? Did he say fuck it I'll just do this until college is over I'm already in over my head and revert back to old Derek, but would go back to serious-only Derek after school and shut everyone else out so he'd never have to be old Derek again? And this would make me the main villain, the really bad guy, and I'll take that if it's true, because I was the one that pulled it out the most. 

And I had talked to Derek a lot about serious stuff, his girlfriend, my girlfriend, movies, such. I don't know a lot about him, his friends at home, the name of his town, what his parents are really like, and such. But I liked Derek not for his jokes and such, but he was actually a very good guy. A good person. So we liked the Derek that made those jokes, yeah, but we liked Derek all around. Still though, I can't help but think that I've stumbled onto something here, that maybe he had just had it, and me, and even Ryan, when we would all joke around together, maybe he wasn't really fully enjoying it, maybe he had had enough, and all of the other things we did together, film-making and what have you, I don't know. Maybe I did bring out something that he didn't want to even have any more.

The First (including) Seeing and Hearing

First class first day of film class. I arrived early and sat down, not in front or near anyone, I didn't want to bother anybody. I did take off my headphones, I don't know why, maybe - and I think this is why so now I know why - so that if anybody wanted to start a conversation with me, I'd be available.

But that never happens and still doesn't, and even with a book I have trouble not eavesdropping, so that's what I did. I didn't mean to but I did. Two students were talking about movies, and this is great, we're talking about movies. I mean, they were, not me, but yeah, this is what film school is. Freshman year, until I got sick of talking about them. But wait, I'm still young and I don't know a lot. I really don't know anything, yeah I've seen Magnolia. And my social skills, still needing much carpentry work, will not enable me to force myself into this conversation. I also cannot bull shit into it either, because that is fake and fake stuff like bringing up yourself into a conversation bothers me, and still bothers me to this day but now I force myself to do it because my friends should know about my stuff. However at this point I had not shaken the don't want to be Madison Whitman thing.

So these students are talking, I think they have just met. Weird that I missed the beginning of it, maybe they knew each other at Orientation, which I didn't go to - who cares. What's your favorite movie? That was Keith. Didn't say exactly that, in fact, it might have been Derek who asked first. I don't know if it was asked like this or answered like this, but I do remember Derek answering with two answers, and he clarified "favorite older movie" and "favorite movie", the latter being "favorite new movie" but that's not what he said. And it ended up being Taxi Driver and Garden State. 

Now this really happened, it's not a joke and I don't think it should be one. There was a time when I liked Garden State, and who cares if I don't anymore? And who cares if people did? If it meant something to someone, to Derek, who cares, let him have that. I don't even know if he still likes it. Or if he even did, maybe he was playing it safe.

Then, Ryan walked in. I didn't know him yet, but I remember because I made an an assessment of this situation. Backtrack, in the room was Keith and Derek, in the back were two seniors - both named Rich - and then someone with headphones, I forget his name right now, maybe a girl by herself, her name was Robin, she never made it past the first semester, where is she now, new blog!, Robin O'Keefe, but whatever. I knew Keith and Derek were freshmen, and they were talking, and now here comes Ryan, also early with us all.

Ryan, through our ups and downs, is one of my best friends. Of course. Writing partner, similar sense of humor, this and that. And he is the only other one who will completely understand this all, without having to even read it.

He knew Derek from Orientation I guess. So he sat down and started talking to Derek. Small talk, obvious small talk. Ryan always knows just what to ask though, and it's not that he seems sincere, it's that he is. Just how he was raised. So when he asks how your weekend was, you don't mind actually telling him how your weekend was. 

Only, Derek wasn't biting, and I didn't watch, but you could tell Keith was waiting. And Derek didn't introduce them, and when I say Derek wasn't biting, I mean, he was. If Ryan was polite, Derek, wow. I don't know why I said Derek wasn't biting, cause he was. And he meant it too. Now I want to know about your weekend. Whelp, okay. But, now I know why I wrote he wasn't biting. Because after the small talk, there was nowhere left to go, and Ryan admitted defeat and turned around. What I've come to learn is this - and I'm not going to spend this whole blog speaking of my lack of social skills and how they developed during college and why, but - when you just meet someone, it will be awkward and there will be small talk and as much as you hate it you have to deal with it. Then it'll work itself out. And with these two, both being so good at it, it's going to work! 

And it did. And then, well, you know, Derek stopped talking to us and now we have no idea where he is or how he is. You know what I was thinking? He could have died. Would the school know? Since developing as a writer, reading more, watching more movies, whatever, I'm perfect, but no seriously, writing things like "Is he dead?" or "Is she pregnant?" really bothers me because those things are real, yes, but are more often than not lame plot devices that are built to carry a shitty movie. But maybe?

So a week or two later I not only met Ryan, but Caitlin McGuirk, Joey Lindenberg, Will, and Jon Paul Boulier. We all hit it off, and Ryan especially because he was a freshmen that was also a film major. And we started hanging out and then he invited me to help on his project, which had Derek in it.

The Preamble

Usually it's called a Preface, isn't it?

Well, I like Preamble better.

I assure you, that's the last of the jokes. This is a very serious "story", and I mean that. I'm not going to be snarky or sarcastic, if I bring up something funny, I'm not going to try to make it funnier. It's not even necessarily written for you to laugh at. It's just what happened, and I'm writing it.

Before I go any further, I'll explain a little bit. And before that, I'll mention that this blog will be a mess, and I will get more into that once I explain the former, which is, the point.

I've been graduated from college for nearly a year. Does that make sense? I wrote that sentence as if it did. I don't know, but you understand the information I'm trying to send. I met a lot of great people there, and overall - despite what I'll say sometimes - I really loved the school. It had it's shortcomings, of course, but what is ever $35,000 a year good? The friends and experiences are priceless, of course, but still. What a price that is. Anyway, I had one friend named Derek. He was a complete joy and we were good friends. However conveniently, with only a month and a half left of school, we had a falling out. A really strange one, one that I still can't understand. We never spoke about it, but we should have, and now it can't be done.

Since school I have been writing, reading, and thinking a lot. I took a bunch of dead end jobs, that always being the plan, and I'm still at one now. It doesn't matter to me, so long as I pay the bills and have time to write and film. Close friend Ryan Sartor has become my writing partner, and together we write nearly every day. We've got a lot accomplished, and some really awesome stuff in the future. He once brought up that we should do something personal, and I got defensive. I said that the feature we were working on was extremely personal to me, and I felt that he didn't think that. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, it doesn't matter, what does matter was that although he could relate to it, it wasn't personal enough. It wasn't bleeding. It wasn't Synecdoche, New York.

Which is brave. And why shouldn't we write something like that? It's difficult, though - making something that personal is one thing, but having TWO people do it... Ryan and I played with the idea of making a documentary in Spring, trying to find Derek in his home state, Vermont. We'd interview people at school, teachers, try to get as much information about his location as possible. As good of friends as we were to him, he was a very private person, which is what you'll discover in the later entries. It's also the reason why I changed his name.

The documentary seemed exploitative to me. Self-indulgent, intrusive. I was very uncomfortable doing it, but I encouraged him to do it. I think. Maybe I thought to but never brought it up. In my line of work (Retail Loss Prevention) I do a lot of thinking. This put me in a terrible down. Because of that thinking, I applied it to other projects and started losing interest. This was me taking advantage of my grandfather, this was me being pretentious, etc. etc. Eventually it passed, and I recently read A Staggering Work of Heartbreaking Genius (which was great, did I miss that trend? Either way it's better than your Twilights) which put everything nicely - every one wants every one to know about them once they step out of the door by every action. If you're an artist, even more so, so it's best to just come to terms with it. And while I do think that it is something to be wary of, I'm less nervous about it and I won't let it hinder any personal projects.

So I suggested that the documentary idea - finding Derek - should be a feature length narrative. He seems down. He always is. Very supportive. Great guy, couldn't ask for greater. Us being swamped at the moment with current joint-projects and personal projects, and probably knowing a little bit about the endeavor at hand, we put it on the back burner. Something for Fall or Winter. Winter is most depressing. Probably Winter.

We always spoke about Derek's disappearance, not being able to figure it out. When he brought up writing something personal that we both knew about, it fit too well. I've tried to talk to others about it - Maxine gets it, she gets everything - but people who know him mostly just say "That's Derek" or don't seem to think of it as a huge deal. So why do we think it is? Not to put the others down, as I have lost friends and gotten over it, or I have lost friends and have not even really been under it. It happens. But Derek's disappearance is something I couldn't really shake, mostly because it made little sense to me.

It crossed my mind every so often after graduation. That summer we came up with the documentary idea. Then in winter we came up with the narrative idea. Still, while it deeply bothered me, I had no problem waiting to write it. We were both passive about the whole thing, in a way, in a weird way. I think one of us would think about it, say something or do something, and the other would listen and understand, but it wouldn't be on their mind in the same way. Really, though, what could we do to contact him? When I say that it crossed my mind every so often, I mean that for Ryan too, and I also mean that every time it crossed our minds, we tried to call him. And it always went to his voice mail. And we texted him, and he never responded.

The other day it crossed Ryan's mind, and brought it up to his girlfriend Sarah. While together, they phoned him.

His phone was disconnected.

Yeah, cue the music, but seriously. That was our last connection to him, aside from e-mailing (Which, now that I think about it, we did try, though only once), and it was gone. We had nothing else.

This bothered me.

A few days after that, Ryan said he figured something out, and he looked up Derek's full name on some website. It might have been this website that I had been shown by my friend Pete, it might not have been, that's not really the point so let's not think about it. Ryan looked up Derek, a very private person with a private family, and found his work number. We were a step closer. Ryan said he wouldn't call, but I encouraged him, and he complied. "Tomorrow" he said.

It didn't happen. Why would it? What would we even say? We were snooping around on the Internet and found your number. etc. etc. All the obvious weird stuff. And how far can you go to try and talk to someone that has cut ties with you?

It's all too confusing. We have the number, and because Ryan won't do it (and I don't blame him, yet..), I volunteered to do it. Not entirely gung-ho about it, though - I don't have the number, and when I said "I'll do it" he said "Okay" without me asking for the number or him giving it to me. I talked to my grandfather about it, and he mentioned something about legal action, which I wouldn't rule out at this point. He also had some extreme ideas as to Derek's sudden change in behavior and sudden reclusiveness, but as cliche as those ideas are, they're honestly the only things that really make sense to the situation.

At work, all I could think of was Derek and the times we had. So, I'm going to write about them. In detail. If something was funny, then it'll be funny, if it wasn't then it won't be. A part of me is like, it will become an Internet hit and he'll find us and it'll work out. A part of me is we'll write this script and shoot it and take it to festivals and he'll find us and it'll work out. And then there's this part of me, this part of me, it goes he'll find out and then he will send an e-mail saying to stop. Or take that legal action that my grandpa thought of.

And I wouldn't put it past him, not at this point. So there's questions like how far can you go when someone doesn't want anything to do with you anymore and is this exploitative? Is this self-indulgent and unfair to others that aren't you but there's also how can you call someone a good friend when you really don't know anything about them.

I don't know if there will be an end. I don't know when or if I'll finish. I really don't know what's going to happen or how often I'll do this, but when I started thinking about it, I covered a whole sheet of times with Derek. Small stuff. But it's something. And the more I wrote down, the less I understood.

Keeping my promise, as in, this whole thing will be a mess, I will leave you with a description of Derek, something I should have posted right away.

Derek is tall like you thought you'd be when you were in the back row in your kindergarden class picture. He had long hair, to his friends at home it was weird (this is the only thing we know about his friends), and he usually covered it with a hat. The hat was usually an RDA production, but towards the end he found love in Ed Hardy. Always very nice and tidy, he'd stick around the film building (who could blame him? the first was very cozy. The second? Habit.) and meet everyone. Everyone knew him.

Which makes this even weirder to me, but

He made jokes a lot, then at a certain point he didn't want to. Then at another certain point, he decided he wanted to again. It was all fine. He disappeared a little during his last month at school, and there he is now. Well, gone.