It's been a long time since I updated. I haven't felt well in a long time. I've felt dead... I've been dead. Numbed, and unable to do anything. Unwilling to stand, unwilling to move. I haven't had the strength to. I've just been a bag of emotion, struggling amongst the ocean of life. Recently, my friends have been there, holding me above the water, trying to keep me from drowning... but no matter how hard I tried, the water kept rising.

Well, my friends, I've learned to swim.

Over the past few weeks, I've been a little like Roger, from the musical RENT - trying to finish that one song to justify his life. And the other day, I finally found that song - Deity. A song in which, I find the strength to live again.

On Thursday night, Danielle came down from Wanganui, for her birthday (well, her birthday's actually in a week, but still). So, Friday morning, I showed up to Dee's house, as the plan was to be. When I arrived however, no-one was home, so I just waited outside. Lol. She and her mother arrived after a while - they'd gone grocery shopping and other such things, so I helped them take that in. Then I got to just hang out with Danielle for a little bit. I thought people were going to arrive... but no-one else came for a couple of hours, actually. Kinda funny. Lol.

I gave her the first three DVDs of Neon Genesis Evangelion. It's a series I've owed her for a long time, and I think I'm finally redeeming myself by giving it to her. Lol. Funny stuff.

So yeah, we sat around at her house for a while, talking and getting up to no good generally... oh, helping with her homework. Finally, a little before lunchtime, Mina finally appeared. Not too long after that, Malison came over as well. We chilled out for a bit, before heading back to my house. Dee decided that the plan was to watch RENT, since I have the DVD and all (yay for imports and multi-zone DVD players!), so we got back to my house and had some lunch - cooked some pasta and a few pies for the four of us. It was good, actually. During lunch, Spicey arrived; if I'd known he was coming, I would've cooked something for him too, but oh well.

Anyways, after tidying up the kitchen, we all went into the lounge to enjoy RENT in the Maz-Theater. It was good. It was good. Everyone really enjoyed the movie, actually, which was good to see. In fact, they were really good about it. Spicey seemed to thoroughly enjoy, and Dee turned around at the end of it and said "I understand why you're so obsessed with it now, that was AWESOME". Malison was quietly singing along during parts of it, and it was just, good all-round. Grand all-round, even. Leem appeared a little later, as did Kerryn. And it was just, a great time.

Anyways, after that I grabbed my gears and prepared myself for our present to Dee - we held a concert and performed our songs as a band at the Flat. And.... lol, well, we stuffed up alot. But that's not the point; it's the thought counts. We performed Deity, Kagemaru's Theme, and Birthday Bum, and had a great time. Most of all of that night, however, I'll remember one moment - as we performed Deity, I vividly remember at one point, looking towards Danielle during the line 'You save me', and she looked back with the warmest smile I've ever seen. It was in that moment that, I felt like she really heard what I was saying. That she really was listening to the song. It looked like she almost wanted to cry it was so touching. It was such a... melting smile, so smug, full of love. It was great.

We also gave her our first mini-album - named March 30th, the date of her birthday. And she also received several letters from me. Lol. She got super showered with gifts. It was funny.

After the concert, we chilled at the Flat for a little bit, before heading off to Dee's house again. There we met one of her cousins, who was pretty cool. He was pretty cool. I'm sure my insanity settled him into the night relatively well. Lol.

Later on, we went out to grab some pizzas and get some dinner - dinner which I didn't really partake of, 'coz I wasn't hungry. But it was good. Just chilling out, being mates, seeing our friend we haven't seen in a while. Later on, we watched the Vicar of Dibley (while Dee and Spicey duelled), Ghostbusters II, and chucked in one of the DVDs for Neon Genesis Evangelion. I wasn't sure how I felt about watching Neon Genesis Evangelion... but after a while, I agreed with Dee to watch it. And you know what? I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it.

I think I'm finding myself again. Embracing the person I used to be. Or, perhaps, rediscovering myself. Whatever it is, I'm becoming... me, again. That anime-loving, video-game playing, fun-loving, gentle bloke, I believe were the words.

At the end of that, we fell asleep. It was, about, 3:30am when we finally conked out. Lol.

I woke up at about 6:30am on Saturday... maybe it was 6:00am, I forget. It was just really early in the morning, and the sun had hardly even come up yet. And I was wide awake, as usual. Lol. I ended up listening to music on my MP3 player while people lay asleep. At about 8am, Dee's parents came in to find all of us passed out, with the sole exception of Maz. To that end, I was the only one who got breakfast cooked for me, much to everyone's chagrin. I was the only one up though. Maybe next time, they'll wake up earlier. Wahaha. Mmm, eggs. XD

The plan for everyone else for the day was to go to the movies (I might've gone if I had money), so I ended up going back to the Flat, and chilling and hanging out there for the rest of the day. Dee wanted me to put as much stuff on her hard drive as possible, so I spent the majority of the day dealing with that, adding anime and music and all that jazz to it... anything that might be of interest (but probably won't be. lol). Had to go home and grab my hard drive and add more stuff to it, but that was alright.

A little while later, Sorien arrived. When we were good to roll, we left for Dee's house once again (which led to a comment by her parents about how I'd been there an awful lot over the last two days XD), and I returned her hard drive to her, chock-a-block full of video goodness. We were only really meant to stay for at most half an hour, but I think we stayed for an hour and a half. lol.

And then it came. The moment of goodbye. Yeah, sure, she'll be back in a couple of weeks... but, just, part of me didn't want to say goodbye. It kinda felt like the end, I guess.

Everyone else went out to the car, and I stayed for a little while longer... just, talking with her. I'm not going to say what we talked about, 'coz that's between me and her. ... but, there was one thing she said to me. And it gave me such a warm feeling. A feeling I've long forgotten.

Strength.

My friends... I've learned to swim. And more than anything, that's all I wanted. And it's something she's given me. How long this strength will last, I don't know... but I'm going to make the most of it. So, for the meantime, I'm going to enjoy the ocean.

See you bitches down in Arizona Bay.