so i’m sitting here at work, which is constructively known as a lunch break. justin is now working the 9am-4:30pm shift as a telemarketer, and he swapped his hours to be in sync with mine. he commuted this morning with me, and this was probably the first time he had to deal with morning Bay Bridge traffic. we held hands, and joked as we slowly made our way into the city. it’s nice having him there in the morning. it doesn’t feel as lonely as it used to, when it was just me and Howard Stern/Vinnie & Sarah. I am attempting to recruit daniel from work to ride with us as well, so that we can grab the car pool lane and save $2 bucks a day. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but, car pooling also allows us to zip past the backup at the toll booth.
Since I just got paid this past friday, it was one of the first times that i had paid bills straight after I got paid. Generally I just do things like go out and go purchase crap i think I need. I’ve noticed a trend in my spending habits, is that the more depressed I get, the more I spend on crap (does someone really need 30 pairs of shows?). Needless to say, it was weird to pay off things, and look at my pile o bills and notice they weren’t so high anymore.
however, this is not the real reason why i started writing this in the first place. this morning, my friend AntKnee, from sf-fumblers, posted this story about how he was a party this weekend, and one of his friends stopped breathing. Only one person out of the whole group knew how to do CPR, and it was frightening to realize that this was damn near an average statistic. This prompted me to write a reply to how I felt about the whole situation and general health as well.
Last night Justin and I were laying in bed, and I started to talk. I had been feeling so disassociated with everything recently, that I can’t even conjure up (or imagine to conjure up), feelings of anything else other than survival. I can’t imagine that not so long ago I was in love with Justin, and I thought the world was at my fingertips. I spoke of these things to him, and told him how I felt. Somedays I loved him more than life itself, and other days, I felt like I never loved him at all. he asked me if the later was pretty recent, and I said ‘yes, it was’. I didn’t want to say these things because i was afraid of hurting him and myself, for even when i did say them, they felt both true and false. i feel in a way that i’m living life vicariously through other people: i see what they have and attempt to emulate it to some extent. i feel detached and alone. this is not uncommon with me: i’ve felt this way before. but the difference is, that in a way, i don’t know if i want to correct or help this now. it seems to be so heavy of a burden.
but the flip side is, i look at my life within the next 10 years, and i see myself still working for a start-up company, where i’m not making that much money and i’m living with justin hand to mouth every month. i don’t want to live my life like that. it frightens me that i can and would become something like that.
not so long ago, i had these ideals of how life, to me, was supposed to be. it represented this sort of nuance i felt that very few people had or would want to have. this feeling of ‘something’, that can’t be explained and that when i attempted to explain it, would become more of a choked up answer than a reality.
i remember once, jeff and i were talking on the phone. i think it was the first phone conversation we had. i remember talking about this feeling of a ‘whore’ that i felt, that because i couldn’t connect with anyone on any sort of level, that my ability to move from one relationship, almost effortless, raised a few eyebrows. jeff said ‘i know what you mean’, or something like that. i remember leaning back on my bed, closing my eyes and sighing deeply, because for that one moment, i felt okay. one other person in this whole fucked up world could feel what i felt, and i didn’t feel so alone anymore.
sometimes i miss that feeling. and i have had to think about what was it that i missed? did i miss him? did i miss what we ‘had’? did i even love ‘him’? i realized, i missed that feeling of feeling ‘okay’ even for a short while. i didn’t love jeff zapotoczny as himself, i loved the idea of what he was in my mind. parts of me loved what he represented to ‘me’ on other levels. i don’t know if i ever loved ‘him’ to begin with. so much was wrong that i simply ignored it, and thought i could accept it.
the irony is that, now, nearly two years since it began, and nine months after it ended, i feel nothing that would construe as what i felt before. time heals all wounds. time allows you to forget. but time also makes you remember those painful times when you don’t want to.
to justin’s credit, i feel some of those same things i felt with jeff. the analogy, which includes all my past lovers as well, is like a birthday candle: it lights quickly and burns for a short amount of time before dying out. with justin, it’s like those endless flame birthday candles: it lights up, dies and comes back to life again.
i wish life wasn’t so complicated, as to that i feel like everything was happening without me. i wish that i could not be in ‘pain’, for whatever pain it is, so that i can enjoy what i have. justin says, that because of who i am, nothing is going to be easy. and i suppose on some levels he is right, but it would be nice to know that for one day, everything can be okay.
Category: The Lisa Chronicles
talk about the passion
this has probably been one of the most shittiest weeks i’ve had in a long time. starting off with the insurance company fucking me over several times (and not using lube), and ending with me almost quitting my job, i guess nothing could get any worse. well, save for the fact i was to be in sf to finish working on the project we are doing for alice 97.3, and i didn’t hear my pager, my phone or anything going off to meet dave in the city. i didn’t roll out of bed until 3pm, nearly 14 hours after i crawled in. now it’s early sunday morning and my toes are freezing.
which to say isn’t a good thing.
however, on the bright side, justin cleaned the hell out of my printer, and now the smearing problem is gone. i can now write letters to people, which, i owe some to my mom mainly, and my main excuse for not writing was due to my printer not working properly. now all we need to do is get some rj-45 cable and a hub, and we are all set for our little network.
but what i have been worried about, in a more serious way, is passion. i’m not talking physical passion, i’m referring to passion of anything and everything. the way one likes/loves a movie, an object, a book, something. whatever, it does not matter: just passion. It could be the way you feel about a football team or a softdrink. well you get my point.
regardless, the situation at hand is that lately i’ve been feeling not as passionate. i can’t say how long i’ve been feeling this way, but, all i feel like is that my life revolves around getting up in the morning, going to work (after fighting with traffic for an hour), listen to people moan in the office, come home and go to bed. that’s my life. all the things i’ve been wanting to do or see haven’t been materializing themselves, and i feel hopeless.
i look at justin’s face, at my roommate filtering in and out of her busy social schedule, at the people i work with and their lives, and i still feel like something is missing. i don’t know what it is, i just do. i have never been able to explain the feelings that sometimes rise in my body, and sometimes i’m not able to clarify even when i do say something. i find myself almost on the verge of tears when i see wonderful things occurring around me, and i feel stale and lifeless.
i feel like the plants sitting on our front porch: thirsty for life.
my complete version of things does not always meet what everyone else see’s. mayhap for instance it’s not that i want to go to school to learn (which i do), it’s because i’m hungry for the experience of doing so. i’ve often felt cheated of what i have received in my life, and other times, i feel sickened by what i have let occur. my mind becomes this empty waste pot of nothingness, all because the choices i’ve made. it’s easier to fool yourself into believing you are happy then actually attempting to achieve it.
and justin wonder’s why i’m so ambitious.
hi! my name is suzie (homemaker)
again, i could play catch-up. it’s amazing how quickly the month just zoomed by, and the next thing i know, it’s now almost october, and my poor widdle web page hasn’t been updated nor has it been revamped as planned. such is the life when I’ve been promoted (don’t start counting my sheckles yet. it’s basically in name only.), and my hours have switched from swing, to regular joe (ie: 8-5). because of this, since i was getting up early in the morning to work on my site everyday, i had more than plenty enough time to get an entry done for the day. now, i barely have time to shave my legs, so before i knew it a month went by.
changes and occurrences happen as they usually do. for me the past month involved with: having my first fight with Justin, getting into a fender bender, having a close friend die, being promoted. having one of my oldest internet friends come out and visit me. plus add in driving to Vancouver for the final Lilith fair (which i want to write about asap), going to great america with the irish kids, camping out at montara beach last night, suddenly i’m miz social butterfly with no room to breathe.
i have found it’s stifling, primarily how my life was turning out. i saw myself in 10 years still living in sin with Justin, and then i was so busy worrying about this bill or that bill, or whatever, and it drove me insane. I know a part of me has that ‘maternal’ quality to it, but still, it makes me mighty nervous when it comes down to it.
so justin and i had a long talk, and since he doesn’t feel motivated to go back to college, I am. I have been planning on applying to a community college here in SF until i can get my transcripts from my old school and figure out what i need to do to graduate. so come january, it’s full time school for me! yippee! then I will take over the world. as you know, lisa-ism will be revered in all countries and i will be worshipped as i should be.
keep it simple, stupid
now the whole essence about doing this website, was based on the premise of keeping it simple. i needed a gimmick i could use to keep it short and to the point, while also making it upgradeable. here is the premise: i currently own three domains: simunye.com, trippingonstars.org, simunye.org. simunye.com is the concept that i was going to do internet consultation. at first it was a rocky start, but within the space of a week, i have gotten four contract jobs doing side work for personal and business based clients. everything from basic html instruction to winders instruction. (no can kick my ass in winders, sorry). taking that basis, I’ve gotten pretty handy with hardware, I’ve known software for years, basic lan configuration, some unix (get this: *I* helped justin install linux *tither*), pc crap up the wazoo, and of course, internet crap in general. take my roommate who works for cybercash as a unix support engineer, justin who knows hardware (and soon unix!) like there is no one else’s business. sasha, who knows front page to make bill gates weep and dedicated support (configuration of routers, dedicated lines, dns addressing), and you have talented people who are going to know their shit. christine was bugging me, because already with me doing four clients within the next few weeks, i have overflow, so sometime in my spare time, i have to show her html to make up the slack. argh! but that is going to be the generalization of the business. i figure if these fuck nuts can command buku bucks for ‘NT sever admin’ and don’t know RAS, i’ve got it made.
simunye.org: this is going to take over as my personal site, mainly dealing with the lisa chronicles (which you are reading now), personal stuff about me, my pet projects and what not. plus host the archive for the lisa chronicles. i’m not sure how much space bryan is letting me have for hosting my domain here, but heck, i’m just darn cool as it is.
trippingonstars.org: okay, here is the deal. anyone whose been reading this knows that i’m good friends with will, who lives in seattle with his adorable son liam. will found this place on the web called xlibris.com. what this place does is it will publish your book for a flat rate of $475US dollars. Your book will then be “published” as well as you get a set percentage from every copy ordered. sounds pretty good deal huh? so i’ve been checking into it some more, and i need to find out if we get a Library of Congress number, as well as other cool stuff. so will pitches this idea to me, i think it’s rad, and then I think: the more people who submit to this, the cheaper the cost of the book for the initial start-up. but then the proverbial light bulb goes over in my brain, and i realize that i can also generate money from advertising, and as well as partnering with companies such as amazon.com. at this point though, a lot of this is still ground work that i have to cover, and with three domains now to be filled and idea’s to be completed, i’m going to quite busy.
but the main fucking point i was making here, is that i’ve been spending the majority of my day figuring out how things were going to work, in terms of how i wanted the sites to look. and i realize that the more i spent time on debugging a new idea, the more time i spent making something look like crap. basically i’ll excel at what i know: keeping it simple and to the point. however, the need to be ostentatious is driving me nuts, but i’ll survive.
social engineering for dummies
so tonight i’m whacking away at my web site(s) and justin is sitting on the couch watching the telly. he’s flipping through the channels and all of a sudden i hear an announcer mention something about yobie benjamin. i ask justin to stop and i get off my ass and walk that big three feet into the living room, and take a look at the tv.
i’ve known of yobie (via email, not in person), since about october of 1996. one of my interests then was internet/computer security, and i has subbed myself to several lists pertaining to that issue. one list, dc-stuff (maintained by pete shipley), is basically a bunch of hax0rs that congregate every year in Vegas for DefCon. But you can glean some good information out of the lists, which just like all lists tend to have a bunch of noise.
anyway, yobie is being interviewed about a new virus called “back orifice” put together by a SF based hacker called SirDystic (get it?). Basically, this “virus” is attached to a program, and even with just having the program down loaded onto your computer, enables the other person to have free access to your files. SirDystic’s main point was that it was to show that winders (all flavors) were NOT security conscious, and that anyone can hack into it.
Okay, who cares about hacking into winders? I can see this guy’s point, however, what he doesn’t seemingly get is going to be the backlash of this. now not only are all the kiddie point and click guru’s going to attempt to hack into some poor unsuspecting person just downloading their pr0n off the net or whatever, which is going to translate into mass hysteria if that person suddenly calls his isp (which with my luck is going to be the one i work for, but i don’t do phones anymore, hurrah!), and is there going to be problems!
ugh, never research anything on the net. you could spend hours.
to make a very long story short, yobie mentioned about how the common set of hackers is basically ‘social engineering’ ones: basically ones who know nothing but think they know everything. i quipped ‘hrm, must be talking about se7en.’ Justin laughed.
good night sweetheart, yeah it’s time to go
footnotes now that it is 12:53am, 9.21.98
*The archive for the lisa chronicles should be up tomorrow (or today literally), and no later this week, depending on my work schedule. shit i have to drive to menlo park tonight. damnit. okay, later this week it is.
*hopefully all websites will be functioning at full force later this week, a week and half from at the latest. by the end of september for sure.
*i am addicted to coke slurpees. so you can guess that I’ve been sucking down while doing this.
*any potential authors who want to be included in my little project, smack me on the ass and tell me to get a move on it. oh yeah! send me your short story and I’ll see what i can do. *neither Photoshop 4 OR 5 likes winders 98. hrm. justin just installed Linux. should be downloading the binaries to gimp then. actually, I got the itch to install Linux so bad, i spent some major time dinking around with him then working on this. blow me. 🙂
miss me?
It’s been 10 days, 23 hours and 55 minutes since I’ve done an entry. 🙂 (I just love time stamping!)
Depression is a sickness.
For the better part of this period, I had been living in a fugue state of depression. it’s cycle reared it’s ugly head once again as i was struggling to keep from falling apart. many things always seemingly contribute to my depression. whether it will be a slight weight gain, change in diet, love life status, or anything else in between. Saturday the 15th, justin, michael and i had gone driving down route 1, and frolicked among the beaches towards Santa Cruz. that night, distraught over not having met my friends in time to go to the bar, i came home and hurriedly took a shower and got dressed. when one of my favorite skirts started feeling tight, i pouted and ripped my clothes off, put on sweats which threw me into a state of depression. justin was perplexed, his answer was “wear something else”, but if your a girl, and like me have a ton of clothes, one item not fitting is enough to make you go batty.
sunday afternoon, i suddenly felt immensely better.
the onslaught of my period makes my depression go away, for the most part. i have found correlations between pms and my depression, and when i was on the pill, i was able to pinpoint exactly when the depression was coming and how to best prepare myself.
but it’s exasperating, at best, to always be in this constant state of flux. i hate dealing with it, and i hate feeling so damn helpless. when a piece of clothing throws you off your rocker, it’s serious.
some would say it was time for me to do something about it, and i do agree. what that something is i can’t quite figure out. seeing a therapist for the most part isn’t logical: i find them to be more voyeurs than helpful. i don’t feel comfortable seeing someone on such a regular basis, when i feel that my depression can fluctuate so much.
ovaries for sale
Friday night, i went out with sasha, matt, deidere, and M to a bar in the mission called zeigeist. we lolled around outside drinking snake bites (half full sail and half apple cider), ragging on co-workers, all whilst i read the sf bay guardian (which has become this leftist rag over the years).
what intrigued me was the fact that in the personal ads in the back of the paper, it seems that ovary eggs are a profitable business now. with baby boomers, and those fucking yuppies wanting to have kids, but finding that they can’t. ads placed asking healthy women to call, and these same said women would be paid up to (if not beyond) $5000! i was aghast and greatly intrigued at the same time. my devious little mind started to think of all the cool things i could do with 5000 bucks: i could pay off my loans, i could pay my car payment for a year, i could finally get to Europe!! the idea’s were just bouncing around in my head.
but i knew, deep down in my heart, that i wouldn’t be selected. and the reasons were fairly obvious to me:
i smoke.
i have heart problems.
diabetes runs rapid in my family.
i’m not in the most excellent health condition.
i’ve done drugs in the past.
and i’m sure, if i sat here i could probably list everything wrong with me, so my little dream of selling one of my oh-so-plentiful eggs went down the tubes as reality smacked me in the face.
actually i lit a cigarette, and realized with the hostility in this town about smokers, one blood test and they would wave my ass away with a ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you’ deal.
sigh.
hey, i figure, if i’m not going to be having kids (gawd forbid!), then someone should take advantage of my surplus eggs. I mean, yes, the thought of having babies has appealed to me in the past, and sometimes I do get a hunger to bear little rugrats, but, I’m not in the position to take care of anyone other than myself at the moment.
as i said to justin this evening, while riding down the escalator in macy’s: i’m 26 years old, i only make $30k a year, and i haven’t even graduated from college yet! I can barely take care of myself at the moment, and another person would just be more of a burden then anything.
let the boys be boys!
my entry into the slam! contest is finally up. I’ve received fairly good response from my friends about the story I wrote, and even positive feedback from strangers about the meaning of the title in reference to the piece itself. those people i know, think my story kicks ass, and I should win. But I just chided them for the fact that they know me, and they aren’t overly objective about the whole deal. But it’s nice to be loved. 🙂
don’t hate me because i’m beautiful
lately i’ve been feeling awfully icky about myself. i’ve gained about 15lbs, which i really don’t need to gain, and i haven’t done much with myself in terms of dolling up. my standard attire (as seen from the picture i took recently), that my idea of getting ready pretty much means blow drying my hair! when the gang and i went out Friday, it meant that i actually got to put on make up for the first time in a few months, and feel pretty about myself. sasha lamented about how i don’t wear makeup to the office. i said “why should i? who the hell am i going to impress at fucking work?” so on Friday while getting ready to go to work, i had to dump a lot of make-up that i owned because it was old and worthless, and sort out what i won’t wear because it’s cheap and doesn’t work/stick/look good. which left me with my usual: powder/mascara/lip liner that has seen better days. i vowed to myself that i would purchase new stuff over the weekend, and so on the times i’m heading out to do whatever, i can feel like a girl again. nothing is more exhilarating then buying new lip liner. 😉
so justin and i trot off to the mall, and after buying this detangler he drools over, i asked the counter chick if they did walk ins? and if they did, specifically color treatments? she replied in the affirmative, and brought out this short, badly done haired older woman who asked me how long my hair was. i took the clip out of my hair, and let it drop to my shoulders. it was still wet from my shower a few hours previously, and the rich scent of my shampoo lingered for a moment. she fondled a few strands and told me my hair was too thin, and badly damaged, and she couldn’t do anything about it. I was like look mrs troll, i’ve done everything to my hair, and it’s healthy and strong as hell. you simply have no idea what your talking about. she said that she refused to work on it, and sent me over to a competing salon with a: “those girls will do anything.” statement.
i flipped my hair back up, and marched out with justin. i grumbled about the wench, and justin placated my fears by telling me an old wives tale: “never have your hair done by someone who has bad hair.” simple, yet truthful, i acknowledged this as the woman who waited on us looked like a troll, and her hair was a mess! thinning, badly needing of a touch up of color, and badly arranged on her head. hrmph. The irony of this is that the place was called ‘Lisa’s Beauty Supply’.
the receptionist at Heidi’s took us in, and 3 1/2 hours (and $125 dollars poorer), I walked out as a glorious redhead, and my hair healthy, bouncy and a few inches shorter. The woman who did my hair was the store manager, so I got in good with the right person. We argued a bit about shades: having dark brown hair, any reddish color ends up as auburn, which is fine, but I wanted to be REALLY RED. She says that red fades, and no matter what I do, it will go back to being auburn anyway. I pointed out a picture of a model with this orange-red hair, and declared “THIS IS WHAT I WANT!” She shook her head slowly, and told me that with the condition of my hair (did I mention a few months back, determined to get rid of the wave i had in my hair, i gave myself a straightening perm?), with bad coloring jobs, and not being cut in over 6 months, I was more or less asking for trouble. We compromised with that after this treatment, if i wanted it to be that particular color (which would mean bleaching my hair white, and then adding color), she would do it no questions asked. I sulked and agreed, and am pretty happy with the results. The almost blue-black color I dumped on my head last summer is almost completely cut out. the frizzies that perm i gave myself is gone, and my hair feels good again, not icky like it had been these last few weeks. while i’m happy i took the plunge, my checking account is mocking me for the expenditure. but i look at it this way: i may be broke, but you do only live once!
justin and i walked out of the mall, both a bit poorer (i splurged on my definicils mascara by lancome, and port lip liner from clinque. throw in two bars of nautica soap for my brother, and it had been an expensive day), but i was feeling slightly better about myself.
we sat in my car for about 20 minutes before we left, talking about my plunge, and i said: “you know justin, it’s always amazing to me how when i’m feeling icky about myself i either eat, or if i decide not to eat, i spend money i don’t have to spend’. he nodded in agreement and started talking about my obsession with clothes, shoes, bags and do-dads. the money i could be saving for a trip to Europe, or to do whatever, i was blowing the minute i got it. my bills were being paid, but it was a shuffle of monies at the time it’s occurring. and i’m tired of that. we agreed that since i inherited a tennis racket from cathleen, and justin bought one today, that instead of eating or shopping, i was going to play tennis. and goddamn it, it will kill me to exercise, but i won’t look like this any longer.
society is so fucked. for instance, in a mag i read some months back (cosmo, vogue, one of those glossy mind wasters), they did a poll of average American men about women’s shapes, and it all came back they want someone with meat on their bones, not a kate moss! so why the fuck are vendors, clothes manufactors and others always putting size 2 models in the fucking ads?
i was reading in cosmo today, letting the color seep through my brain, this story written by an emmy-award winning comic writer who could no longer wear a size 4 anymore.
i cringed.
i have NEVER gotten down to single digit sizing, even when i was younger. it seemed i went from jr’s in the kids department at sears to a size 11 in my jordaches when i hit puberty. even at my thinnest, i couldn’t wear anything lower then an 11, and that was on a good day!
i just don’t fucking get it.
to me, it is not about sizing anyway, it’s about how i feel. the weight i lost last summer, i’ve gained half back, and i still need to lose X on top of that. uck uck uck.
clothing for me has always been an issue, so it’s not necessarily a weight problem. i’ve always been busty, and shirts never seemingly fit right. because i have a long inseam (32inches, average is 29), my pants are always too damn short. i have to wear mens jeans for my hips and legs, and scout around for good shirts to fit my bosoms.
and justin wonders why i obsess about clothes!
okay, that is a poor excuse, but fuck, i’m determined that i either balloon up and shop at lane bryant or i get my ass in shape.
What’s even worse, is that there is a store in the mall we go to, that sells the funky off-beat clothing i like in ‘plus’ sizes (what an oxymoron). the problem with this is that their version of 3x is a size nine! i bought a 3x skirt from there, and it fit my roommate, who is a 9/11, better than it fit me. go fucking figure that one out. and it wasn’t a mis-tagged skirt, majority of their clothes are like that.
speaking of which, if you look at the lane bryants website, do not tell me that woman is a size 14! Because if she is, i’m freaking miss America.
I’m feeling a bit hostile this morning, so excuse me.
the crooked spine
in any endevour i will do to earn some cash, i found this cool thing via amazon’s web site.
basically what it is, is that you sign up free of charge as an ‘associate’, and link back to amazon. for every sale that they get, referred from your website, you earn a percentage (as high as 15%) on the purchase. kick ass!
since i’ve been html’ing my books and cd’s for a year now, and basically thought it was a waste of time, except for those who were actually interested in that crap, this basically allows me to open up a ‘store’ and have the readers browse my selections i have. if they like anything i have, they can go to amazon’s site, via the handy links i provide, and boom! they buy something, and i’ve got sales! the advantage for me is that i currently have close to 300 books and 200 cd’s. The cd’s are already html’d, but the books i’m working on now. actually the cd’s need to be linked back to amazon, but anyway, what a cool idea!
justin named our store the crooked spine, so please visit and let me some words on what you think this is cool or not! and remember, tell amazon we sent ya!
what would you do
when i went to deposit my check today, i was fumbling around attempting to stick the envelope in the deposit slot, when it wouldn’t take. i looked up at the screen and saw that the atm had already accepted ‘something’ and said thank you for my deposit. i got my statement, and sure enough, shows my new balance with my alleged deposit, however, i was still holding the cash in my hand.
i did another transaction, and was able to slide the envelope on through, and when i got my statement, it showed my ‘first’ deposit, and my actual real deposit, giving me double what i ‘actually’ had.
i show this to justin, and bitch about the machines fuck up. and then another bright idea hit me: what would i do if the bank DIDN’T correct this mistake?
i thought about it, and eventually my sleazy ass decided that i would keep the money. justin said he would report the problem to the bank to have it fixed. I was aghast! this boy has morals! Justin further his comment about how he was walking down market st. the other day, saw a dollar bill lying on the ground. even though he didn’t have any money on him, justin walked right on by. a few blocks later, a beggar asked him for dollar. justin pointed down the street and told him where the dollar was.
okay, he’s honest, and maybe i would probably report the problem if the bank doesn’t catch it, but my head is still spinning with the thoughts of the extra money: woohoo! so i ask you, what would YOU do?
would you:
report it
spend it
do nothing
I’ll keep the poll up for a few weeks and report results.
ms. slim over and out.
worth a 1000 words
And I retaliate with this:
today will invited me to hang out on a dalnet channel, called #concrete, and this whole business of cams came up.
i was lamenting because i never really saw myself as being photogenic, and i think, overall, the idea that someone can sit there watching me eat my cheerios drives me nuts. it’s like, i have a hard time with justin being in the same room when i take a piss, so why would i want to announce it to the world?
it’s becoming a phenomenon though, due to the popularity of cu-see me sites. i don’t know, I’m still ambivalent about it. the idea seem’s cool, but, knowing how quickly i bore of things, i will probably move on to something else. plus i don’t think i would be all that entertaining.
fiction baby
last night, while i was browsing the web, i had remembered reading about a place that specialized in on-line journaling. I feel somewhat compelled to go there, as I have had a voice on the web since 1995. However, my attempt, now three years later to get in the game of on-line journaling, is being overshadowed by slick design and not a lot of content by other competitors.
however, i have realized that there are many people who can write articulately, and have something interesting to say. my friend jane is one such person.
but anyway, i found a another place that specialized in on-line journaling, also allowing people to create on-line journals, with the sake of anonymity, and also not having to worry about design, concept, and other such things. they just write, for the sake of writing.
while browsing around, i found that they held a slam contest, which is now all the rage with the lit world. intrigued, i read more on how to participate, and found it was fairly simple. the creatrix of the website presents a image, and you write based on that image. 1000 words or less please.
compelled, inspired, whatever; i wrote. my story, which i had to chop out 1000 words. I have presented both the abridged and unabridgedversion. Do be warned however, the unabridged story is not complete, nor has it been formatted in html or spell checked. I like the unabridged version better, and I will probably continue writing the story tonight when I get home from work.
my entrance into the art of short story writing prompted me to update Tripping on Stars, my anthology of all the on-line versions of my work. I have created a new category, called appropriately enough, ‘short stories’, which will host all the fiction crap i write.
i haven’t written any short stories in years, mostly dealing with i didn’t have the patience. my big concern (and now, don’t laugh), has always been with names: I could never think of names of my characters. last night it was pretty simple coming up with names, as justin and i have created fictional characters for ourselves. He’s Panama Jack, and I’m Virginia Slim, Ms. Slim to you. Unfortunately, since Virginia Slim happens to also be a trade marked name, our little shticks that Justin and I do have to be done in person or on IRC.
Carrying over our on-line shticks to real life has been really interesting, since we are both lovers of J.D. Salinger and F. Scott Fitzgerald, we end up doing these shticks based on the characters that those authors have created, namely Franny & Zooey, and Zelda & Scott, respectively.
On IRC, Justin and I would go for long periods of time just making up scenes and characters, to the bewilderment and amusement of those on the channel. This creation of characters included Jackie the Pumpkin (also known as Justin’s first wife), Harold the farm boy (also Justin’s ex-lover) and many others. He and I would sit giggling for hours just playing along, and no one would get what the fuck we were talking about.
That was always okay. We basically didn’t give a shit or not, because we got it and that is all that was important.
Justin is also wonderful because he has a mind like a girl. He’s not effeminate, gay or hell, even bi, but he knows how a girl thinks, and he also has good taste. he’s the best girlfriend a girl could have, and the wonderful thing is, he has a cock. Justin and I have decreed that i finally became a lesbian, since i’m fucking my best girlfriend. how many other men do you know that can sit with a female and talk to her about men, pms, clothes, make-up and is either not gay or afraid?
not many i would assume.
many of my friends have been concerned with the age gap (7 years), and it bothered me as well for awhile. but i realized love really doesn’t know age, race, creed or religion, it just is.
i don’t think about his age anymore, excuse me, i should say obsess with it. i’ve come to terms with the fact i will always be older than him, but since i look so damn young for being 26, and he looks older than 19, it’ll work. Justin’s life, which would make a therapist rich, has wonderfully made him more wise then his years. the big difference, was especially when my brother, who is also 19 was living with me, and seeing my brother act like a boy of 19 and justin acted at least 10 years older was amazing. you can’t always assume because of one’s age that they are mentally that age. watching my brother and justin interact taught me that much.
i love justin, and i love him very much. it’s been especially hard with me because i can’t always accept a person as they are: i have a habit of changing them. but i can’t do that with justin. i don’t know if he’s the one, hell, i’ve thought damn near every boy i’ve dated was the one, and i don’t want to muddy my relationship with justin thinking that. i just want to love him in the here and now, and not worry about the future. it’s really nice, being with someone who knows all your secrets, who accepts you for you and gives you the freedom to do what you want. as stated, since justin is barely legal, and i’m prone to go drinking and dancing, he doesn’t give a rats ass that i do things without him. he’s said, and i quote “as long as you come home to me, i don’t care”. he doesn’t question me, like Danny, if i’m late getting home from work, or if i make other plans without him. he understands that, while living together, i don’t need to spend every waking hour with him. but i do anyway. justin gives the best hugs. being 6’8″ must have a lot to do with that.
as always, i’m looking at the clock and now i’m late for work. a part of me doesn’t care, it just feels good to be writing again, and branching off into other area’s that i haven’t explored before. Jeffwas wrong: love is unconditional.
it feels good in my mind, that i can say these four words and not cringe anymore:
i am a writer.
search me baby
as we speak, i am in the process of adding myself to search engines on the net. on the san francisco webgrrls mailing list, there was a big conversation about how long it takes yahoo! to index their site, including submissions to them. The period that was so bothersome was that it took anywhere from two weeks to six months to get a site listed. I did a search on my name, lisa m. rabey, and i came up as the first hit. i felt oddly pleased about it.
i’m still waiting for spell checker to download to my home machine. there is something delicious about sitting on a t3 at work, but at home i’m waiting for hell to freeze over to before i can download the damn thing at 28.8.
I’ve pulled myself up several search engines, but, it has to do with the archiving of all the damn mailing lists i’ve been on. only yahoo pulled me up as myself in the first 10, others, I had to keep scrolling to the next page to get more info on myself.
since i’ve become addicted to keeping this page updated on a more timely manner (amazingly, I’ve been updating about once every other day), and i think of new and interesting things to say (i’m so witty, oh so witty), that i need to be indexed properly to gain more exposure.
a cool tool i found, was this search engine that keeps track of all the major competitors and what they are doing. going to this site enables me to add myself to their indexing, to let robots crawl all over my site and basically rate me in order of meta tags.
i love meta tags.
i won’t work without them.
thus far, i’ve added myself to the following sites:
HotBot
Lycos
AltaVista
Aol’s NetFind which i just read is now powered by excite! go figure.
Excite!
Infoseek
LookSmart
Web Crawler
Meta Crawler
Register-It!
the cool thing is that register-it! will do a trial version to eight selected sites. The irony is that i’ve already submitted myself to four of those sites today.
i can’t believe how much time it took to do this schiznit. i started over an hour ago, and now i have five minutes left before i have to get to work. the irony of that is that i was having fun, and it’s been ages since i’ve sat down and threw my information into the hopper, sorta speak. i had to get rid of all the bad urls, that just went no where. fortunately for me, my older sites such as the one hosted on grfn.org, I had added refresh materials in the meta tags to take the user to the new site, which is the one you are looking at now. thank goodness, that i also had a .forward file inserted for the email, because i’ve lost my password to that account.
i want to gain fame and fortune and be worshipped the world over.
justin is just damn happy that i’m writing everyday, where as before i wasn’t.
i’m just happy that i don’t feel so intimidated about my life anymore, and i’ve finally figured out how to write and get the content fresh and new to the readers.
my plans include writing short stories, and getting more involved with what i’m doing. you can always spank me if you wish to let me know how you like this site.
while it seems that i provide content for the reader, it is the reader (based on hits i get) that delegates whether or not this site is any good.
so spank me if you dare.
rad! no spelling errors this time. thank you spell checker!. the simple things please me.
animal farm
as previously stated, justin and I had a goal of reading all 100 books on Random House’s list of 100 best novels of the 20th century. My goal was to read all of the books on the editors choice and all the books on the readers choice, while justin was just satisfied on having read all the books on the editors choice.
we went to Barnes & Nobel last night, and scored some delicious savings by picking up several books for a buck. Since we could not find the list i had printed out, we guessed (correctly it seems) on several books, and also picked up Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Animal Farm by George Orwell, Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller and a Grahme Greene book. Tonight when I get home from work, I’m going to re-print out the list, and cross out the duplicates, and highlight what I already owned. I had already told justin that my distaste for Faulkner and Lawrence was was going to prevent me from reading their books. Faulkner is wordy and long winded while Lawrence (save that he influenced Anais Nin and Miller amongst others) just plain sucked. I had finished Animal Farm, which is a novella and not a novel, a few moments ago and was struck again by my political feelings (which while I’m a registered democrat , I tend to sway towards Libertarianism) for the world events, and brought up images of my IRC friends who were socialists.
See, I have always felt that the world is equal. By this I mean that we all have the same ability to live, breathe, eat, fuck, think and die. How we use this is up to our own invention. I have never felt that humans were equal in terms of work or life. You simply cannot take a group of homosapians and expect them to all want the same things: this simply isn’t true. This is why socialism would never work in its full regards. My wants and desires are not going to correspond with Cathleen’s, Justin’s or anyone elses. I am in induhvidual in that aspect, and that is how we are different. H.Sapiens may want the same generalized things: to be loved, to be successful, to eat good things, et al, but the generalizing of things isn’t diverse enough to be socially important. For instance, I may want to be loved (and I am), but how I want to be loved and whom I want to love me is not going to be the same ideal as how Cathleen wants to be loved.
I believe any H.Sapian is accountable for their own lives. The concept of “God” is a man made ideal, if you look back and look at the formation of the Bible, while it tells the story , supposedly from the beginning of the world to Revalations, it misses out some important issues. Namely:
- 2000 years of history that was removed from the beginning of time till 0 AD. This period, which covers ancient worlds of Egypt, Libya, Syria, Persia, and all Mediterranean/African/N. European areas in which pharaohs ruled the land, and we get the concept of many gods not just one. Ironically, Cleopatra (who was the last pharaoh of ancient Egypt, was part of the Ptomely clan, while her brother Ptomely the 13th died suspiciously) was the last great pharaoh of ancient Egypt. After her death, in 30 B.C., the remaining years of of that world was ruled by other family’s, namely those of Persian and Libyan descent. I just want to note that Ramses the Second, was a redhead. I found that damn cool. But he was a few hundred years before Cleopatra’s time. I find it interesting that this part of human history isn’t mentioned in the Bible at all. It is only through archeological digs that we have been able to reconstruct what happened during those 2000 years. Actually, I can correct myself on part of it. A great pharaoh is mentioned in the Bible, and it is referenced to Ramses II, but, that’s not enough of a source.
- It is mentioned, with the creation of Adam and Eve (leaving Lilith out I see), that they were standing upright, and had enough intellect, ability to live. Where are the caveman? Science teaches us that humans (and thanks to Darwin) we evolved from Neanderthals who roamed the earth for hundreds, if not thousands of years in semi-upright position. The things we take for, namely the ability to think and the ability to communicate, were not present. *grunt*
- The Bible in and of itself wasn’t actually put together and written till roughly 400 A.D. So my question is, who wrote the books and why? Namely, those books written by the 12 apostles, since they were of Jesus’s time, they were not around when the whole process was actually put together. Ironically, I have never been able to find information out where the original books of the old testament were found and written, since it is improbable that the original authors were not living at the time of publication.
- Since the Bible is always a best seller, is it on the fiction or non-fiction list?
- Why so many interpretations of the Bible? Mainly why are some issues seemingly resolved in some religious orders, and not in others. Who decrees is what for the best of that order and not for others.
- History teaches us, that back in the middle ages, up until fairly recently, that the only ones who were fairly literate were either those of a royal class or the “church” (since the classification of which church is dependant on what area you are actually living in at the time). What is an easier way of controlling a population other than some ‘hell and damnation’ speech, since the population, illiterate and somewhat gullible and stupid, will not know any better?
- Why is it that nearly every order I have found of some religious backing always makes it out that you have to have money, wear the best clothes and always be sinking money into some damn project of temples/churches. Whatever happened to “the meek shall inherit the earth”?
I’ve got a 1000 more questions and a 1000 more theories.
But I believe in work, where I should go now.
And people wonder why I’m an agnostic?
it is currently much later, and i am at work. i was reading my mail when on the listserv ChainGang a few ‘friends’ brought up that the link i had to random house was broken, and the spelling was wrong. i automatically fixed the error, and reported that. my friend Will thought it would be ‘cute’ to correct my grammar. i more or less told him what i generally tell everyone: ‘kiss my ass!’.
on the serious side, i was annoyed at how often i do misspell things, and often it is because i type so fast and because i really can’t spell. in the creation of this web site, justin proofed read it before i put it up and noticed that i didn’t spell check and had tons of errors. i jokingly told him that he could be my editor and check everything for me later on.
but it still plagued me about the misspelling issue. to me, when i go to a website, that is to look somewhat professional, and i see spelling mistakes, it irks me. okay, it irks me whenever i go to a site, period, and it’s badly spelled. but my take on this, and i know I’m right, is that i consciously try to spell things properly. but i really didn’t want to deal with the asinine emails from people about such and such being misspelled.
then there was light, and i found spell checker dot com and all was good again.
thanks to the makers of editpad, who linked spell checker dot com off of their web site, i found a place where i can user a cool macro with editpad, and i can write kick ass web pages and do spell check at the same time. rad!
my life is complete.
the maytag repair man
at one point or another, i think we have all seen those television commercials where the maytag repair man is lonely, because maytags products never need repair.
when Cathleen and i moved into our new place on may 15th, her stacked washer/dryer set was left at our friend rob’s until we could get a dolly and cart it on over. at the time, it was too big to fit into the ryder truck along with all of our crap, so for roughly two months we’ve been carting our laundry to the laundry mat. which, in and of itself wasn’t a bad thing; as justin and i would play chess while watching our laundry go from being dingy to making it snuggle fresh.
justin would always kick my ass in chess.
when rob finally brought the machine over, the washer worked but the dryer had a broken belt. Cathleen kept calling circuit city to drag their asses over to fix the damn thing. the repair man finally showed up this morning, and i answered the door in my big blue terrycloth robe, looking like something the cat dragged in. while he was fixing the dryer, i had changed into my sexy sweat pants and a tshirt i had gotten for work advertising the ultimate connection, a bbs that my boss owns for on-line sex. heh.
i bid the repair man farewell and went about cleaning up kitty litter, sweeping the floors and picking up dirty laundry to throw in the washer. i turn the cycle onto permanent press and set it for cold/cold and walk away.
then silence.
i walk back into the laundry room to smell, to me, brunt rubber. the repair man had disconnected the washer when fixing the dryer.
mayhap i am the only one who sees the humor in this, but again, that is all that is important.
I called circuit city and they sent him back. i tested out the washer/dryer before he left and now I’m spinning cycles with the best of them.
tonight we are having another bbq at our place. i had “depromoted” myself at work in order to get weekends off, and thus to celebrate that and just living in general, we invited the crew over for a bbq. i am so damned tired of hot dogs and hamburgers that i decided to wait till people get here to get an idea of what people would want to eat. I’m thinking shish ka-bobs and something else to go with it.
i open my fridge this morning to pour a glass of pineapple juice and basically clean out the damn thing. i see a frozen lump sitting on one of the shelves, and when i flip it over, i see it’s hot dogs.
the buns are sitting right next to it, slowly dethawing.
I have had this infatuation with pineapple juice for the last few months now. i don’t know what it is about it, but it is almost like i am pregnant (fat chance) and i am craving certain items.
every time we go grocery shopping, i always try and get a few cans of frozen pineapple juice so that i can have it willing and ready to go. the amazing thing I’ve found is that it is no problem finding the can juice, but frozen? it seems that in the ghetto area i live in doesn’t carry pineapple juice. to me it’s appalling. you can get a 1000 and one other flavors of juice, but pineapple? one store we went to, which is a large supermarket in the area, had a 100 flavors of juice by big names like minute maid and dole, but no pineapple juice. i found a can of something called ‘pineapple and starfish’ juice, which, when we opened and drank tasted like water. ick.
we are big juice fanatics in our household. justin drinks about a gallon a day to himself, not including his desires for grape slurpees and sprite. Cathleen buys snapple in cases and always has orange juice ready to go. i have my pineapple juice, which I’m thinking will taste might good with vodka.
lately I’ve been lamenting about the fact that i haven’t been to a bar in ages. i miss that. i miss getting all dolled up and going dancing and drinking and basically having a good time. it is hard, to me, to plan activities since justin is not yet 21. i don’t want to leave him out, but, he knows I’m more of a social creature then he is, and he keeps pushing me to just go.
he accepts that fact, but somehow i can’t. he’s happy just sitting and reading or playing basketball or working on something on the computer; whilst i want to go out and about and raise hell. he says he doesn’t mind.
it’s a healthy relationship.
oh, for the days of dysfunction.
justin and i have been close friends for about eight months now, and he’s been living with me for about a month. during that time, we have not once gotten into an argument. not even a disagreement. we agree on everything. okay, once at home depot when i tried explaining what i wanted to do to that damn fig tree in our backyard he pissed me off, but he was more amused then anything at my inability to articulate what i wanted.
I’m obsessing about the fact that i can’t have a dysfunctional relationship.
I’ve also been lamenting about the fact that i want to be a lush. my family has a long history of alcoholism; dad, grandad on both sides, basically relatives up the ass have drinking or drug problems. i feel damn straight because i don’t like having a beer occasionally anymore nor do i like getting high on some artificial stimulant. i have my moments where, like at our housewarming, i will just let go and drink into a stupor, but those times are so infrequent that it positively annoys me.
i want to be a drunk. at least then my problems will be real.
tonight I’m going to get a pint or a fifth of vodka, do a few shots and let go. maybe i should also take a shower. i have to be the perfect hostess in a few hours and i shouldn’t look like a goodwill reject.