9
↔skimming the surface↔
"I'm Dominic Ryder Stone, but call me Dom. I'm named after my dad, who's name is Ryder.
I'm eighteen years old as of September 1st.
I'm the oldest of three. I have two younger brothers. Andrew is sixteen years old and Jae is fifteen. Our house has five bedrooms, so thankfully we don't have to share. Don't get me wrong, I love them to death, but they are little brothers and little brother get annoying. Plus, I need my own space. I'm a teenage boy.
I still live my parents if you didn't get that from before. We live in a pretty nice house. It's two stories and we have a big basement. We have five bedrooms, one being a guest bedroom. We also have three full bathrooms. One is conncected to the master bedroom, my paren'ts bedroom. There's one bathroom that goes off the guest room. That's the guest bathoom. My brothers and I share the thrid bathroom, but we use the guest bathroom if we don't have anyone over.
My parents are still together and seem just as in love as they've been as long as I can remember. They rarely have fights, and even when they do, they make up just as quickly. My dad's a lawyer, but he isn't away from home too often. He has an office space set up down stairs so he can work from home. Dad owns a office downtown wiith his friend, Jack, but Jack's a legal consultant. Dad mainly goes to work in his office there when he doesn't have something he needs at home or when he's meeting with a client. Sometimes he goes to work there if we have friends over. Three teenage boys are loud enough, it's even worse when we have friends over. I don't blame him, we can be quite annoying. My mom works in interior design, which is why our house is pretty amazing on the inside. She has a way of gettting a whole bunch of cheap ugly things and making them into something beautiful. I have to admit, it's pretty amazing. My mom works at Marcus Interior Design Studio, which is located downtown, not too far from Dad's office. Mom is happy where she is, but my dad is trying to convince her to open up her own studio."

↔a little deeper↔
Dominic has always had a bit of trouble with social situations. He has social anxiety. He has trouble talking to strangers or people he doesn't know well. One of his fears is being judged by other people, which causes him to keep to himself a lot. Dominic usually has no problem around people he is close to and trusts. It's frustrating for him, though. The teenager usually has a lot of things to say, but he holds back. When he's alone he could give a presentation perfectly to a non-existent audience, but when in front of a group he can barely go a sentence without choking on his words. It had particualrly bothered him in middle school. He would go rush to the bathroom after presenting to cry. Dominic tries his best and is getting better and better with coping with his anxiety.
Dominic doesn't have much confidence in himself. He feels like he's just a bother to other people, just some annoying boy they have to deal with. He thinks he isn't a good singer or guitarist, defintely not a good performer. He doesn't think he's really good anything. Dominic thinks he's just okay at everything. He puts himself down and is too hard on himself. Nothing he does is quite good enough.
Once you get past he social fear, Dominic is really nice guy to know. He loves to smile so hard and for so long, his face aches. He loves to laugh until he can't breathe anymore. It's quite easy to make Dominic laugh, he laughs at the stupidest things. Along with that, he likes to see other people smiling and laughing. Dominic thinks everyone should have something that makes them happy. With his wide array of jokes, most of them stupid, Dominic likes to humor people.


Dominic is creative and is good at making things. He's immaginative, which he likes to think he got from his mother. As a child, his favorite class was art because he made things with his own hands and he was good at it. He's not some kind of art prodigy, but better thna most. Dominic is good at drawing, but he prefers to paint. He doesn't paint anymore. He doesn't even remember what, but something happened in middle school and he just stopped.
Along with that, Dominic is musically artistic, too, along with his whole family. He plays the guitar and sings. Now his voice, that he got from his father. Dominic and his brother, Andrew, have big voices, just like their father. Jae isn't as talented when it comes to singing, but he can play many more instruments, ranging from the piano to guitar to flute, including things in between.
↔the past is the past↔
"I was born and raised in Florida. I grew up on the beaches, swimming in the waves. I remember going to the boardwalk with my parents and little brothers when I was six. I loved getting ice cream from the little shoppe and everyday I tried to convince my parents to take me to get something sweet. By the time I was twelve, I went to the boardwalk without my parents, usually with my friends or Andrew. There was a girl who started working at the ice cream shoppe on fridays and wednesdays. I had the biggest crush on her, but she was probably four or five years older than me. I would come by every wednesday and friday just to come see her. This went on for a while. I remeber how upset distraught thirteen year old me was when she went to Pensylvannia for college. I didn't go back to that shoppe for a year. I was that upset. It's rather funny looking back it.
When I was 13, I found out I had social anxiety. I had to start taking medicine for it. My mom made me go to therapy, she still has my therapsit on speed dial. I faked being sick to get out of presenting in front of class. Sometimes I would do the project, but act as if I didn't do it. I wanted to be caught up with the rest of the class, but the idea of getting in front of the class and speaking terrified me.
When I was younger, my brothers and I decided to form a little band. We were pretty good. We played a song for my dad's birthday party and my mother had joked that we were open for gigs. Well, one of my dad's friends, took ot seriously and offered us money to play at the neighborhood block party. My brothers jumped at the oppurtinuty before I could even say anything. I was fourteen at the time. Wen practiced everyday for the next three weeks. I was on vocals and guitar, Andrew was on back up vocals and piano, while Jae played guitar and drums depedning on the song. I remember Use Somebody by the Kings Of Leon was our opening song, so we spent extra time practicing it. On the day of the block party, right before the party was going to start, I faked being sick. I even drank a saline solution to make myself throw up, just to make sure I didb't have to play. I felt awful, physically and emotionally. My brothers did a quick improv and played any songs they knew by heart and didn't need me for, which was 4 songs."

↔my reflection↔
"I have thick, straight brown hair that I sweep to my right, covering my forehead. It's longer in the front and shorter on the sides, so you can my ears, one which is pierced. I usually wear a stud in my right ear, not a big fan of how rings look on me. I have pale blue green eyes, unlike my brothers who both have dark brown eyes. It sounds stupid, but it kind of makes me feel special that I'm the only one who inheirited Mom's eyes. I'm a little over 6 feet, weighing at about 185 pounds. That probably seems like a lot, but with my stature and build, it really isn't. I don't tan very easily, but I'm not pale, seeing that I spend most of my time in the sun, since I do live in Florida.
I wear just about anything. If you were to open up my closet you'd a variety of clothes. Regular jeans, skinny jeans, skinny kahkis, khaki shorts, denim shorts, basketball shorts, and sweat pants are some of the thing I wear as bottoms. I'll wear sweaters, hoodies, t-shirts, tank tops, button ups, whatever I'm in the mood for wearing. As for shoes, I'll wear vans, toms, converse, boat shoes, sneakers, whatever I want to wear.