a self-portal

betcha always wanted to know how i got so many goddamn domain names
well, regardless if you do or don’t, heh, here it is anyways. it is currently sitting at www.simunye.com/readme.html, so you can go to www.simunye.com to view all my crap 😉
what the hell is a “self portal”?
i asked myself that several times when i came up with the idea, but it basically boils down to this:
in 1996 i registered my first domain, simunye.com (which you are looking at now). initially, it was just your usual catchall personal homepage bullshit with my writings, bs, pictures and what not. starting in late 1997, i registered simunye.org and had decided to start doing “consulting work” and make .com the ” business” page and .org the journal. later, .com just became a referrer for the .org and the .org became the lisa chronicles.
the lisa chronicles was the start of an almost daily journal that was included previous ‘zine work i had one as well as updates that i was doing more frequently (about 3x a week). In 1998 i had registered bitchasshoe.org as a joke and trippingonstars.org as a personal narrative on daily fragments. this brought my stable of domains up to four.
in 1999, when Paul and i had moved in together, that required a new domain: geek-haus.org which then lead to novageeks.org being registered for our friends locally. soon i became tired of being associated with the word simunye (zulu/xosha for “we are one”) and registered rabey.net as the new home for the journal.
and lastly, in early 2000, i registered verbosity.org as a new ‘zine i was going to be working on with several people (it, obviously, never got off the ground).
In late 2000, I decided that I had have enough of rabey.net, and registered both modgirl.org and modgirl.net. That is now the new home for the online journal. However, to keep things flowing, rabey.net does now point to modgirl.net/org so that anyone can access any three of those domains and get the same page.
then Paul had to get in the act and register supercilious.org for his own personal use.
my friend Sam and i came up with an idea and i went and registered annoyingthings.org.
this brings the grand total to twelve domains.
i then started wanting to do a genealogy site on my surname ” rabey”, and since rabey.net/org/com were taken, i will be registering rabey-online.net/com/org within a few weeks, bringing the grand total up to fifteen domains.
with that being said, i started the portal page to help those interested in me to navigate around and keep track of everything in one place.
here is the list of domains and what they do:
annoyingthings.org: things that annoy us
modgirl.net/org: online journal
supercilious.org: Paul’s website
novageeks.org: where the novageeks hang out
geek-haus.org: Paul and Lisa’s life uncensored
simunye.org/.com: self-portals
rabey-online.org/net/com: genealogy about the surname ” rabey”
rabey.net: points to modgirl.net
bitchasshoe.org: points to modgirl.net
verbosity.org: points to modgirl.net
trippingonstars.org: points to modgirl.net
the following categories are how the self portal is divided:
on-line opinions – where i sprout my mouth off publicly
on-line journals – projects in the journal genre
round robin – domains that point to modgirl.net
misc. – stuff that is unique
mailing lists – mailing lists i run
local – things that will be localized on the simunye.com network
wish lists – buy me stuff!
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lisa.

almost famous

news and reviews:
I’ve been wanting for a long time to make my website pda enabled (well, since i found out that waitingforbob.com was pda and Netscape channlized) and i finally figured out how. if you want TLC on your pda, just go here and follow the instructions. Bop me an email if you have any questions.
This weekend was a very slow and lazy weekend — the kind where paul and i did not have guests so we could relax but on the flip side i was so wired from — something (dunno what) that i couldn’t sit still for longer than five minutes at a time. i bounced around from cleaning to organizing to walking the dogs because no one could stay put in the same spot. on the flip side, paul was so bored that he took a three hour nap yesterday afternoon to relieve the boredom.
my mind was whirling at a speed i couldn’t comprehend. i would walk around doing stuff thinking of better and shorter ways to organize and clean. i couldn’t walk in the bathroom without putting towels away and putting towels away meant doing laundry and doing laundry meant i had to clean up the bedroom. so the simple act of putting something away was prolonged by insistence on doing 15 different things at once.
one of my obsessive/compulsive is cleaning and paul calls me the goff martha stewart because i love to clean. I’ve always admired working with my hands and putting things in order so that it is just so. I’m not so anal that there are not mess’s laying around but there is an order to the chaos of our lives and that order is me.
so i cleaned and organized and sorted and did things that i haven’t been able to do in the preceding weeks (paul cooks — we’ll just leave it at that) and finally crashed early later on in the after noon.
it all started when i was sitting on irc and someone brought up the infamous sexchart of which I am listed (just do a find for simunye — you’ll find me). Which made me REALLY FUCKING ANGRY! I sat there snapping to people on irc about something that happened to me only four years ago and yet feels like a lifetime ago.
Some of it came out in the open in the news two years ago when I sang to the major papers (and never following up on my chances for writing for wired — second time in my life I’ve blown a major opportunity like this) about my relationship with se7en which seems like a nightmare and a life time many times removed from now.
the anger subsided later on in the night when paul and i had hit the local barnes and noble and i got a tall raspberry mocha frap (i am a trend setter — starfucks is now selling a ‘raspberry mocha chip’ frap in their stores. i don’t drink that swill — just mocha frap with raspberry syrup for me thanks).
but i couldn’t place my finger on what was making me so angry — so much has changed in the last four years since i moved to san francisco (almost four years to the day) and since when i left for Virginia. i sat there in the car just staring into space trying to think why i was so pissed, and not one goddamn reason was coming up. maybe because it was with my relationship with christian where i had laid all my eggs in one basket and they got scrambled or the thinking that my relief of finding someone like me wasn’t even close to being true. maybe it was the lies, the cheating and how i had fucked him in the summer of 97 when he was cheating on me with someone who he cheated on with me in Vegas. I still remember the look on his face when he told me he was breaking up with me — or the look on my face when i was jumping around for joy in my brain. I remember sitting in the bathroom at 4am in the morning writing in my journal about how much i hated laying next to him when i had no where else to go. I hated feeling weak and insecure and unloved.
with the help of Dr. B (indirectly I’ll add), I’ve been making a timeline in my head of where everything fell apart — and it was always with the men (which, one shrink had pointed out so wisely to me many years ago). With each passing relationship, where i had thrown myself into thinking i was in love with them, and getting trampled on only to have hurt the ones who have really loved me (danny, justin, and now paul). I think about this a lot – that the new spanking apartment in Herndon is still the crappy old apartment in El Cerrito, CA because in my head while the things around me have changed significantly, what is in my head has not. I still feel trapped and scared and unwilling to deal with what is truly bothering me than dealing with the present. and the past. and the future.
haven’t you ever just wanted to say “enough is enough” – but I’ve been screaming enough is enough for a long time now and I’m not getting any response back. i feel like the little boy who cried wolf — that simply (and honestly) no one believes me. it makes me smile saying that because in my youth — and to me my youth was in my early 20s, i always thought that the man i was with ‘right now’ was the one who was ‘forever’ — instead of just saying ‘he is mr right now’. but i was young and foolish and what did i know from any better on anything at that time other than i just wanted, simply and honestly, to be loved.
i wish someone had explained to me long time ago how to be more rational instead of being pigheaded and stubborn. i look at paul and i know deep in my heart we are meant to be together but from somewhere within I’m not allowing it to happen. to be relaxed and to watch him and love him. it was so easy a few years ago when he was 3000 miles away and like everyone before him, i have him and i don’t know what to do with him.
everyone wants me to talk, because i never say anything about me anymore anywhere i just agree and ask questions and forget what i asked. i want to learn about the people around me but forget when they tell me things because somewhere, unconsciously, perhaps i don’t care. or perhaps i care too much? it doesn’t hurt anymore thinking about it — i suppose the Effexor is good for one thing is stabilizing my emotions but for the last two years, i haven’t had that many emotions to deal with. i worry about the people who loved me I’ve left behind and about not being a good enough employee, girlfriend, daughter, sister daughter or lover.
i remember the ages of my youth falling with a twinkle in my eye and I’m watching paul going through what i went through less than a decade ago. i remember thinking i was never ever going to put myself in the position to be in a relationship with someone unless i was truly passionate about them and i remember what it was like being passionate and feeling i was in love with paul and knowing even know that i am but feel dead inside for no real discerning reason. sometimes i would think i would give up some things in my life only to feel alive like i did when i was younger and more naive because the i had not learned or handed myself to the ways i was now.
even then when i hated myself for being so impassioned i would look at this new self even more and shudder thinking what it was like to become her and how did she end up like this? i wish there was a way to chip the ice off of my heart so i can feel the love i feel for paul instead of looking at him sometimes waiting for him to leave like everyone else did before or lie or cheat or say something to make me wish i was noting more than a mattress with a hole in it. i wish i could feel the rage and the passion and the ups and the down of life instead of feeling like I’m drifting off into no mans land, on an ice cube in the Arctic.
i think you get my point.
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lisa

things i never knew i needed

Sam and i were talking the other day about home- based shit, when i started bitching about how the sheets from Ikea suck major ass, but because they were the exact shade red i wanted, i wasn’t going to give them up. You see, when she and I had gone Ikea shopping a few weeks back, i had purchased a brand new duvet, comforter and sheets in dark blue plaid with the sheets being red. The sheets, designed for queen sized bed which by the way I do have, have. not. stayed. on. one. single. night.
i dunno how hard it is to make sheets that fit, but i was unwilling to change them for something that didn’t match and was dealing with waking up laying on the bare mattress every morning. Sam, the smart girl that she is, pointed out that they have this thing at Bed,Bath and Beyond that keeps sheets in place. BUT wait, there is more! Not only did i get the sheet snugs, but i also ordered the comforter clips AND the bedskirt pins.
My life is now truly complete.
I had no idea that i was missing these great inventions until Sam pointed them out and i rushed right to the online stores to buy them. So imagine to my even great surprise when I get home today to find out that all my goodies had arrived.
And this is how i spent my Friday night — screwing in bedskirt screws and wrestling with the bed snugs to make sure those cheap ass Ikea sheets stay put.
Being domesticated kills me.
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1927 – 2000

Edison Keith Rabey
Born May 22, 1927 – Passed Away on April 25, 2000.
I had a long list of things I wanted to say today about my father, how this last year has changed me, how things have been going and how my anxiety had been forced out into the open, but, I would rather think in silence about the last year and what my father means to me then discuss it right now. I just am not ready.
I love you Dad.
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Lisa

getting started

the month of April has whizzed by pretty quickly and for it weren’t the fact that, well i just lost my train of thought, so there is no fact.
Sam and her husband Brendan came down twice this month, sending Sam and I into the flurry of shopping at Ikea, HomeDepot, and shopping for clothes.
Sam and I are nearly the same height (she’s 5’11 and I’m a smidgen taller) and our bodies are shaped very similar. We discovered that we wore nearly the same size and so i gave Sam a pair of jeans that were small on me but fit me fine. I took her shopping and let her enjoy the wonderment of finding clothes that FIT. We stormed HomeDepot at midnight picking up a level, anchors and an electric screwdriver to hang up cd-racks, shelves and anything else we could get our hands on from our nearly thrice spending sprees at Ikea. And thanks to Sam’s great sense of level and physics, my apartment now rocks.
Our first time setting up the cd-racks and picture frames (that she, of course, hand painted out of sheer boredom and discovered that she loved doing it) were off by quite a few inches. We *thought* it looked level, but her husband came in and looked at the wall and started laughing his ass off (as well as paul) because of the crookedness of the racks and frames. We are now the tool-time girls of Northern Virginia.
I love having Sam and Brendan down here as since they are a couple (and Brendan used to live with Paul many moons ago) and we all get along (there were days way back when when we all did’ not get along.) so well. But I know the drive down here is hard for them (300 miles one way but yet it always turns out to be an all day even for them as something always comes up — you know like Easter weekend traffic!) and I’m attempting to reciprocate by going back up there but scheduling time when we all have time seems to be a conflict. That and we are all lazy 🙂 I would love to go on a vacation with them somewhere new where we can call chill out for a week or so. *hinthinthint*
Rob’s roommate, S., and I got to talking a while back and decided to join weight watchers together (she prefer to be anonymous at this point) and start working out. I’m starting on a journal to get motivated on this. The whole schism of WW is that it’s a point system and you have x amount of points available to everyday. You can bank points and you can exercise points off — but the goal is that it helps people to lose weight and do a new way of thinking. I’m finishing up week 1 and so far (surprise surprise) and I’ve done fairly well for myself. Stayed within my point range and even worked out. The journal will keep a somewhat updated blabbering (I’m using blogger for this one) of the diet, weekly weigh-ins and what not. I’m really really really wanting this as I had promised myself to be thin by the time I turned 30 (which is in a little over a year) and be in shape for the rest of my life before I end up getting diabetes or anything else that runs through my family due to obesity. Yes, I am considered obese — I’m 100lbs over my “target” weight (and that’s at the high end scale). I’m shooting for a goal of 170-180 as being my “goal” weight but I need to take it 10 percent at a time and then work on it from there. I just got overly excited when browsing some online shops like oldnay.com and gap.com as they now carry larger sizes (up to a 20) but by their standards, I’m too big for a 20. which is funny because I can fit into a size 20 at lane Bryant but as S. pointed out, Lane Bryant also sizes up 1/2 size for clothes.
I hated being that inbetween weight a few years back where I had been too big for normal clothes and too small for Lane Bryant. Now the desire to feel and look sexy is far outweighing the eating and the simple ability to want to wear freaking JEANS comfortably is motivating me to do this.
The irony is that S. reminds me a lot of my friend Sherry from back home in Michigan — down to their attitude about certain things. I’ve tried looking Sherry up online and called her last known phone number, but it had been disconnected. She knows how to find me if she really wanted to — but not seeing someone for nearly two years can change a lot about a person.
As the month slowly comes to a close, I’m rushing around getting things together for my brothers 22nd birthday, Paul’s 21st birthday and my upcoming birthday in June (I’ll be 29 going on 22 — again). My father has been in my thoughts more so in these last few weeks as he’s been dead a year on 4/25 and that was with his death my whole anxiety had come unleashed out into the open. Last summer was major hell and I sure as fuck do not plan on going through that same hell again this summer.
Working towards improving something, even yourself, is such hard work. I could see where I slip as I watched paul eat Oreo’s tonight (I had two — which used up quite a few points and opted not to have anymore this evening) and thinking about the strange dreams I’ve been having and wondering what they mean, the smell of the fresh cut grass and feeling the sun burn against my arm as my legs stick to the leather of my car seats. Everything seems to be winding down nicely and everything seems calm for the moment.
Now only if I can get Wednesday (the spayed female pug) to stop mounting and attempting to fuck Lily (the unspayed female pug), my world would be a better place.
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Lisa

we make party

I’ve been up for the last few hours, having gone to bed early last night (on a Friday night, i know, I’m silly) preparing for tonight. We have invited nearly 30 people over to our “housewarming” party in which I can hope to get drunk, make mad passes at paul and then conk out sometime around 4am with a bottle of vodka in my hand.
the prep work for the party hasn’t been that hard. as usual, since we do not drink beer, i did specifically say that if you want to drink beer, to bring your own however that paul and i would be serving liquor to anyone who wants it. Brendan and Sam are driving down from joisy today to come see us (and meet me since brendan and paul used to live together) and I’ve invited most of the people we felt close to in the local area.
paul and i must both say we’ve been pretty disgruntled since coming to NoVa, while we’ve made some good friends, he has intoned on several occasions that the whole project of novageeks has failed. why? simply because we have over 50 people subscribed to the mailing list and it seems that the only time we ever do anything with any of the participants is when paul/I plan said outing. Whether it’s going to DC to see things, throw a party or going bowling, it’s seems that geeks will only do something if someone else initiates it.
Paul (and myself unfortunately) have gotten very frustrated with this as we’ve thrown dinners for major holidays (Easter and Thanksgiving), spent probably close to thousands on drink and food with nary a return or a thanks on the whole. which, you know, is very rude.
paul was pretty adamant that we were NOT going to throw a housewarming party. which is fine, but it had been so long since we’ve thrown any sort of party and it’s been so long since I’ve been TO a party, that i said fuck it, and decided to throw together one.
the irony is how many people are coming as compared to previously as well as to how many people are looking forward to it. Our apartment is more spacious now that we can have more people sitting comfortably (however, i had to intone several times about us having dogs and the simple fact that they shed. this however, did not seem to deter anyone from wanting to come) and having a good time.
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lisa

for each other

my latest session with Dr. B. covered two main things — sex and food. Two of my obsessions, both of which currently have been pushed down into the void of my stomach. literally.
when i was younger (13/14/15), i was very very very insistent that i would not lose my virginity. my own curiosity about sex and the actual act lead me to believe that i would eventually become a nymphomaniac. I’m not kidding. as time went on, and i did eventually have sex, it was not under the best circumstances and it wasn’t until i was a tad bit older and had started dating Alan had i realized what making love was all about.
in the years that have followed, sex has become both the curse and the gift that i have carried [this is not meant to sound pompous — it just is]. i gave myself physically to everyone i slept with, thus making it seem like i was the best lay around, but on the other hand, i was emotionally absent and distant from my lovers and sometimes deriving no pleasure from the act or the foreplay or anything sexual that surrounded me.
there was a time when things such as mens magazines (hard and soft core porn magazines, etc), toys, “erotic” movies and what not would lead me unto temptation with my current lover. i was aggressive, i was demanding and i started getting to the point where sex with my boyfriend usually had to be rough and with me usually NOT facing him in any position. i preferred doggy style or some other ‘humiliating’ position in order to even feel remotely turned on.
as i started getting older and started becoming more aware of who i was, sex was the gift i gave and used to tantalize men while i withheld it on some levels from myself. in my whole entire life, i have only orgasmed less than 1/2 dozen times with a partner and there has only been one person whom i have been able to masturbate me and orgasming with them masturbating me.
exotic and erotic love making has always been my forte. i saw nothing (and still do not) with being a bit rough.
‘rough sex’ is one of the reasons why paul and i got along so well when we first started dating — and it remains one of things we giggle about into the night. but after the first six months of mad passionate monkey love — it came to an almost abrupt stop.
in a lot of ways, it coincided with the death of my father and as the summer of 2000 wore on and the anxiety became worse — the last thing i wanted to think or feel or do was have sex.
within my discussion with Dr B, we talked about how food and men and sex and everything else always wraps up to some of the same ideas — ie, about how i eat to be fat because i don’t want men to be with me, how i hate the way i look because I’m fat and how i don’t feel sexy enough because I’m fat and so on and so on, with the same circular argument happening … and it’s been going on for years.
Dr. B. suggested that paul and i read For Each Other, a book that helps explore sexual intimacy between couples. She also suggested that I read the companion book for females For Yourselfwhich explores sexual intimacy within yourself. I bought For Each Other and started reading it in the tub, skipping over all the main stuff thinking “hell, this doesn’t apply to me” — and paul came up to me and said “You do that all the time. You get something and you start in the middle thinking it doesn’t apply to you when it DOES apply to you” — which is true. It’s like anything I do, I start in the middle, thinking it doesn’t apply to me — when it does in fact apply to me and I don’t want to admit it.
Paul and I settled down that night and started reading and started practicing the exercises in the book.
I’ll let you know how it works out.
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lisa

new digs!

if paul and i extol the virtues of our apartment any longer, someone would think we were being paid to do so.
the big move day was 3.15.01, where we both woke up at 5:30, to drop the dogs off at the new apartment (so they wouldn’t drive the movers nuts whilst loading and unloading) and to drop paul off at work. That’s right, you heard me correctly. That mother fucker had a very important meeting the day that we moved and I ended up directing traffic for it all day. Which, ironically, wasn’t as bad as I make it out to be. With my dominate nature and how much of a control freak I am, paul would have just been in the way. Regardless, the fact he had to work is enough for me to extract punishment from him. 🙂 Just kidding. Really. I am just kidding. Maybe.
The move really went off without a hitch, really. We had packed most of the house the previous days and basically all I had to pack was the kitchen and the bathroom. The movers carted all 30+ boxes (half of them books…) down three flights and were not looking happy to realise that they had to cart all 30+ boxes back up four flights (including what scant furniture we have). The movers were at the old place at 9:55am and were gone from the new place at 3:00pm. By the time paul got home, I had started unpacking most of our stuff (leaving the computer/office room and the kitchen for him) and I was lying on one of the futons watching teevee trying to keep my eyes open.
here is the floor plan to our apartment. nearly 1400sq feet and in person, the apartment is HUGE. You might be wondering why we needed a three bedroom? Good question — typical couples get one maybe two bedrooms. However, since paul’s sister was planning on living with us before we got this apartment, we had to find one that handled large dogs (she has a 50lb boxer) — and this place was perfect. Like Penderbrook, I did all the leasing information over the phone before I even saw the place — we were getting desperate looking for apartments that handled large animals and had the space we needed. When paul’s sister “changed her mind” (ie: flaked on us), we took the apartment any ways, with the option of having a guest bedroom/sitting room for me.
I took Wednesday till today off to deal with the move and get the dogs in order. Every night paul and I have been taking baths together in the “garden tubs” and we are both amazed our fat asses can fit into one 😉 I’ve been walking around on the ubersoft carpet in this daze that I can’t believe this is *my* apartment and *I* live here. With the furniture (or what little we have) spread out, I can see several buying trips to Ikea coming up in the near future. The bedroom is “technically” smaller than the one at Penderbrook, however, once we got the bed and dresser moved in, we noticed there is enough room for another dresser against one of the walls if we choose, a teevee stand and a chair/love seat. We are figuring Penderbrook shortchanged the rooms somehow because with the same bed, dresser, teevee stand we have now, we could not have fit the additional pieces of furniture in there AND have room left over. The walk-in closet is large enough to fit a twin size bed in there and the bathrooms are wonderful. The kitchen is large enough that we can have both the dishwasher door and the oven door pulled down without hitting each other. The dogs have plenty of space to roam and play and everything is just wonderful all around.
Don’t I sound like a goddamn advertisement for this company?
But it’s true (it’s true!).
There have been a few problems since we moved in here, nothing that couldn’t be fixed and for the most part, OakWood has been very gracious about getting some of the items attended to. I found out from one of the maintenance guys that our apartment was never on the “daily clean list” the day before we moved in — which is funny since they knew we were moving in a month ahead of time. But they are fixing everything in a more timely manner and there is people on staff 24/7. Hell, I’ve been so motivated by the move and just starting to realise how a new apartment makes one feel better, I’ve been thinking about starting to work out again. But as always, I let the thought keep wandering.
Sometime between Thursday and Friday, I pulled a muscle in my back and i was calling (in pain) to our chiropractor to have him put me back in shape. As Friday wore on, the pain got worse where I couldn’t even get in/out of my car without difficulty. When I got home from running errands Friday afternoon, paul attempted to “put me in my place” which resulted in me screaming like a little girly-man cos it hurt so goddamn bad. I couldn’t move to my right or bend to my left without screaming bloody murder. But, on Saturday morning when I woke up, I realized the pain was gone with no trace or after shocks, if you will. It was, very odd.
One of the great things about moving (even though there are just a few it seems) is how much you discover about yourself and how much crap you find that you forgot you had. I found my partial collection to strangers in paradise, the comic for the non-comic reader, that i had forgotten I had. I have not read any of the current books since issue 13 (and they are now up to issue 38 — shit) and sitting in the “sitting room” floor reading the comics made me realise how much I’ve missed Katchoo and Francine. I started digging around and found that amazon.com carries all the trade paperbacks for them up to the latest one and I’m thinking about subscribing to have SIP delivered directly to my door. If you haven’t read SIP, I would highly recommend you do so. NOW I SAY, NOW GO BUY IT. ahem.
I’ve also discovered I’m a bigger fan of Anne Rice novels than I care to admit. I have almost all of her work in paperback and hardcover and that alone frightens me. But she amuses me and I like being amused.
Speaking of books, TLC BookClub seems to have fallen to the wayside — it hasn’t helped that my own mind is on other matters.
I’ve also got to stop buying these books written by brits — akin to “Bridget Jones’ Diary”. I keep purchasing these books (without intention really) that tend to be all based in London and written from the female perspective and it’s always about these whiny bitches who have issues. or something. The horrid part is that since I’ve been rating my books on amazon.com, they’ve been suggesting other related authors. ARGH! It’s madness i tell you, madness.
I have more to say, but it’s 1am in the morning, I have to work tomorrow and geekbox is down so who knows when you’ll be getting this.
Go buy me something. My wish list is getting too goddamn long .
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Lisa
 

go braves!


The picture to your left is that of my brother (#5) after tonight’s pounding on Illinois State, 73-66.
the braves have had a long hard road in the past few months and I’ve been eagerly listening to their games via wmbd radio that has been broadcasting their games live every night. tonight was the only game I’ve sorta missed since we started listening since i had forgotten the game was starting at 5pm EST and not the usual 7-8pm EST.
But we caught the last four minutes of the game and I wooped loudly when i heard that they won. My own brother contributed 12-points, four blocks and seven rebounds. Jeff also has 76 blocks for the single season games, beating the old record at Bradley of 72.
Tomorrow night the braves go up against Indiana U. and will be broadcast on ESPN at 9pm EST.
I also emailed ESPN to correct them of their “error” that they show that my brother did not play tonight — he so did 😉
Congratulations jeff!
Links:
Bradley U.
Braves Mens Basketball
Braves Standings @ ESPN
Jeff’s standings via ESPN
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lisa

dear old mom

earlier this evening, after speaking to my mom for about a half an hour, i hit the “end” button on my cell with a heavy heart. this has become a common occurrence when speaking to her as of late.
>it seems that earlier this week, when she was visiting my brother in Peoria for his basketball game, she had awoken up the morning after the game with a burst blood vessel in her eye. This was due, i find out from her, to her diabetes and this was not the first time this has occurred. When she arrived home back to grand rapids, she had emergency laser surgery done on her eye to repair the damage.
it was then she dropped the ball to me that she had wanted to up our plans and move in with us this year.
paul and i had talked about this previously prior to the bombshell this evening, and while i accept my mother is getting old and sick with her diabetes, i don’t know if i can accept the responsibility of her issues. i know, that the guilt deep down inside of me is pushing to do this out of fear and out of the fact that it feels like (to me) i neglected my father during his last few years on this earth. i know i know, everyone says it is not my fault and things work out the way they are, but i feel that the longer i fight to save my mother from herself and from killing herself (she was on suicide watch mid-last year), i find myself sitting in my car alone going, “I’m too fucking young to handle this”.
please don’t get me wrong, i love my mother. and i will admit that my fathers death was a blessing in disguise as we have been working on being close as a mother/daughter for the first time in years, i feel like i can’t breathe and i feel like I’m being suffocated every time something close to commitment of anything comes on. it doesn’t matter if it’s taking care of her, or paul or the goddamn dogs, i just want to break free and be alone.
on Friday afternoon, i drove to my shrink’s office with a heavy heart. after my conversation with Dr. B the previous week, i have been more silent than usual. not silent in writing but silent in communicating verbally to those around me. she and i had talked about this all the previous week about how when I’m asked what is ‘wrong’ i say nothing. the perfect example is when i walked into her office that afternoon and she and i sat there doing the “stare” for a good five minutes before i opened my mouth.
in all honesty, when I’m talking to her or to paul, or hell to anyone that cares, when asked what is wrong i always say ‘nothing’ because it is true — there is nothing wrong. my mind is often blank (so i think) and i just stare off into outer space. this has become more apparent as of late and those around me say they want to know what’s up and why I’m not communicating with them.
i don’t have an answer and i don’t have one major issue that if i talk about it, it suddenly becomes this catharsis of “wow, don’t i feel just fucking better”. it just simply, to me, isn’t that easy to discuss.
i had said to paul in many ways i was angry at my shrink for talking about things in the past — because it brought them up to light and it was issues i didn’t want to revel. things that are in the past and better left unsaid. however, my own behavior in the last year or two has shown that keeping it down deep inside is not the best solution, no matter how much i try and say it is. i often tout that I’ve worked past all those previous issues when I know i haven’t. it’s like, as paul pointed out, there are two me’s. the one that is angry and the one that is calm.
this got further discussed between Dr. B and I as I had told her that the words “hurt” “kill” and “stab” often pepper my vocabulary more often than I like. When I don’t like something or feel intimated, i often say “I’ll hurt you” and most particularly to paul “I’ll stab you”. I’ve often had thoughts of hurting people when I was angry and in the past I used to hurt myself. I remember when I was a child I used to sit there with needle and thread and only going through the first few layers of my skin, sew my hands together. I used to pull out big chunks of my hair (often from behind my ears where it wasn’t noticeable) by twisting and pulling. Dr. B. said I sound like a bully and she was right. But why was I acting like a bully?
In my younger years, I was often intimidated by those physically and mentally stronger than me (so i thought). I wanted to be liked so bad that hell, when I lost my virginity, it was due to peer pressure and not due to the fact that i had actually wanted to fuck that guy. Of course, years of beating myself up over it coupled with what I truly wanted were used to punish myself for what i had done.
Dr. B. says that having a vivid imagination or fantasy life is sometimes very healthy. If you do not act out in that fantasy life (you know, like i wouldn’t really stab paul even though I keep using it as a line of defense) it can help deal with anger. Many people say there is a fine line between fantasy and reality — and while often I feel that I often cross that path, acting it out inside my head is often a good release for whatever I’m feeling.
i never understood people who are ashamed or afraid to admit hey are seeing a shrink or are on drugs of any sort to make their lives easier. I have not qualms about facing reality and knowing that i have “issues”.
definitely something to think about.
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lisa