Cell Relay Archive

[YhvhBoy1YHVHBoT@earthlink.net]

This is my life...
    this is my life on drugs.

I am Mark of Bettendorf, IA. I was born in Peoria, IL on Nov. 7, 1977.
I was adopted during that December to Mr. Kenneth and Mrs. Kristine 
Rossmiller of Rock Island, IL.
We moved to Bettendorf when I was still very young, which is just across 
the Mississippi from Rock Island.

My memory pretty much fails until about kindergarten, I remember
playing with toys and learning my colors.  Usual stuff.  I never quite
grasped the tying my shoes part until much later.  So this nice girl
would offer to tie them for me when they came undone.
I went to Lourdes' Catholic Elementary School until second grade (I didn't
like uniforms in the hot weather and all in all I didn't like it there). 
I got into trouble once for throwing rocks in the sewage grate and had to 
sit all by myself in the dark while everyone else watched a movie.  I cried 
there by myself. 
Then I transfered to Grant Wood Elementary in bettendorf for second grade.  
I remember wanting to be an "Astrogeologist" when we told everyone what
we wanted to be when we grew up.
During second grade one of my friends from Lourdes died, her name was 
Natalie Hunt.
In about third grade I found a coin out in the playground.  I kept it all 
my years until summer of 1996, but I'll get to that later on.  I don't 
know exactly what kind of coin it was, but it had on the front a 0 with a 1 
over it, and on the reverse side was an olive branch and some strange 
symbols.
I used to want to have glasses, so one time I prayed about it in church.
And my eyes were fine for a long time, but then in fourth grade they went 
bad seemingly overnight, and I was tested and I could not read anything on 
the eye chart but that big E.  And so I got glasses. Then later in either 
fourth or fifth grade I went to a different school because we moved to a 
new house (in all we have lived in seven different houses/apartments in 
bettendorf).

So I suffered through grade school.  Then came middle school.  I didn't
have many friends throughout my schooling. I started skateboarding more in 
sixth grade.  I skated until eight grade, because I went to skateboard camp
the summer before that and injured my hip there.
I played dungeons and dragons in the eigth grade and read alot more
than I ever did.  I never read a whole book except "the dollhouse murders"
throughout all of my school until eigth grade.  The first book after
that was "The Verdant Passage" by Troy Denning.
But mostly I would look through the actual gaming books,
trying to piece together adventures, or else work on my characters in other
people's adventures.
I got into a mean streak sometime in middle school, and I was
in several fights in one week.  And then I got beat up.  So I learned my
lesson and quit hitting people.
I played baseball, I was on a team called balloon treasures.
I played first base and I stole alot of bases during those
two years.
We were the worst team in the league I think.  But we put up a
good fight in a few of our games.
My mom kept warning me that high school 
would shape my future for the rest of my life.  She always would tell me 
that I had to put some effort into my schoolwork.

I didn't have good grades until high school.
I went all out my first year and got all a's except one b. 
I was on the computer alot by now, talking to people on compuserve.
Anyways.  Freshman year passed...  I was really into algebra.
I never liked english too much.  I still didn't read many books.  
I found out about cliff notes.  I was already smoking cigarettes during my 
freshman year.
Ok, sophomore year the same thing.  Geometry was my big thing.  
I had the same teacher as I did for algebra, but my grades slipped a bit. 
Instead of having the highest scores in the class I was brought down some.
I think I had painting also.  And european history.  And latin.  I only 
took one semester of a foreign language in my life and it was latin. 
That's how Cornfield(my cat) got his name.
it was first Agis (named after one of the characters in The
Verdant Passage), then it became Agris which is latin for field or
territory, and from that it was translated to Cornfield.
sophomore year I don't remember too much else besides my car, my
parents got me a car when I turned 16. 91 taurus, baby blue...and I remember
my girlfriend, Kristi.  She was my first girlfriend.  We met actually
right after my sophomore year had ended.  So I suppose I was a jr.  But we
spent most of the summer together.  But whatever we spent it wasn't enough, 
I always wanted to see her.
And then junior year started.  Same thing.  But I worked less and less
in school.  Spent next to no time on studies but I managed to get fair
grades.
Algebra II did not go well.  I had a different teacher, and I couldn't 
just understand things anymore.  I had to think about them.  So my grades 
and interest in math went downhill.  Really I guess my interest in school 
overall went downhill.
I smoked marijuana for the first time. My friend Adam (from baseball...his 
dad was the coach) sold me a bag along with his friend Nate.  Adam actually 
got me started smoking cigarettes also.  And so I smoked it. 
I didn't get high the first two times or so. I finally got high.  
I don't remember what it was like at all.  I think I remember time going 
funny.  I couldn't figure out if there were minutes or hours or whatever. 
Then somewhere around the end of my junior year to the beginning of my senior
I started dropping acid.  The first time I ever dropped acid I was talking 
to my friend Chuck and telling him some of the things I was thinking about.
It was one of the few times in my life up to that point where I felt truly 
philosophical. And I got on this hippie commune bit.  But then I didn't even
know what a commune was, or what they were like.  It was more about just 
getting together a bunch of people and say "screw the gov't, we can do it 
ourselves".  I don't know what exactly inspired this...but I went on with 
it for quite some time.
Then I walked chuck home and told him how if I go to school I'd want to go 
with someone who's a friend...at least that it would be cool to.  And I was 
talking all about college ..  Then I went back home and listened to the 
NIN song Hurt on repeat. I dropped again later that night.
I never got any sleep.  I was so wired. 
So morning came around and I went to school and came home because
someone told me "if you trip on acid it will make you schizophrenic" 
i think that was the term...  I only remember it had to do with psychology, 
and that was my next class and I was still really wired like I was tripping.
So I left before class started.  And went home.  I did this again the same
week I think.  And my mom sounded suspicious that I was "sick" again.  I 
don't remember exactly why but eventually I quit for the time being.  I 
think my parents found out I was smoking pot.  But I don't remember.
I was die hard into listening to marilyn manson.  My car was
plastered with mm stickers and it's all I listened to.  Marilyn manson 
t-shirts. Everything.  I guess it was after I saw NIN in iowa city and MM 
opened for them.  I didn't like them then (in fact Mr. Manson almost 
stepped on me that night) but my sister had me listen to their cd within 
the next couple of months.
Senior year I decided I would graduate early to get out of high school.

I graduated high school in January, 1996.  And when time came I was to go 
to U of Iowa.  I asked Kristi to marry me at least twice but she wouldn't 
tell me yes or no.  So I told her we should break up.  I guess I didn't 
think things would work. 
When I came to Iowa I moved into a triple dorm room with only one person 
living in it, John. Eventually Kris came to live with us.  He was a big pot 
smoker and did numerous other drugs some of which I still have probably 
not heard of.  He was loud and obnoxious and it was awful to live with him 
I thought.  I was still seeing Kristi but we weren't going out anymore.  
Then I went with Kris to a bar. Gunnerz in iowa city.  He would go dance 
but I wouldn't..I'm not much of a dancer.
I met Melissa there on another night that I went without Kris.  
Melissa Purdue.  She spelled her name Malisa.  But not because
it was the way her parents spelled it for her.  And she ended up staying 
the night with me in my dorm room.  I would go for walks to think about 
things out in the cold and smoke.  I told her I didn't want to be 
committed to anyone unless I was going to marry them.  And I didn't know if 
I wanted that committment.  I thought some but then other things pressed.  
There were a couple other girls.  And then school.  I was computer science 
major. Or going to be anyways.  Programming classes were too simple and I
couldn't stand to listen to them so I always would skip out except on 
days that programs were due.  Other than that there was
speech and philosophy.  I started trying to mix philosophy and computer
sci. and make a "computer god" philosophy.  Something to the idea of
comparing God to a computing machine.  Speech was my worst class.  I am 
not much of a public speaker.
I went out to the bars more and more.  And I started smoking pot with
my roommates (in our room).
One night I took some mescaline that Kris gave me and went
with Adam (he was visiting me) to a party.  We both took mescaline. I
remember drinking alot and smoking alot of pot.  The night was awful.
So I was partying my classes away pretty much.  I went to visit a friend I 
knew in Pennsylvania over spring break, Linda.  We went out to Philadelphia 
and stayed with one of her friends there.  He got me a sheet of acid, it 
had a picture of a genie on it, Blue Genie was the name of it I think.  
Linda took some drugs I forget the name of it, but it is powdered cat 
tranquilizers.  She didn't seem to pay much attention to me, but left me 
by myself, I felt so alone there.  I wanted to go back when morning came, 
so I left for home.  Then I got back from spring break out in PA and my 
stereo was missing and our door was wide open. And to top it off I found 
out I was failing philosophy which was the only class I was putting effort 
into.  I ended up dropping out.  Kind of stupid I guess. But I just had 
one of those days .

So...I went home.  All that really happened then was that I met a girl
through my friend Clifford, Anna Brown.  We had some difficulties I guess, 
mostly on my account.  Then I started seeing Jessica Yudis whom I had known 
from early on.  Our parents are good friends.  I guess I kind of wronged
Clifford in the fact that he liked her but she didn't like him... but we 
started seeing each other.
I started tripping on acid again also.  One night I was tripping and I
heard... I guess heard is not the right word.  It was like I felt God (YHVH)
speak to me and He said "this is your last chance".
Anyways I was drawing in marker on the bottom of a skateboard that
night while I tripped and I drew a graveyard with a cross-trombstone marker 
in it.  And that was on the left of the board.  And it went to a cliffside 
a little more to the right.  Then it became fluid, like a sea.  And finally 
on the rightmost of the board the sea turned into all these living 
creatures.  I ended up coloring the cross in red.  I gave the skateboard 
to Jessica.
I drew her another picture and wrote a poem to go with it, but I don't
remember the poem.  The picture was a candle and around the candle were
all these creatures swirling in and out of eachother.  The poem was titled
BLUE FLAME.
And then I broke up with Jesse because she wasn't ever talking to me,
and she was going out with other guys and stuff so I finally gave up.
Then I went to a dance club here and met an old friend who used to sell
me drugs, Mike Mulvihill.  And he gave me a handout for a rave.  I never 
went to a rave before.
So I went.  With Clifford.  We went.  It was held at the YMCA.  I tripped 
and smoked up before we went and by the time we got inside, the acid trip 
was starting to peak.  I watched the people dance and listened to clifford 
talk.  And finally the worst feeling came over me.  It was the feeling like 
Satan was about to enter into the place where we were.  I freaked out.  
I told Clifford, "We have to leave."
So I left and he followed.  I thought about things alot that night. 
I seriously thought I was about to die for a time.  Then I broke a
grateful dead record I had.  I thought there was some religious aspect
that was wrong with the grateful dead at the moment.  I forget the whole 
logic behind it.  But I was wearing jesse's grateful dead shirt that night, 
so perhaps it had to do with the rave still or with jesse, I don't know.  
Then I decided I didn't know alot about God and the bible... and not alot 
of it made sense to me... but I figured the Ten Commandments were true.  
They made sense to me.  Out of all the things in life I had ever learned, 
the ten commandments were the thing that made the most sense.
So I took all of the manson stickers off my car.  I threw away a bunch
of my cds.  I quit smoking cigarettes and doing drugs within a week.
I flushed a sheet of acid down the toilet.  And I started reading the
gospels. Well, about a month later I was reading in one of the gospels how 
"if you want to follow me, you must leave mother sister brother father...
behind and come follow me" something like that... so i left.