June 1999 – A Most Unreliable Narrator

livin’ la vida loca

so there i was, all snug as a bug in a rug.
with one leg under the covers and the other leg over the covers as it were my style. then all of a sudden i hear:
OAKLAND POLICE! WAKE UP!
what?
I stumble out of bed, justin stumbles off the floor. flashlights shining in our eyes. we flip the bedroom light on, and a female cop is standing right there, wanting to know a few things.
over a week ago, i got the message from Cathleen that Christine was going to be back in town and was showing up that evening. She was driving in from Vegas and her ETA was around 11pm. Cathleen changed the message on the answering machine to reflect this as well as leave her a note — as Christine was going to be staying with us.
Um, okay, thanks for telling me.
So, as the story goes, seems that Christine and her ex-bf/lover/fiancee/whatever have a child together and that they have been sharing custody for the last 8-9 years. It seems that they can’t get along and are always fighting about who gets the child when. Knowing what I know of Christine, this doesn’t surprise me as her life has always been — uh — interesting to say the least.
I come home from work a week ago Monday to show Cat the kittens when we notice that Christine and her daughter are laying down in Cathleen’s room. Seems that Christines car died and she and the kid were going to be camping at our place for awhile.
I luv it when people ask me for my opinion on such matters.
i get insta-grouchy because i hate people intruding on my space. plus i was quitting smoking. plus other people were being grumpy. plus one of my friends got jilted at the alter. it wasn’t a good week.
so Thursday night, i come home from teaching internet 101 and notice that both christine and the kid are gone. justin and i both sighed huge sighs of relief as neither one of us could take it much more. everything seemingly is back to normal — until tonight.
it seems that the ex-lover/fiancee/bf/whatever has been calling here all last week and this week claiming that Christine is here. Cathleen spoke to him several times over the weekend and was yelling at him that Christine was NO LONGER HERE and that he needed to stop calling. It also seems that he’s been doing drive-by’s on our house AND it seems that the cops showed up LAST week as well, cept this time our house was locked up and I was dead to the world sleeping and didn’t know that they were here.
What happened tonight, was this:
Since we were defrosting our fridge, we had ordered out for Chinese. my stomach was feeling funky and justin wasn’t feeling hot either so we were laying down on the couches watching a movie. I get online and talk to cartoon boy for awhile, write a chronicle and then go to bed. Cathleen and Charlie are outside in the backyard and we think nothing about the fact that the back door is wide open.
it’s about 11pm.
at 2am and some change, the cops show up and /walk in/. the back door was wide open, the front security door was unlocked. the ex-lover/bf/fiancee claims to have seen Christine and the child sitting on our front porch no more then 1/2 hour before this. the guy is smoking crack.
so i’m all pissed off at being awaken in the middle of the night. i was having a great dream — damn if i can remember it now.
cops start questioning me about this whole fiasco, which thankfully, i really know nothing about. they ask to search the place, i tell them to go for it. i walk to the front porch and check to see WHY our security door was open. turns out that both justin and i forgot to check the doors when we went to bed — didn’t think to actually because cathleen was in the backyard. it seems that cathleen and Charlie had taken off sometime earlier.
as i lock the front security door, the ex-fiancee/lover/bf is standing on my front porch. i’m fucking pissed off. i start running off at the mouth and rip him a new asshole. i slam the door and walk back into our dining/computer room. i go and find my glasses. cops come back in after tromping around outside. they found the pot plant (singular not plural) that my idiot roommates are trying to grow in our backyard. They threaten me with possession. I laugh and say whatever, it’s not mine — it’s circumstantial evidence. I’m mouthing off to the cops. Cops tell me to calm down. Justin is telling me to shut the fuck up before my ass gets hauled into jail. i try to clam down. justin is shooting me looks to tell me to keep quiet. i calm down. i cooperate with the cops. i tell them what i know and that they need to talk to Cathleen cos she’s the one whose friends with Christine, not me.
The cop asks me if i have any kids or it was “you obviously do not have any kids” and I said “no, but I have three roommates — that’s enough” and she’s trying to get me to understand the fathers side of the story. And i’m like “look — the point here is that it’s between him and her. and now he’s calling MY house at all hours, picking fights with our other roommate and doing goddamn drive-bys. it’s annoying and it’s unnecessary. he was told all last week that she wasn’t here (mostly true) and he’s freaking lying about her being here tonight because she wasn’t.” so the female cop and i go round and round about this and she takes my name and our phone number and leaves. as i escort her out the door, she says something about “well, as for the marijuana plant, i don’t care — personally i think it should be legal.” like she’s doing me a favor! IT WAS NOT MINE! I DONT SMOKE THE DAMN SHIT! gash.
so, then guess who shows up but Cathleen and Charlie.
Justin and I go to the store to get milk since I’m making cawfee. Come back and the cops are interrogating my other roommies now. Justin tries making light of the situation but i’m repulsed by the white trashiness of it all — especially with how our house looks at that moment. I mean, jesus christ, who would think I would wake up with OPD in my fucking bedroom?
cops leave and cathleen saunters in drunk. she wants to talk about it – she’s been crying. i’m too angry to talk about it. i tell her i’ll talk to her in the morning. we end up talking about it. i tell her i don’t want christine or her problems back at the house. it seems that for the last year we always end up getting in the middle of something. cathleen agrees. i knwo she’s her friend and I feel bad, but SHIT! When cops start entering my life – it’s a whole different manner.
So, here I am, several hours later and nearly two pots of cawfee down my throat. I didn’t think about having a cig with this whole fiasco going on — really. but i do realize that normally i would be sitting here chain smoking when i’m sitting here chomping on gum.
and my stomach still aches — but that is okay.

Other than the whole quitting smoking thing (it’s day 7 now — go me), this whole damn week has been weird.
Cartoon boy and I got into a little tiff as the time gets closer for me to go to Memphis. This pissed me off. I felt like he was having issues and I also felt like I was being punished because I liked him. because I do. I like him like him. I think he’s really keen. And he thought i was coming there to rock his world — i already know that i rock his world! I don’t need to go to Memphis to prove that!:P
I told him a 100 thousand times that i don’t expect anything — however that does not mean that i’m going to reject the idea of us getting together romantically — but I can’t think that far ahead. I DONT EVEN KNOW WHERE I’M GOING TO BE IN TWO MONTHS! he doesn’t want a girlfriend — it’s like we were both screaming about what we don’t want and neither one of us were really listening to the other. so i get all pissed off and moped around the house, pacing for a cigarette. but we made up and decided to let it go — which means that we ain’t talking about it and whatever happens happens. but i won’t be punished for liking him nor will i be punished because he likes me — that ain’t happening. it dawns on me that i feel like i’m breaking some sort of silence here — meaning that by not talking bout it, it doesn’t exist. but damnit, it’s bugging me. and if he’s gonna get angry at me for that, then fuck ’em. i stood up to OPD, i’m not letting some wussy cartoonist intimidate me. 😛 but we made up and now i’m going to Memphis — so whatever happens happens — i can’t think that far ahead — i don’t want to.
see the thing about cartoon boy and i is that there is no like /set groundwork/ for what we are. at the very least we are friends — very good friends. we’ve been orbiting each other for nearly two months now. you cannot be a part of someone’s life as intensely as we have been without feeling /something/. i mean, we both have been gushing over the other via our webpages. the whole world has been watching our relationship blossom. it’s weird. it’s not private nor is it intimate. i realize that bugs me a bit. he keeps threatening to leave his cam on the whole time i’m there. i’ll sock him if he does, but i know he’s only teasing me.
anyway, for once i can’t control the situation and i can’t predict what’s going to happen — and honestly , i like it like that. and i personally think it’s damn silly that we were arguing about it (to be honest — that’s the only thing we argue about when we have argued). and i think that by doing so, we are already adding unnecessary pressure. i think we will honestly be fine. he always plays the devils advocate and i play the optimist.
“i’m not a gambling man lisa — i always lose.”
“stick with me kid, i always win.”

and then! i get the news that one of my best friends was going to marry a guy (out of the blue) that she has been seeing on and off for nearly nine years. but see — he’s an ex-con, drug addict and he’s beaten her up more than once. he semi-kidnapped her son and took her car and had me worrying to bits about her because of this. she then tells me that he didn’t show up for the wedding and when she does end up talking to him again, finds out he’s got the preliminary paperwork for marrying ANOTHER GIRL (whose in jail right now for felionous assault)!!! I mean, hello here!! lets look at the big picture shall we? He’s beaten my friend up, he’s stolen money from her — and she keeps telling me she’s in love with him! Argh!! and now she’s telling me that she’s asked him to move in with her!?!? I told her if that were so — then i’m making NO PLANS to move in with her — I don’t want that crap in my life. Let’s use tonight as an example shall we.
I told her I loved her (I do) and I worry about her — but it’s her life. She knows how I feel about this whole thing. But i wash my whole hands of the matter. and she knows that i’ll always be there for her — just — not when he’s around, I won’t do it. I refuse to.
I utterly realize that the two above people will be pissed of (rightly so I’m thinking) that i’m discussing this so publicly but you know what? I don’t care. It’s a part of my life. deal with it.
so now it’s 5am and i find that i want to laugh because it all seems so absurd. i always joke about how i love melodrama but i’m getting pretty convinced that someone up there doesn’t like me.
For instance, I’ve applied to five schools: UofMemphis, Western Michigan U, Michigan State, Old Dominion U, UofGeorgia Athens.
Western has already accepted me.
Michigan State and UofGeorgia Athens did not due to that my application was not in on time.
Old Dominion won’t return my fucking phone calls.
UofMemphis claims it needs my HIGH SCHOOL TRANSCRIPTS before processing my application. Uh — okay. When I asked “why”, find out that since I have less than 60 credits that they need to find out what classes I took in high school. I was like “Jesus christ, I went to TWO high schools in TWO countries and also took my GED.” Then I had to fight with them on THAT and research Michigan Department of Education on where to have my GED scores sent to them. Yesh, theoretically I never “graduated from high school”. I got a lot of shit from my parents and my brother who loves teasing me about the fact that I never “finished” high school. My mother loves rubbing it in, the fucking bitch. If you want to lose me as a friend, you start bringing this up. I will, never ever, talk to you again. My IQ is 145 and i scored something like 1300 on my SAT’s and scored in the top 3-5% on my GED. I don’t need to prove my intelligence to ANYONE. thank you please drive through.
Suddenly I’m feeling very defensive and shtuff.
I don’t want to today — I’m feeling overall pretty good despite everything. So, I think I’ll leave this at that then.
An Announcement
For the last couple of weeks I’ve been writing about my experiences on finding other journals on the web. And to my surprise, I’m finding that I’m more popular than I thought. Which kind of surprises me. Well, wait, I’m an egotistical bitch — I know I rock.
But anyway! One thing I’ve been noticing is that there is a few web sites that have been doing a new “entry” everyday in some sort of genre. bittersweets.org specializes in love lost. ember.org specializes in falling in love or first time love. kvetch.com specializes in complaining.
so i was thinking about how i had a domain that wasn’t being utilized and i realize that it would be neat to have a new entry, if you will, everyday of a quip of someone’s life. real or made up, it did not matter, but i thought it could encompass everything. there are no plots, guidelines or characters. all you need is an immagination.
On saturday I launched TrippingOnStars. Every day, a new quip will be put up showcasing a peek into someone’s life — real and imaginary. Go check it out and let me know what you think.
and so..
now it’s later and i have already driven Justin to BART (cos he’s too lazy to walk). justin had gone back to bed after the cops had left and woke up humming the song “Bad Boys” from “Cops” — and telling me that if I would have kept running my mouth I would have ended up being someone’s bitch in jail. heh. i can see it now. that would have been funny.
i’ve also decided, after two pots of cawfee, that i’m in a pretty good mood today. cheerful. hyper. excited about finally going to the doctors. if your in a grumpy mood — please don’t come talk to me. i don’t want you to rain on my parade.
x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x,
moi

swf iso swm who is tall and funny but never grumpy

i love reading personal ads.
i was going to say that “i don’t know what it is about them” but i do know: i love reading about other peoples desperation and loneliness. makes me feel like i’m not as f00ked in the head as i sometimes think i am.
back in the day, a very close friend of mine and i were doing “alternate” personalities via Yahoo! ads. he put an ad up and i replied as “something else other than lisa”. it was shits and giggles and we had fun doing it. basically we would get as blunt as possible to see if anyone would reply to our ad. they never would though, it was just kinda amusing for our sake.
the thing that tripped me out the most was the fact that i pulled up the “m4w” section looking for “everything” in Yahoo! Grand Rapids Metro (haha — yeah right) — and nearly 1000 ads came up. 1000. ads. I was like “jesus christ — what’s going on here?” and so i went reading the ads to see what WAS up — and as I suspected:

Most men were married or in some sort of relationship already looking for a “discreet” sex partner. Wifes approval not necessary.
Some were quite blunt in listing just sexual interests.
Others were looking for “activity” partners — which reading between the lines followed up with #2.
Those who /were/ looking for love, seemingly were quite desperate about it “i’m a shot balding CCR, divorced 2x with 4 kids.” It scared me.

I think that the thing that gets me is that we can learn so much about our society as a whole from reading our personal ads. yeah true, there is no better way really to meet someone of like interests, but they are all these dyed in the whole, hypocrites. i mean, why the fuck get married if you are going to be cheating on her? why stay in a relationship if you ain’t getting all your needs met? I don’t understand this.
maybe it’s not really about the personal ads per se, but that whole “religious true republican” facade i grew up with while living in Grand Rapids. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with personal ads. When I first moved to SF, I placed an ad in one of the local on-line newspapers — i wanted to meet people for pete’s sake. what i got was actually a bunch of bmw driving, cell phone carrying, wine drinking, coding freaks. i dunno. my roommates and i went on a calling spree one night and met up with some guys off of one of the ads (all of us later lucked out) — but it seems to me that for the most part, these ads never really convey the whole person. I mean, yeah it’s great that your this that and then some, but how can you discrene who really is for you by a few lines of text?
i really am beginning to hate 2-dimensional relationships. jaffo keeps kicking me in the ass and telling me to find a real man around here. i think he keeps forgetting that i live in SF — there are no real men — just a lot of faggots (i’m a fag hag, I CAN say that word).
besides.
i have a date coming up next week.
gots to look my best!
tomorrow i go to the doctor.
for the last month i haven’t been feeling too swift. i thought i was pregnant: two tests and my period proved me wrong. my stomach feels like someone shoved a air condenser up me and pumped away. it hurts. i can’t eat. i’m tired of none of my fucking clothes fitting.
basically, i’m feeling grumpy.
i dun wanna be grumpy. i have a tall southern boy i need to wrap around my finger in a little over a week.
i’ll let you all know how the doctor appointment went.
it’s probably just stress.
x0x0x0x0x0x,
moi

simon templar

can someone please tell me about my own preoccupation with the stupid movie the saint?
i don’t know how many times i’ve seen this piece of drek but when it’s on, i /always/ watch it. maybe it’s the gadgets? the neat toys and geeky stuff. maybe it the science that got me interested in cold fusion? maybe it was magic and adventure — all girls want some sort of an adventure in their life.
whatever the reason (and it’s certainly not the fact i /like/ the movie), i watched it again this morning. hehe.
i’ve really been giggling a lot these past few days and i don’t know why. i am seemingly becoming too freaking cheerful for my own good. i am annoying my own damn self.
yesterday I read on maura.com that she hates people who sign with their middle initial. amused i emailed back and said i hated people who sign with two last names. i’m one of those people who sign with the middle initial. maybe it’s because with the intervention of the interweb that i’ve found /other/ lisa rabeys.
i just want to stand out.
i’m becoming disillusioned with journalling recently.
for the last week, i’ve spent an inordinate amount of time doing personal surfing and found that there is this echelon of people who are ‘k-rad’ and ‘ereet’ in doing personal journals. it’s like this big circle of people. i became angry. i felt like i was in high school all over again.
i /hated/ high school, lemme tell you. but i was also depressed, shy and NOT getting along with my parents. I don’t think it’s so much part of the kids hating me anymore but i do think that my own shyness and depression helped fuel whatever paranoia i had about people not liking me.
so i started checking out these damn journals and the following rang true:

They all looked like they were designed by the same person(s).
They all have nearly the exact same content.
They all link to each other.
Sometimes, even the entries are the same.

I mean, jesus christ, it’s like they have this template that gets passed out to everyone — to be “cool” you must do THIS. i found it highly amusing.
i found it flattering that i was linked from some of the pages — but truth be known, i don’ read other peoples journals. i also do not read my own. once it’s written, that’s it, its done. i found that you begin to get feelings for people you’ve never talked to and that is just way too intimate for me. i’ve “fallen in love” with people briefly over journals and it’s too much.

“You know, the people here, all they wanna do is pick you apart. trouble is: they don’t have time to put you back together again.
“i hate the internet.
“i’ve thought about moving my webpages to Europe, Michigan, Virginia or hell, maybe even Tennessee.”

and here is other stuff that bugs me, this whole “If you know me in real life, please don’t read this” or the whole “private vs public” diaries. I mean, christ! get over yourself – if you are really that insecure or paranoid than what the fuck are you doing on Internet? I mean, it’s like at work, I got into this argument with the guy who manages our NOC. He was having a tizzy about our new email naming scheme is firstname.lastnamd@company.com, and he said that scheme was a security hole because SOMEONE could get his personal information from that naming scheme and pretend to be him on the internet. Uh, I laughed. hehe. Really. I emailed back and said that:
a. if you are that paranoid about security, then stop using your firstname and lastname in your email address such as so:
Lisa Rabey (lisa@simunye.org). I mean, this is no different than firstname.lastname@company.com.
b. secondly, uh, hehe, anyone can impersonate anyone on the internet. ITS NOT THAT HARD. the new naming scheme doesn’t provide extra security or lack of security. i mean christ, get over it. hehe.
but anyway, hehe, okay damnit lisa stop giggling.
i quit smoking and i sleep better and my personality over the last few days save for the torturous first few days has been giggly. hehe. ARGH! god! and it wouldn’t be any less annoying cept i’m sitting here /really/ giggling.
smoke free for FIVE days.
I better get some mother fucking props here people.
anyway, so i was commenting about this elitism on the web to someone and its like, to me, the one reason why i love the interweb so much is that it gave me the expression and the means to be myself and i’m finding that people are slipping into being something they aren’t, in order to be cool, by following the appropriate trends.
lemme be the molly ringwalds then of journalling, because i am:
loud, obnoxious, smart, aggressive, cute, i talk a lot, i’m tall, i’m pierced. if you know me, you HAVE to get the point that i may or may not put something up here about you. if you ASK me not to mention you, for whatever reason, that’s fine, just DONT tell me. it’ll piss me off. you have to get the point that i’ve spent incredible amount of time documenting my life and feelings and i’m not changing this for no one. if you don’t like what you read here, i’m sorry, that’s too damn bad. it’s “my” life and “my” perception of it. I will never do a private or password protected journal, i mean that’s just plain wrong!
this is me, take it or leave it.
oh yeah, and i also hate this whole like surrealistic look that journals are getting these days. i mean, okay yeah this is the interweb where everything is surreal but see, to me, maybe i’m crazy, but it’s also very real. it’s given the opportunity to say things i would have never said before or even given me the courage to do the things i didn’t think i would ever do. i think that by saying “well, don’t take me seriously” or “well, i don’t want people to know or read this” THEN GET YOUR DAMN ASS OF THE INTERNET! i’m serious. it should be all about freedom baby and expression, not about restriction.
now if you’ll excuse me, the sun is calling my pasty supple ass out to be outside.
x0x0x0x0x,
moi

why

“never tell anyone anything, you’ll end up missing them.”
— quote on the halfshell from Catcher in the Rye
i’ve come to the conclusion i’ll never understand people.
ever.
there will be something that will continue to elude me for as long as i live. no matter how empathetic i can get or how on target my perceptions are, people will always remain a puzzle to me.
pawly was right when he said that not baring all was good — too much information was a disastrous thing.
i think my problem is, that for once i wanted normalcy and i got —
i can’t say a bad thing. because more was given to me in the last few months than i remember in a long time. but that doesn’t mean i still know why.
tonight i spent a considerable amount of time pacing the floors and banging my head against the wall wanting a cigarette. bean kept telling me, if i got through this, during this crisis (today has been the day from hell) i would get through all. i would be okay and that i could survive this. justin kept telling me the same damn thing as i cried and begged for ONE cigarette.
the smell of smoke was all around the house, making me sick, but i wanted a fucking cigarette.
and the world should know i decided to eat dinner first and not smoke or go to the store.
so i’m still holding clean.
you walk in, just like smoke
with a little c’mon c’mon c’mon
in your walk, c’mon
i’ve been waiting
are you waiting
for my move
i’m making it
you move me
you do
like i’ve never been done before
you don’t even know
what you do to me

the sad part is that sometimes we will allow our own pride to take precedence over anything else because of fear. and i realize that while a lot things always change, the same things remain the same.
i’ve been smoke free for almost four days now.
i at least have that.
and katchoo and Francine.
but katchoo was a smoker —
SHUT UP! she was also a lesbian! well she didn’t like men. speaking of which, i need to get the latest issues. i’m so behind.
lisa-fan: “heh… i took a picture of you, and pasted it into after dark the other day… so now i have you bouncing across my monitor during the day… it’s pretty relaxing… :)”
i already miss.
i’m so pathetic. aww well. my fault for hoping.
on the half shell
Within the last week i:

bought a ticket to Memphis
quit smoking
got unwanted house guests (who i can’t stand to begin with)
got accepted to Western Michigan U
lost 5lbs.
watched my best friend get proposed to and then jilted at the alter.
fall on my ass literally
become a raving psychopathic lunatic

I don’t know what’s going on. All I do know is that I keep driving people away. One minute I am “fine” and the next minute i’m a psychotic and depressive, accusatory and pushy. i’m defensive and i’m gonna end up having people hate me.
fast and easy
why is it, that everytime i get motivated to write in this damn thing, it always ends up being 6:28am and somehow or another the last 1/2 hour has been fritted away somewhere. then i say, i’m going to pick this back up at work and then i find i can’t because my train of thought has already disappeared.
funny that, for the last hour i had five different entries of things i wanted to write about this morning and now i’m getting writers block.
is this how a man feels when having sex?
my teeth are coated in sugar. remind me to never ever eat 1/2 bag of jolly ranchers again.
it’s been over 48 hours since i’ve quit smoking, officially. though it’s day three.
I feel like i REALLY owe an apology to a lot of people out there. i won’t name names but, i’ve been treating you rather shitty the last few days. I’m sorry. You gotta understand that the ONLY crutch i’ve had in the last 10 years has been cigarettes and i’ve kicked those to the curb. I never really thought about it, till they were gone, how much psychologically i needed them. How much I associated them with different rituals of my life. It’s scary. I go to grab for a cigarette and find that it’s not there! Woah.
I’m sorry. I’m really really sorry for being moody and paranoid and being a basic pain in the ass. I’m really sorry if I bit your head off, became defensive or picked fights with you. I’m really sorry for being so just damn icky these last few days. I haven’t liked it either, trust me.
guess what. It’s time for worksie!

you are SUCH my bitch

i hate feeling right.
or something.
remember long ago when you would meet someone and you would like them, like, almost instantly. and things clicked really hard between the two. time goes on and you find that you’ve become almost, not obsessed, but, engulfed with that person. and then you’ve changed how you react to that person. and this has nothing to do with liking the person, because you really really like them, but it has everything to do with your immortal soul.
i was thinking of all the relationships I’ve been in and things that have been coming and going in my own life. I’ve been wiggin’ out for the last few days, I’m sorry. i think some people are beginning to wonder if me quitting smoking is really all that grand of an idea. the cravings weren’t so bad today, but, it’s been less than two days, bear with me.
anyway.
i was thinking of how once people get to the point in their head and their comfortable with themselves and they like where they are at. and sooner or later, once they get comfortable and find themselves in a place to be a relationship, they don’t want a relationship. or they are scared. or they freak out internally.
i can always see the signs coming. I’m so used to it by now, that it’s become second skin. first it’s the missing of the cute little nicknames or emails. and the teasing suddenly gets to be wholly defensive. you find that everything you say suddenly is scrutinized. and if you ask them what’s going on, they tell you it’s nothing, they are feeling fine — what’s YOUR problem. so you say okay, because you want to believe them right? I mean, that’s what you want to believe. because they wouldn’t treat you so shabbily.
but then you notice you’re not talking as much anymore and that when you do talk the content is somewhat stunted and slow. you find you no longer have anything to say because you are SO damn paranoid about what your going to say. then you notice that you just don’t talk anymore and then it becomes nothing. they were just this person that you met.
but see, the thing is, I’ve talked to people after that last stage, and it’s ALWAYS the same damn answer: i was scared. scared of what? scared that i would fall in love/jump off of a cliff/lose myself/lose my identity. it always becomes this almost necessant NEED to follow those same steps. and later on down the road, all the damn wondering of what’s going on or what could have BEEN gets to you and so the next person you meet you deal with and it’s okay. your fine. and or maybe they aren’t that intense or exciting or whatever and so you just go with the flow this time because it’s easier.
gash, I’m babbling such non-sense.
i’ve been going around the office going “i don’t want a cigarette, right?” and everyone has been “yep, you don’t want a cigarette.”
I WOULD KILL SOMEONE FOR A CIGARETTE RIGHT NOW!!!!!
I just re-read what I wrote — and you know what, I know most of that is true. But you know, if someone (anyone really) can’t well.
LISA IS WIGGIN OUT!!
god, i don’t know what’s wrong with me. for the last two days i’ve been feeling WEIRD.
Lisa: I forget why I’m quitting.
Bean: because you don’t want to sound like a carpet cleaner when you’re 40.
Oh yeah.
well duh.
You see, Bean quit smoking over a month ago. And has been using wellbutrin to take the edge off.
I have not been using any drugs, stimulants or even books.
I just went cold turkey.
21.5 hours
Since I’ve had a cigarette.
I told Justin that this was going to get damn annoying: me announcing every time I looked at the clock since the last time i had a cigarette. he said that was okay.
but.
please don’t congratulate me yet on quitting. wait till it’s been a few days or a week or something. this IS the longest time I’ve gone without a cigarette, but, i don’t want to give false hope to anyone least of all to myself.
but I know I can do this!
My horroscope told me to be humble and so I’m being humble! Actually it said “Humble yourself by taking public transportation or doing laundry.”
Uh, hello here.
I just did laundry yesterday so BITE ME!
rituals
the one thing i spoke about was the rituals of smoking and that is what I’m going to miss. see, like right now, it’s early in the morning (depending on your view point — it could be late at night), and I’m drinking cawfee. if i was smoking, i would have a smoke burning in the ashtray next to me. just the smell would be enough some times. but see, even then i would let cigarettes just burn out without even touching them.
i told justin i was going to get kicked out of the artists community because i was no longer a smoker. he said writers don’t have to smoke. i said “uh, what about my whole dream of being that husky voiced alcoholic slut sitting at the end of the bar with the 10 best sellers behind me.” he said “oh yeah.”
it’s all about image.
really.
smoking has been a good part of my life for over 10 years. if not longer. i was a young innocent maiden when i started smoking and now I’m a.. 🙂
24 HOURS! YEAH! BABY!
go lisa, get your groove on. it’s your birthday. do the cabbage path. oh yeah.
I’d like to thank the academy and my producer and the director for being so great!
Oh wait, wrong speech.
shuffle shuffle
Actually, I have a lot to say on this subject 🙂 The people who encouraged me. My inspiration. And you know — it’s time for me to go to work! So, I’ll pick this back up at work kids.

will of steel

I’ve quit smoking.
and every once of will power that i own is forcing me to keep my ass to the seat. you see, right about now would be the time i would be outside with Matt or someone else enjoying the view of 2nd street and enjoying a Virginia slim ultra light menthols.
and instead, I’m sitting here chomping on gum that’s getting stale pretty quickly thinking that I’m ghetto girl.
and I’m trying really hard to do this.
because you see, no one believes that i can do it.
i thought i had smoked my last cigarette last night, but i found a pack in the bottom of my bag. for the last time, i had a smoke when i took justin to BART this morning. It’s been five hours. And the day is dragging on ridiculously slow. I took the tin of unfiltered gawth sticks that danny gave me and left them on Shmoo’s desk. Too much temptation for me.
Five hours. May not seem like much, but, for me, with smoking I’ve already had about five for the day. one when i got up, one or two on the way to work, one on break, etc. you get the point. You see, I know if I don’t think about it, I won’t feel the craving as badly, because that’s how I deal being around non-smokers. Like, if I’m dating someone who doesn’t smoke, I would hardly smoke around them and by not thinking about it i was able to go for hours without having on.
i read somewhere that quitting smoking is HARDER than quitting heroin or any other controlled substance. right now I’d rip out someone’s throat for a cigarette.
hi 🙂
deep breath.
(I’m trying really hard not to think about it, so please bear with me).
There are a lot of reasons why I’m quitting. I think the thing that pushed me over the edge was when i saw myself on cam a few days ago, and the person i saw on the cam was not attractive to me. And I’m not talking about physically either (cos well, I’m damn cute!) but the cigarette just seemed — icky.
back when i was in college, heather something or another, one of the OpEd editors on the paper said she couldn’t imagine me NOT smoking. and it was the same from everyone i knew. it seemed that my attitude towards everything including having a cigarette hanging out of my mouth, which i most often did.
but a lot of things have changed, especially with me. I’ve always disliked people with vices.
it’s been 11 hours since a cigarette.
today has drawn by ridiculously slow and almost saline filled. i’ve been feeling like i’ve been swimming in mud. nothing is making any sense and nothing is coming out right. mike thought i was depressed. and i’m not really. i’m not SAD just mopey. but i can’t find the differences between the two even though i told him that there were differences. and i feel so blah, but there isn’t anything to be blah about!
i think it’s just the death of an era if you ask me. lisa and smoking is kinda like rice and beans — they always go together.
i think that is what subconsciously i’ve been thinking about: that things are changing. all around me. I know i’m not making any sense right now, mike thought that i had gotten loopy. just, i can’t explain it. you quit smoking and your whole life changes!
or something.

quickie

as it would figure, time is my enemy. i’ve spent the last 20-25 minutes trying to get things situated so that i could write a quickie chronicle. but then i wasn’t able to route, my web pages were coming up slower than molasses in January and i had to fix the font face on the cam page. i’ve been up for almost an hour and the only thing i’ve been able to accomplish is getting Justin off to BART.
but hey, i found my cell phone in my car. and here i thought i had lost it.
i’m in a strange mood. a shelled up mood, if you will. the night before last, christine showed up from Texas and her and her daughter are staying with us. add in Charlie’s friends coming over and the house is too damn full. there are already four of us that live here, and while i generally don’t mind people being over (look at the people i’ve had come over) for the last couple days i’ve felt like Greta Garbo “I vont to be alone”. i don’t have privacy and it’s driving me mad.
mike says it’s because i can’t get naked on the cam for him.
ha, yeah right. the way i’ve been feeling about my body lately, ain’t no one seeing me naked — let alone cartoon boy.
this past saturday, i had made two great accomplishments for lisa.

I went to the movies alone.
I went to a party alone.

i had, never ever, done those things before and taking myself out on a date (if you will) seemingly seared my independence even more so.
i’m also into chapter two of my book. but i won’t talk about that. bad ju ju.
the other thing i have never done alone before was go to a bar. i remember mike and i talking about this way back when we first met on-line and i remember him quipping that if we should ever meet, he was going to throw me out of the car door and into the nearest pub. alone.
every single time i’ve gone somewhere publicly, i’ve always gone with someone. however, i have gone to dinner by myself and that isn’t a big deal. Someone i used to be friends with said he admired me for going out alone — that by default people are social creatures and i had the chutzpah to do it solo.
i’m not feeling anything other than BLAH with a capital b (woooo pretty).
i’ve also begun to obsess about my body worse then usual lately. mix in with justin telling me how freaking beautiful i am is driving me mad. that whole “christ, i’m fat” routine that i thought i had kicked my ass out of a long time ago. but i’ve become obsessed with my body and have increased working out and eating better. the fucked up thing (wouldn’t you know) is that the damn scale isn’t showing any improvements at all! no weight gain and hence no weight loss.
and i really hate my hair.
i don’t know why i’m in such a funk as of late — i was doing fine earlier this week and now it’s just plummeted.
i really hate feeling insecure.
i’ll be back later, i have to go do 60 crunches before i jump in the shower.

bedhead

that scary person to your left is me, after waking up on 6.18.99. I spent the morning paying bills by phone before heading to work. i heard it through the rumor mill that some people have a thing for sleepy femmes and bedheads.
I’m His Slave
So my copy of Afghan Whigs Congregation arrived today. Is it me, or is our mail delivery person a LITTLE too cheery? For the last few days I’ve been home when she’s delivered packages and she’s a little too giggly to be a mailman. But anyway, I’m trying to decide if I dig this cd right now or not. Admittedly, I own quite a few Whigs stuff. But not everything. The other day I was at ebay.com and saw a HUGE ass listing of Whigs stuff. I almost choked. I wanted it all. But one of my major problems is that I spend WAY too much money on-line on crap I really don’t need. But anyway, I’m digressing. So, my obsession with Greg Dulli and Afghan Whigs — where it began and where it is:
By Lisa M. Rabey, ESQ.
I remember back in 1994 or so, I was working at this high falutin junk jewelry store called Accessory Place (if you know of Claires, it was like that but more upscale). Anyway, I was in college and working there and working at Harmony House (a record sto’). And I would go clubbing at The Orbit Room, primiarly on Wednesday nights for Alternative A-X. I also went on Friday/Saturday nights to Jimmy’s, 54th Street, Sundays was at Magoo’s. But ANYWAY, I keep digressing.
So, it’s 1994, and I remember driving to work one day and hearing “Debonair” and I thought “OHHHHHHH!” obsess obsess obsess. I recall sitting at home on Sunday nights watching 120 Minutes (before it became shit. music stopped being good after 1994) and saw the video for that and Gentlemen, and was instantly in lust with Greg Dulli. But, at the time i was hella poo’ and my cd collection was less than 20.
Fast forward a few years later and it’s 1996-97. I met my friend James on-line and we got to talking and he was telling me how one of his favorite bands was Afghan Whigs — and I was like “ohh yeah — I like them.” Of course, I was only familiar with stuff from Gentlemen which was their “breakout” release. He sent me the lyrics to my curse saying they fit me to a T. He was right.
So, it’s 1998 and James moves from Florida to the Bay Area. We hook up and he tells me that the Whigs are going to be in concert. My friend Jen from work is a Whigs fan as well, so we went and checked out Greg and Co. at The Fillmore, and it was lust at first sight, lemme tell you.
we fought our way to the front and all night i sat there, drooling on James’ shoulder (he’s a short fuck) watching Greg prance around in a fedora and a boa. His lyrics are sublime and sensual, he’s got attitude, he’s funny, he’s — short. BUT HEY! that’s alright! I can deal. he’s one of the VERY few men who i would let slide by (sorta speak). I immediately bought 1965 and fell in love. really. It was then I started thinking about who i was and what i wanted from life. This was PASSION. This was DRIVE. This was AMBITION. This was HOW I WANTED TO ALWAYS FEEL.
I played the cd religiously, getting Darryl hooked on it on the morning commute. I would throw the cd in, crank it, and for the long commute sing loud and strong while caressing the steering wheel. Darryl is so lucky he is gay. I would have been mackin’ on him left and right. darryl fell in love and i got him a copy of Gentlemen and planned on burning him a copy of 1965, but somehow i’m not smart enough to figure out how to burn music on my stupid Crapintosh at work. It’s appropriately named Imhotep. hehe.
And there you have it. I’ve been buying, when I can, music left and right that they have produced. Mike told me that Greg did the vocals for the soundtrack for BackBeat and I immediately had to get that. Can’t let anything get away from me. The funny thing is, that for the single of 66 that they just recently released, they do a cover of Hole’s “Miss World”. It’s kinda funny — and sorta sucks. But I’m SOOOOOOOOOO in love with their remix of 66. It’s so damn NUMMY!
But there you have it. Jonathan wonders why I’m always quoting AW lyrics, honkyfoo thinks I’ve been hitting the crack pipe, Mike thinks i’m obsessed, James just nods his heads and smiles. Darryl just asks me to burn him more copies. And I dream of a husky voice that can shake it like THAT! and hairy bellys too, but that’s another story.
obsessions part deux
as you may have figured out, i have obsessions about things. sometimes it’s about people other times it’s about material stuff. here is a list of what’s keeping me occupied recently:

afghan whigs: (well duh)
darth maul: I know own the following darth maul crap: legos, body wash, watch, lip balm, two posters, 8 inch figurine, gimme MORE!
imhotep: the evil priest from the mummy.
SIP: i’m both katchoo and Francine. how cool is that?
Judybats: they are back together! yah! they broke up when Alan and i did — now they are back together — well sorta. jeff heiskell (the lead singer) has new backing band — but paul noe is with the nevers who i might see in nashville! how rad is that!
venti mocha fraps: buy me one and i am yours forever.
my new purse: this things rocks. i’ve been wanting something like it since I saw that insipid movie Hope Floats. And I’ve been searching high and low for it. The closest I came was various stores that carry magnetic poetry lunch boxes. And for 25 bucks it wasn’t worth it, considering how flimsy it was. So then a few weeks ago, I was out doing the girl thing, and saw at the beneFIT counter that small trunk. It was PERFECT size and perfect price too. Anytime I go somewhere that might sell something similar to it, the cashier always try’s to sell it BACK to me. I have open it up to show off all my junk because no one believes it’s my purse. 🙂
Flowers: My birthday has come and gone now but that doesn’t mean I still have stopped getting flowers. I got so many flowers at work that I started sneezing and developed some sort of hay fever action. But the flowers are damn lovely. My father, who I thought forgot my birthday, sent me a dozen roses which arrived today. he’s a week late, but, better late then never I would suppose. He even remembered how old I was. I was sort of impressed.

Cam it baby!
As we all know, I occasionally run a cam from both work and home. The home cam hasn’t been on for nearly a month and the work cam I have been very sparodic in showing. There were a few technical difficulties (mainly that i haven’t fscked with linux enough to get it going — and i’ve been dallying in winders recently) and that i’ve been bored with it, but it came back up due to recent requests.
so guess who went and got a cam (not, by any means, and easy task for this person to do)?
last night i spent about 30 minutes attempting to tech support via phone to get it running — when it finally did it was some weird geeky strange virtual date. i showed them my crib, they should me theirs. i got silly and started showing body parts (this is my belly button — this is my knee). i stopped before i ended up disrobing on cam. NOT HAPPENING BUD! lemme tell you. showed ’em my RAD JudyBats posters and my kick butt flocked Darth Maul poster (they want — but I don’t give it up that easy). It was, a lot of fun. About five hours later, we called it a night and respectively went to bed — separated by a few thousand miles of dirt.

NP: Catherine Wheel – Black Metallic — from Ferment.
This damn song always makes me cry.

love is the answer (i’m gonna voodoo u)
recently, there has been a rash of lisa-fanatics. yeah sure, people like my stuff — but this is different, this is like, people who want to DATE me and shit.
and frankly my dears, it’s scaring the shit out of me.
and it’s not like some piece of email radomly sent my way (ie: “Lisa I must have you — it must be so.”) — it’s more like, REAL PEOPLE TELLING ME that they like like me. And it’s always frightened me, especially when it’s not returned back. i appreciate that you think i’m a crazykindajazzy chyk and stuff — but, please, i’m not interested.
i always seem to be everyone’s favorite ex-girlfriend (read EX) but i’m telling you, you don’t want me. i’m neurotic, manic depressive, megalomaniac, obsessive, anal retentive, bitchy, and i have ISSUES MATTERS AND CONCERNS! i’m a handful. i’m NOT worth the effort or the investment for a relationship. i’ll only break your heart because i will never be what you want me to be or i’ll be too much for you to handle. i’ll disappoint you, trust me. i’ve been down this road TOO MANY TIMES. and the other problem is if i did like you and i invest a lot into you, you’ll end up crashing on me. and i won’t do that again. EVER.
so, please, i won’t make you happy — trust me on this. just go find someone more your speed that will love you for you, because i’m not that girl. i’ve got an ex-bf i live that is driving me mad as it is, i don’t need more people to complicate my life.
the end.
x0x0x0x0x,
moi

19 Days

It’s official.
I have my ticket for Memphis. I’m leaving in 19 days to go see UofMemphis (Lisa, we KNOW you aren’t going to Memphis just for the school!). Yeah — well — that’s my story and I’m sticking to it! 🙂
The fucked up part is that I’ve been tracking things via lowestfare.com and found a price of 318.00 bucks round trip for the flight. So I go to website to purchase the tickets today, and the price gets jacked up to 475 bucks! What?!?! So I check and found out that yeah, they get the cheap prices, but then they jack up the price for “airport fees” and such. FUNK THAT! God. The man has been out to get me this past week, lemme tell you. So I call a few airlines, get a special deal and plunk down my Visa. Got the fax confirming flights when I got to work. 🙂
you move me
you do me, like I’ve never been done before
you don’t even know
what you do to me
c’mon and do it to me
dontcha stop!
I just can’t get 66 out of my head. GASH! 🙂 This is sounding too saccharine. I’ve been walking around for the last month with a smile on my face. everyone is noticing it in the office, i can’t stop grinning and i can’t stop laughing. i don’t know what is coming over me, but i hope it never stops.
I’m sitting here giggling like an idiot.
down with the man!
this week has been weird in many ways. i was talking to whatshisname the other day about money. I hate that word. it’s a four letter word to me. anyway, so i checked my checking account and found i was in the hole. What the fuck!! So find out, a credit card I thought I had cancelled still charged me anyway. I call the company and find out that the fee is NON-REFUNDABLE! WHAT THE HELL! That was 89 bucks I didn’t need to spend. To make matters even worse, I checked and found out my car tags for california is a hefty $350 bucks. Um, hello where? Do I look like I’m made of money? Find out that 250 of that is for “vehicle and registration fee”. Goddamn! No one used lube on me this week. So respectively, nearly 400 bucks is already gone to things I didn’t count on. I hate HATE california.
Okay, I give up. I’m in too good of mood to be angry. I’m in a too good of mood to do anything right now. So, seeing as I’m at work, I’m going to go fuck off for awhile. 🙂
x0x0x0x0x0x
cheeks-the wonder girl!

7:37am

I was lying on my stomach this morning and thought I heard an angel calling my name. “Lisa…..Lisa…..Lisa”
It suddenly dawns on me that Cat is here. I jump up and throw open the bathroom window. It’s 7:25am. I check the alarm and it’s turned off. Shit! Cat calls Scott and goes to pick him up. I make cawfee. I get this idea in my head and decide that being late for work isn’t that bad of a thing.
irony
i’m sitting crosslegged in my chair, thinking about delicious irony. See, yesterday afternoon I had scheduled an appointment with planned parenthood. my appointment was at 3pm. Since the appointment was short notice, i had to reschedule a lot of things around it. no biggie. i run the hell out of the office, go to the parking lot to grab my car gasp! it’s boxed in! car attendant moves said vehicle out of my way, jump on the highway, drive over the bridge — and get stuck in the traffic jam from hell. Usually, the 580 exchange getting off the bridge is fine — it’s clear and i can zip through. It took me over 20 minutes to drive what would take me 2 minutes. I whip out the cellular phone, call PP and make another appointment for next week.
Once I get home, I realized something.
I had started my period.
First time in over 6 1/2 months.
I start laughing and say out loud “Only Lisa can make this happen. She makes an appointment to PP, can’t make it, and gets her freaking period.”
I talk to myself a lot. Nothing to worry about. 😉
cocktails for two
the big thing that has been going on with me lately is pimpin’ cupid. It started out as a joke and now i’m getting emails to all my weird accounts that i never thought anyone would use, telling me that someone likes me. but the jist of it is, is that i’ve listed all those i like back and it’s not making any matches. (Well, okay it made a few matches — but not all of them!) And now, someone sent me a virtual cocktail to my work account — not even signed! ARGH! I hate barcardi. and whiskey. the smell reminds me of my father who is an alcoholic. when i drink, i drink only Absolut or Skyy vodka OR hefeweisen beer. Remember that. 🙂
time enough for love
emails have been rolling in about my discussion yesterday about love, relationships and cheating. hell, the article has only been up for less than 12 hours and i’m already making a new one. regardless though, this is on my mind and if nothing, i am intent on making sure that i drive the point home.
yesterday i had spoken about polyamory and never really got into my thoughts on this. see, for a long time i believed that polyamory was the way to go because by default humans were not monogamous. i will save you the argument i have prepared for that reasoning but one of the reasons that i had for this thinking was that i knew it was not impossible to love more than one person at a time.
i’ve been down that road, being in love with two people at once, and let me tell you, it’s’ hard. it’s hard when both of them love you back. it’s not a matter of indecision — quite the contrary — it’s the matter of that both offer you something that the other cannot.
and for awhile, polyamory served in many ways monogamy cannot.
now, just because i was in love with them doesn’t mean that i’m sleeping with them. I need to drive this point home. It bothers me that people assume that if you are dating someone or whatever that you are automatically fucking them. Not true. I’ve been “in love” with people and never had sex with them. I’ve had sex with people I wasn’t in love with. The two are not mutually exclusive.
i am not, by any means, going to start preaching family values. nor am i, by any means, going to start telling people how to run their life (Uh, Lisa, you do that already. Shuddup!). But I will not discount polyamory as being “weird” or “normal” because it’s both. just as monogamy is both. i think that too often, people place themselves in relationships that they do not want to have and are not strong enough to break off. hence lies in cheating. hence lies in lying. hence lies betrayal.
the truth of the matter is, that the inner core of ME (that makes up me — we won’t go on about other personalities) is that i’m monogamous at heart. really. i had gone through too many times of jealousy and obsession because i could never understand why someone would want something else if they were dating me. Meaning that if i’m in a mutually exclusive relationship, that persons attention should be focused on ME not on someone else. I’m egotistical enough to know there is no one like me (there isn’t. cheap imitations, obviously). i should be able to fulfill their needs, desires and wants. and vice versa. if i’m not, then WHY are they with me (and vice versa). it goes back to me saying that people often get involved out of relationships because they are lonely. and i can understand that. but i don’t want someone being with me because they are lonely, i want someone to be with me because they think that i’m the hottest trick in shoe leather to grace this earth (Gone With The Wind reference).
When I was a mealy-mouth brat growing up, i never thought i would get a bf. ever. i had my life all planned out in front of me. graduate from HS at 17, go to college, get my masters. write the great American novel. be rich and famous by the time i was 25.
at the age of 27 (cringe), i realize that while ones dreams aren’t always as easy as one thinks they are. looking back on my life these last 10 years and of everything that has happened, i often bemoan all the damn mistakes i’ve made. i’ve sat in funks for months because i didn’t have the courage (or the strength) to pick myself up and say “to hell with you, i’ve got my own thing now”. truth of the matter is, i’ve been damned frightened of everything and anything around me. fear of love, fear of rejection, fear of betrayal and non-sense. many many people who know me personally and intimately have often said that this doesn’t jib with what they know of me. but it is me. it’s all of me.
as i said yesterday, i know my faults. i know why i do what i do and i know where in the problems came from. justin used to say he thought i was the sanest person alive because i could recognize these faults. i feel like a caged animal and the whole world is my audience. and when provoked i bite. i know that my sarcasm and indifference is a destructive method of protecting myself. my string of mens were ego boosters because i still get in shock when someone likes me. i don’t understand why they do. i remember what it was like letting go, when i was 19 and i remember the ramifications of that letting go.
friends have suggested that i take a year off, don’t date anyone at all. get myself together. the trials and tribulations of the last few years have taken it’s toll and that i need to find myself for awhile. i agreed with them, and in many aspects i still do. no more living in sin, no more stringing along men. put myself first instead of others, no matter how much it hurts.
falling in love with someone is a big gamble. we all have “issues, matters and concerns” about how we are going to be. we are, in a sense, all frightened of the things we are and do. and no one wants to be alone.
i have this silly dream where i would be sitting in a cawfee shop/bookstore reading. sipping on a frappichino. the man of my dreams would walk over to me and start talking and we would know. that very instant we would know.
i believe that all the relationships i have had in the past have built me up for that moment. the ideal and perfect person. perfect for me that is. i believe that you can have soul mates. and i believe that true love never stops. i believe that there is only one person for you. everything else in your life was nothing but a dress rehearsal. i believe that love does conquer all and i believe that if you love someone, are really in love with someone, you are not afraid of going to extremes for that person, sharing your soul or showing the world that you care.
“Anything less than extraordinary is a waste of my time.” – from Dream for an Insomniac.
I used to say (and still believe) that I would never settle. If the person wasn’t for me, I wouldn’t be with them. All of our past relationships are failures. And I’ve left people for the dumbest reasons, but the reasoning made sense to me because if they didn’t jib with the ideal thing I had in my head then I didn’t want to be with them. Sometimes I projected these ideals onto other people and got kicked to the curb with shock when the person wasn’t i wanted to be. I think that, while I have a long an glorious past with me (and my joking there of), that it taught me more getting in the ring. I wanted to save myself, remain a virgin, until my wedding day. But my own sexual and romantic history has shown (and I have learned from) that while I could never take back what I have done, I can move on and learn from it. I know exactly what i want and this time I won’t stop till I get it. And if this means I’m going to end up a crothity old lesbian with 10 cats — so be it. But I would rather save myself for the right person then to throw myself at the wrong person.
Ya dig?