actual statement from a bank on declining me for a credit card:
“we’ve determined that you have sufficient balances on existing revolving credit lines.”
does this make sense to anyone else?
i don’t see how a company can determine that a household with over 6 figure income feel that 1500 credit balance is “sufficient.”
i just find that to be incredibly funny.
last night, while i was beating my laptop for being such a piece of shit, paul decided to go ahead and pull up my credit report. It seems that equifax will for a low price of 8 dollars give you access to your most recent report. Checking i found that everything in the last two years was pretty darn spotless (no late 30,60 or 120 day reports, no judgements, no nothing). It was the stuff in the early 90s that’s killing me. But what was also interesting is that equifax has the wrong address, wrong birthdate, and a bunch of wrong information about me.
we had had a big discussion with friends about this on Saturday night when we were all sitting around watching kung fu madness. it seems incredulous to me (and paul and derrick and everyone else) just how hard it was to get credit these days. in the early 90s, when i was in my late teens, early 20s; you could walk into any department store and get a credit card and you were virtually on your way. Now, we are discovering with Paul, with /no credit/ file is just as bad as having bad credit. We can’t get him anything: not a gas card, department store card, hell not even a best buy card. he gets declined more often than I do. I told him what we needed to do, and what we are doing, is to get him on on the cards I have that is unsecured but has a high interest rate. he can use this card for all of his spontaneous shopping purposes (as well as finally send me flowers at work 🙂 without having to bug me about it.
i’m pretty happy with my current credit file save for the older and mis-information on it. I’ve worked my ass off to make sure that everything was set up correctly for it so that I wouldn’t have issues matters and concerns about the credit reports when i wanted something (a new car, new house, new body, whatever). my project this week is calling companies that show that i owe money and make a deal: you send me a letter stating that you will remove my bad credit statement from my record and you’ll get your money. sounds good to you? sounds good to me.
brotherly love
my brother, all 7’4 of him, will be flying into DC this upcoming it was an impromptu flight as we had been talking about him coming here for spring break, but it was all dependant if his basketball team won their last game before the playoffs. he wins, he’s got tourneyments to play in. he loses, he is coming to DC. since it was such a late date at getting him a ticket, the price was sorta high (and my brother has the misfortune to live in bfe Illinois where he’s too far to get a plane out of a major city) but well worth it in the end.
i haven’t seen him in nearly two years. i can’t wait.
this magic moment
we had a dozen people over at our house this past Saturday night for “Kung Fu Madness” in which we sat around eating Chinese food and watched bad kung fun movies. since we had stipulated that everyone be gone by 3am, we then carried the party out to denny’s where we sat talking about geeky stuff, while i read the USA Today from that weekend and party goers for Mardi Gras were stumbling in at all hours. As we got dropped off by our friends Lenny and Sunni in front of our apartment complex, paul had asked me if we had checked the mail for Saturday since we hadn’t we started walking towards the clubhouse to get said mail. Paul suddenly called out “sweetie” and as I turned around he jumped up in the air, literally clicked his heels and started singing “chim chimney” from Mary Poppins. It was then that I confirmed what I always knew: I’m going to marry this man.
I had related this to Paul last night when I was sitting here waiting for my windows laptop to stop being pissy (spent nearly 3 hours fixing various problems to get it working — don’t say a word). he looked at me like i had told him that i was insane as if that one defining moment was strangely the reason why i would marry him — and not any other particular moment. what can i say? it’s the little things that mean a lot.
this morning i woke up with him making me breakfast (which we shared while sitting in bed) and singing an elton john song as he brought it in. i giggled as he did this and look over to my left as he sits on the couch working on his laptop (his and her laptops — how wrong is that?). i love paul. i’m in love with paul. those defining moments which last mere seconds is what defines it for me.
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moi
Tag: ExFiance 2
um. yep.
i’m trying to think of a good excuse as to why i haven’t written in over a month.
none are forthcoming.
actually, everything everyone said would happen would: i handled things way too well. the move cross country, moving to a state i’ve never even BEEN before, starting a new job, getting an apartment, living with Paul. it all came crashing down in an instant.
at first everything seemed perfect when Paul moved in. NYE was a blast, got so drunk I have no idea what happened that night (except Paul tells me that I kept begging for sex in front of everyone all night and then finally passed out around 2am). work schedules, Paul ‘s job at thinkgeeks, the list goes on.
then it started slowly started falling apart. I don’t know what was going on exactly, that except Paul and i just found ourselves sniping at each other for no reason — and every reason. then it came out that we were going to NYC for LWE 2K. It was like one problem after another to get ready for this show. First it was *I* had no place to stay (andover (parent company to thinkgeek) had already gotten Paul’s rooms with a roommate), then i found a place to stay, then i didn’t know if i could go (was going to use all my vacation time and then found out UUNet was now allowing employees to go to cons on company time), then it was how to get there (i had opted for the train, Paul wanted to drive, guess who won?) and finally when i drove up in front of the Fitzpatrick Manhattan on Lexington Ave in NYC, i just started bawling. That got cured with a major gossip session with Kethryvis and rynsey. God, I had not realised how much i missed having “girl friends” (not special friends) around. you know, girl chat. Paul is wonderful, but it’s not like having girl time where we can dish about everything in general for hours at a time.
But the strange thing, and i’m not sure what happened, is that since we’ve been back home (after driving in a near blizzard via NJ and getting lost in DC) is that things have been better. being away from each other maybe? i don’t know. i do know, with long in-depth talks with keth every nights, things felt better between us. maybe because we had time to be away from each other? i thought i could find a reason, but i can’t. i just know that now that we are back suddenly things feel more relaxed. okay, our fish digital died, BUT OTHER THAN THAT, everything is falling into place. Paul has been chirping for the last few days because he feels he finally got the respect due to him (at his age, it’s hard to gain respect for his work because no one believes he is *only* 19 (yesh, the song “Mrs. Robinson” is played in our household) and that he’s come a long way baby). now i’m his good luck charm and *I* feel like it’s more me now.
i’ve been sitting here for the last few hours tonight, thinking about stuff in general, just wondering where my life is going , and the last month, the one thing I’ve realised is that how often i let depression (and panic attacks and paranoia) run my life. and i know I’ve stressed that before. too many freaking times. i know, thinking about it now, that one of the reasons i’ve refused to write is that i didn’t want to divulge all the same crap over and over again. it just seemed — pathetic? is that an excuse? probably not. i have no idea. i’m letting thoughts wander around right now.
looking back over everything as objectively as i can (and having this same conversation with my friend Graham) and realizing that on my own part, I expected way too much way too soon. I never let things fall into place — i just have been running at this speed of wanting things to be “perfect” and finding that they weren’t what I had thought — and that was my mistake. All of my bitching of wanting things to “be” and i was too worried about being like my mother. which is scary. because i haven’t spoken to my mother in almost a year.
another thing i realised this past month was how much i miss not having a family. i could argue, and rightly so, that i never had a family (other than my beloved brother, Jeff). but it was like hearing all this stuff that Paul’s family does (scary they have been to Disney world more times than i could count on fingers and toes) as well as listening to other friends talk about their families and i have — nothing. Christmas sucked major ass (as well as was told by my five line dialogue i sent out) and i just feel so damn alone half the time. Paul keeps talking about how his family is my family (i’ve met his uncle and aunt already) and i’m meeting his mom, dad and brother and sister soon. along with grandparents. will the madness never end?
i’m hitting the sack.
it’s good to be back.
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moi
i wanna be adored
Saturday afternoon, paul and i plunked down cash for our new pad that we will be sharing with his sister, Ivette.
Now, here is where it gets somewhat interesting. When we moved into our current pad, we had to plunk down 2 months worth of rent plus the deposit because at that time our credit was so shitty. In the 15 months since we have been living here (has it really been that long already??), I’ve been working my ass off on improving both my credit and helping paul establish his. The road has been rough and in that process I’ve learned a few things about myself. For instance my need for must have handbags and must have shoes. i also don’t need all the clothes I’m apt to buy (but whine it was on sale!) and the host of other things we have around our apartment.
i noticed this really prevalently when we were in Miami for Christmas. We brought back so much loot (including my lovely new visor that I adore the living hell out of), that I drug (is that even a word in this context?) Brian to the mall with me to go shopping for a new suitcase because the three we brought with us was simply not enough to ship our shit back home. What loot we got! Nearly new 20 dvds, books, clothes, candles, visor, a scooter (that paul promptly broke), toys, games, money; we made out like bandits on Christmas day. Not including all the shopping sprees I did when I was there because “everything was on sale” and had to have this red velvet skirt. I have enough clothes now to clothe a small nation. You know, like China.
when we came home and unpacked, i looked around our apartment and noticed all the “crap” we had. stuff that we bought on whims that wasn’t necessary at the time nor is it necessary now. I’ve been purchasing storage boxes just to toss all this crap in so that we can move everything to the new apartment in a much more smoother fashion than when i moved into the old pad.
all the stuff that can be used to decorate my cube, I’m taking with me to work tomorrow. All the papers I’m so found of keeping (you know, credit card bills, receipts, stuff like that); I’ve gone out and bought a shredder and have already shredded my way through five garbage bags of stuff. Next is the magazine collection (ugh, never again will I subscribe to any magazines!). Then it’s the books. I have no idea what I’m going to be doing with all the books that I’ve purchased over the years. I’ve been looking and eyeing our current bookcase (which literally takes up one whole wall of our apartment) and it’s already overstuffed with books and crap. I’m thinking we’ll end up throwing that bookcase into our new bedroom and buying something new for the living room.
it’s all about spending money isn’t it? I’ve been looking for design programs to help design our new living area so that i know what to keep and what to toss, and then it comes down to how much freaking money I’m willing to spend for this item or that item. it was like this apartment was our starter apartment and now that we are moving on up in the world, i can no longer allow myself to have pictures of darthmaul on the door.
go figure.
pauly is my co-pilot
you get the feel for someone after you’ve been living together for awhile. I’ve started getting such a good feel for the way that paul acts and behaves that I’ve started intoning before he ever does anything. “no paul, we are not spending 300 bucks on a tivo.” or “no paul, we are not going to eat Mickey d’s on our diet.” you know, shit like that. now I’ve started ribbing him about “pauly is my co-pilot” since doesn’t drive so he assumes that he is automatically in control of the car dashboard while he bitches about my one handed ability to drive a car and look for cigarettes. next up on the list, before we kill each other, is paul getting car driving lessons and his own car. he wants a durango. if anyone thinks that i will be co-signing my name to a loan for a 2001 durango while i drive a 1998 Saturn, must be smoking some serious crack.
already dead
on the topic of books, paul made me read “already dead”, the California gothic and I’m dying from all the “lush symmetry” and the “beautifully chosen way he has with words”. it’s like, when people write, why can’t they write for the sake of writing. it’s goddamn boring.
but it’s spring and I’ve got ants in my pants. nothing could satiate me now.
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lisa
hope floats (well sorta)
it’s mid afternoon here outside of DC and I just got done watching a horrid yet true to somewhat life movie hope floats. i think i may have mentioned this piece of tripe before — I’m drawn to it like flies to shit. there are several points here that i guess i have been reminded of: sandra bullock carries a silver lunch pail which prompted me to carry my own box, harry connick jr is always a hottie and well, that’s about it.
but what i think the thing is (other than beating this piece of shit laptop into submission) there has been these re-occurring themes in my life as of late.
lately i’ve been having some major moral issues primarily with relationships and my own relationship with paul. for the last few nights i’ve been watching teevee and of course there is a dating channel. i’ve also been helping a friend of mine write a personal ad for yahoo personals. the thing i’ve been noticing very heavily is the sheer amount of people who are cheating on their spouses. the more I read and the more i watched, the more disgusted i feel.
now, i’ve argued for both polyamory and monogamy for eons. but the thing that irritates me the most is that just the sheer number of people who are so willing to cheat on their partner. i don’t understand this. call me silly, but it’s like what the fuck are you getting married for if you are going to be cheating on your spouse anyways?
now, i know people get all riled up about this. i don’t love them anymore, what about the kids? what about my life, etc. first off, staying married for the sake of the kids is a weak excuse. I’m reminded of my friend dave whose recently been dating a married woman who is not only older but has two kids. dave himself just came out of a serious relationship that was bordering on getting married, girl breaks up with him and he falls into the relationship with this married chyk — and it’s like i want to beat him upside the head. yah, it’s none of my business but it’s like i just feel like he’s going to get hurt in the long run.
i had with shelly last night in discussion about her ex boyfriend boobie. She said that a whole little of something was better than a whole lot of nothing — which she quoted from some kind of wonderful.
see, i don’t agree with that either. i would rather be alone sitting in my apartment eating kozyshack pudding and drinking diet mt.dew than to be with someone for all the wrong reasons.
the one thing i adore about paul is his strong sense of ethics and morals.
i just called paul and got his voice mail.
i miss him right now more than anything.
3.5 days and the boy is mine forever.
and this is where paul and i come into this whole shindig.
paul and i have been going over everything as of late, and mainly about how we feel for each other. paul feels that his relationships always die after a year for whatever reason — but he’s also said that they have felt doomed from the start. and he says that with me he doesn’t feel that. that he’s made promises in the past in good faith only to be screwed over by that person(s) — which sounds like me: i’ve been told promises only to have been fucked over by said person who promised me said things.
i think the crux of that is that in the past, we want to so believe what we are being told is true: but feelings and people do change. this isn’t something we always want to admit and it’s not something we always want to believe. and i think my problem has always been that i could never ever really believe in the person i was with and when things didn’t work out, i always took things emotionally to a new level. but i just knew, knew that paul was the one for me. sometimes he hates hearing it even though he needs that kind of reassurance like i do.
i watched a cheesy movie Christmas eve about a woman who no longer believed — in anything. yah it was really cheesy premise : basically her “inner child” came out and of course at the end of the two hour flick (on Lifetime no less) everything worked out fine.
but basically, it got me thinking about me and paul. see, we’ve been having conversations as of late about being in love. we know that we are in love, we want to be together, but all this crap that is basically baggage from our past has been creeping up and onward. this is not to say that we are breaking up, not getting married or anything negative. what it is to say that we are both scared shitless of the future.
paul said something to me the other day that i’ve always believed myself: don’t just tell me you love me, show me you love me.
see, i’ve been saying that for years personally. that’s one of the reasons why i have “issues” with gifts: people tend to buy me gifts because they are incapable of showing feeling. goes back to having daddy send me a few hundred dollars to make up for time he couldn’t be with me. which only made things worse you know. spend a lot of money on me but don’t spend time with me. what kind of lesson is that to learn?
paul and i have long known we had “issues,matters and concerns” in a lot of things that have to do with us. it’s not bad things, just things that were problematic in the past with past loves and things we don’t care to repeat with each other. things we have been working on together to make us stronger as a couple. people have been saying for months how they wished they were in a relationship similar to what paul and i have — and to that i don’t know what to say. i think it’s great that people think we have something special (which we do) but the trials and tribulations of coming together — and to this point have been hard. i don’t think that with everything we have gone through to get where we are now would be so easily accepted by just anyone.
watching those cheesy movies all weekend made me realize i did believe in paul and i do believe in us. i can’t remember the last time i felt this strongly about someone or the fact that i want to live my life with someone such as paul. he’s a very special person and compliments me in so many ways. I’m excited about the prospect of being with him, falling in love with him all over again every day and knowing that my own faith, in him, in myself, and in us will help not only me but us become stronger both as a couple and induhvidually.
i love you pauly. you are always mein gott.
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lisa
la pictures
updated pictures with some pics from thanksgiving weekend. will be finish scanning them this weekend sometime. at the moment, my machine is too slow (or the scanner is) to do scanning and other stuff. took 45 minutes for four pictures. forget that.
in the first pic paul is drunk and holding an IBC rootbeer bottle. what a man!
vanity
my friend jacob got his own domain.
suddenly i find myself very scared.
random thoughts
all day today i had a list of three subjects i wanted to talk about: lint, y2k and um, shit i forget the last one. while the ideas are still bopping around in my head, i find that I’m too tired (frustrated/horny/angry?) to write other than to tell you what i was thinking about at work today. yes, work is that exciting. tomorrow is Friday right? i hope so.
heart ache
shelly ICQ’d me to tell me that her bf broke up with her this past weekend. after everything she’s gone through with him, i don’t know if i should laugh or cry. actually, i laughed — just because the soap opera moments of it all just seemed so hilarious to me. but i do feel bad. it always sucks breaking up.
bed time for lisa
see subject.
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starry night
for the last 8 months or so I’ve been dying my hair “raven mist” which is basically a deep dark black-ish red. i really adore the color, but it wasn’t till recently that i noticed that i had three shades of colors in my hair: my roots were black. then about 2 inches would be this reddish tinge and the rest of my hair was black. it looked like that i had this ring of red through my head which made for interesting results — but what surprised me was that when seeing how long my roots were, it was nearly 2 inches and i had just done my hair before I left VB a six weeks ago.
so whilst i was shopping last night for groceries, i decided that i had wanted to re-dye my hair. mainly because the red halo was kind of annoying and that i wanted a change. I’m sick to death of dying my hair red, because it ends up fading and looks too brassy. and the true fire engine red color that i did want is too harsh to do on my hair. so i opted for “starry night” which claims to be “shiny black” — and my hair is finally all one color. i can’t tell the difference other than I’m now one color instead of three. but i like it. and no one noticed. it’s not a majorly drastic change but it’s still a change. and it’s something new. 🙂
not like you can tell in the damn cam. seeing as it’s “Lisa und Paul Noir” and its black and white. Paul is talking about changing the cams in the house to be color. that will be coming up soon — i think probably within the next month or so. We are planning on taking geek-haus completely live complete with archives and crap. that should be damn interesting to see.
horoscope for: 12.13.99
Gemini:
Pack your bags and be ready for last-minute invitations for travel. You may be tapped for sudden fame and find yourself in the limelight. Groups, friends, and organizations may tap you for a leadership position. Partnership may catapult you into the spotlight, with newspaper coverage, interviews, and exciting new propositions for opportunities at a distance or in another country. Be ready for almost anything. A powerful new lifestyle is just around the corner.
[yah sure right! hahahahaha]
blasphemous rumors
there has been a long standing argument, at least with me and with others, about how to treat IRC. Some people say that IRC is just text and that most of what is being said is bs. And for the most part that’s true. But (and I say but! here folks), what if you are part of a community of people are are interacting for the most part with them daily, things do arise. rumors, speculation, gossip: for the most part, this is normal and generally harmless. and this can be applied to any medium: personal life, internet life, work, what have you.
today i was sent a private message from Paul’s roommate who happens to be friends with a certain female on the channel. this female has had a long history of instigating and spreading malicious bull not just about me but about several (and I do mean several) other more regular channel goers. if it’s not one person, it’s another. one time she took the intitative on privately messaging me a conversation between her and another channel regular about: me. And i didn’t understand why she did this since it was pretty rude comments from the person she was speaking to.
the private message i got from Paul’s roommate was way out of line: both by him and by the female in question. i had had it up to here with people such as her spreading bullshit rumors about me (and other people) for no other reason than because of jealously and maliciousness on their part.
the thing that gets my goat is the ‘why’ of this whole business. i really hate HATE people who are two faced and talk behind other peoples back — especially when it’s unfounded. there is no reason why except out of pure pettiness this has to continue.
for the last week or so, people have been privately messaging me about the female in question asking me what was her deal. most of these came from newbies who have just recently joined the channel and were curious as to why this hellcat was all loose. i just explained that for the most part, that she blows a lot of hot air and to ignore her. some were feeling defensive because the female in question would attempt to rip apart the person a new asshole, publicly, for no reason.
and it’s not just this one person, it’s been several. it seems the more concrete my relationship with Paul is and the happier I get, the more people wish to tear it down. I will never ever understand this petty jealousy and nor will i feed into it.
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non sequitur
this has been one hell of a weekend. well, it’s been one hell of a week. so much has happened within the space of a few days, plus my own thoughts and feelings, i have a feeling I’m going to be all over the place — more so than usual.
from the what’s new front:
12.12.99
87 people on the mailing list (geez, can’t i eve break a 100?). Did some more comestic work on the website. Added filez, pictures, pr0n and really put up the obligatory webrings, awards and links page.
family fun
yanno, another reason i don’t get the holidays is mainly because my own family is fsck’d in a definite loony way. for instance, now that I’m all settled in Fairfax and basically living with paul (meaning he doesn’t show up until the 30th perm), i decided to start calling my aunts and stuff to let them know i was alive and living. and basically i got to hear for an hour about how horrible of a daughter i am (because i haven’t spoken to my mother in about 6 months), about how everyone is a son of a bitch and Canadian currency is basically crap and how one aunt married her drug and alcoholic bf and moved to Kentucky and that my other aunt and her husband moved to Florida.
you know, its the Christmas season. and I’m trying to make the best of it. i thought by calling my Aunt Jackie and letting her know I was okay and that I was sending them a Xmas card with my and Pauls address that it would be okay. But it wasn’t. My Aunt Roberta (her younger sister and sidekick) basically grilled me about paul. When she asked me if paul had a big family and I said “yah, he’s half Spaniard and Irish and catholic”, she drops her voice and whispers “is he dark?” Like jesus christ people. This is 1999. His coloring shouldn’t matter to anyone. (But the boy is pretty goddamn pale.) And when I told her that we were getting married she said “Well, I won’t tell anyone that you aren’t married now (due to the fact that paul and I are living together)”.
They always make me feel so goddamn rotten when I speak to them. I don’t know why I do it. Maybe it was because of seeing how Paul interacts with his family and this was something he and I had discussed that I could shed some light into my own family problems.
Turned out I was wrong.
My father had a stroke two weeks ago, and I got the phone call from my cousin James in Toronto. I’m a okay.
this is the part when i start deconstructing myself and feeling like shit. bah.
how i spent my saturday (December 11, 1999)
Editors Note: as we all know, when people start talking about a ‘friend’ and not naming names, it is generally presumed that it is really about the person who is telling the story. fortunately in this case, it really is not about me. it’s about a long time friend of mine who choose to get an abortion. since she has been mentioned in TLC in the past, she was afraid she would start getting hate mail because of her choice. so we decided that it was okay for me to talk about it, just not to mention her name. I’ve never been pregnant and paul and i are not expecting devils spawn. really.
when i found out that one of my oldest friends was pregnant, i wasn’t happy. i knew that she hadn’t been practicing birth control and knowing that she had been pregnant in the past due to ‘carelessness’ really irritated me. you see, out of the group of close friends i grew up with (high school/college), I’m the only one in the bunch who has never been pregnant and thusly was lucky enough never to have to make a decision on whether or not i was going to keep a child.
I’ve had my shares of scares, true, but I’ve always been ultra paranoid about my sexual health. when Alan and i were dating in the early 90s, we had went and gotten checked together so that we could practice monogamous safe sex without using condoms (i was on the pill at the time and told that i was possibly not going to be able to have kids as it was). so, like any other young couple in love, we got checked and tossed away the condoms. then i found out that he had been cheating on me. and then i found out that he had NOT been practicing safe sex with this other girl. my own paranoia (aids had just started to ravage the country and people were on the war path about safe sex) plus common sense prompted me to to get checked and make sure that i was okay. i was. but that set in motion a passion about sexual awareness and practicing safe sex that is almost cult like.
I’ve had many discussions with lots of people about practicing safe sex. I cannot believe that in this day and age people are so fucking stupid about not using protection. the most common excuses I’ve heard are “i don’t like condoms” and “i can’t remember to take the pill” — okay fine, but there are other options for you to use. not all of the guaranteed (nothing in life is) and not all of them protect you from disease but something is better than nothing. sex to me is a very adult thing — meaning you have to take the responsibly along with your actions. i cannot tolerate excuses about why people are not practicing safe sex. and yesh, i practice what i preach. I’m on the pill and paul and i use condoms.
so when my friend told me she was pregnant, i felt sad for her. she was taking it all in stride though — I’ll grant you that. but when she went to get checked and was scheduling a time to have the procedure, they refused to do it telling her that she was much farther along than she thought she was. which was wrong. her boyfriend didn’t move in till late august and she got pregnant early September. they told her the time of the conception was middle of august — which is fricken impossible since she was only sleeping with him — and he wasn’t event here yet. and she was also pregnant with twins. and since the clinic claimed she was above the date for an abortion (she found out that babies were just bigger than normal) — state of Virginia will not do anything past the first trimester (up to 12 weeks). she could go to Philly, DC or North Carolina to have the procedure done.
She choose DC.
I didn’t find out until nearly her appointment that she was coming up. i rescheduled work and plans to help her out. it was a two day procedure. on the first day (Friday) she was going in for what she calls the ‘seaweed stick’ procedure. what this is, is that they stick sticks up your vagina wrapped in iodine to dilate the cervix. this is (according to the paperwork she was given) the beginning of the abortion. the second day (saturday) visit is when the actual abortion would take place, which would last about 1/2 hour with an additional 2-3 hours for resting. she was then free to leave as long as someone was driving her home. — and that person would have been me.
she arrived late Friday night in some discomfort. the babies had been kicking and she was also having mild cramping. she was having a hard time even going to the bathroom because she was afraid the sticks might fall out. after taking a nap that evening, she and i stayed up and talked until 2 am — when we had to be up at 6 am to get up for the appointment.
and as we talked, she kept telling me how she was feeling the babies kick — and she said it such a non-chalant way that it was almost scary.
we woke up early saturday morning and both forwent showers to get to the appointment on time. we arrived a few minutes past 7:30 to see that there were protesters already out front. well duh. planned parenthood. Washington DC. hello here. we walked quickly by them, went through the security guards and were let into the clinic. other girls soon followed in and at 8am, the nurse started calling peoples names to go back for the procedure.
she gave me the option of going back to the apartment and getting rest and then coming to pick her up. i decided to hang out for awhile and just kill time. i read magazines, i watched the waiting room swell up with people. all types of girls came in — i couldn’t tell who was there for what. but there were all races and social classes. some came in alone, others came in with bf’s/spouses/partners. finally around 9:30am, i went outside and chain smoked for awhile.
i met up with two volunteers for the clinic and talked with for awhile. the protesters had grown in numbers but it was still a small motley group of people. one man had a huge (about 3’x2′) sign that showed a dead fetus with “32 million babies killed since Roe vs Wade”. there were young and old people, chanting Holy Marys and giving away rosaries. The volunteers were friendly and a bit passionate about their work. we talked about the protesters and i asked them what it was like doing this. i was truly curious. i mean, I’ve heard and read all the stories about what was going down at these clinics. when i went to PP in Oakland for my own checkup, we were forced to check in with a security guard and go through auto-locked doors. this place in DC was more secure — and the protesters, man, it was like something out of CNN. they approached everyone walking near the clinic and gave them roasiers and told them they would pray for their sins. one young Hispanic girl came in with her bf. i watched her staring up at the sign above the entrance and watched her eyes water as she tightly clutched her bf’s hand. i felt so sorry for her, i wanted to do something but i didn’t know what to do. hell, for all i know she could be there for a pap smear.
the volunteers job was to make sure the protesters didn’t harass the patients as they walked into the clinic. they spoke softly to the women walking up and comforted them if they didn’t look so hot. i stood outside for nearly an hour watching this take place in 35 degree weather. i had my scarf wrapped around my neck and my gloves on as i chain smoked just watching the scene. i chatted some more with the volunteers and walked back in. by this time, it was going on 10am and the waiting room was packed. i settled down in a very uncomfortable chair and read newsweek waiting for my friend to leave.
she walked out at 12:15pm and just seemed as snappy as she ever was. she wasn’t feeling sick or upset. she just wanted a cigarette and food. we went to safeway to grab some maxi-pads for her and some advil and drove to TGI Fridays for lunch. Both of us acted like nothing had happened. sure we spoke about her abortion but i was as if nothing had happened. she felt well enough a few hours later and drove back home.
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Pauls been on this kick lately about not letting me have a dog that he PROMISED i would get for Christmas. you see, his aunt raises pure breed pugs and we were going to get one out of the next litter. but some moron told him that if i asked for a dog now, within 6 months i would be asking for a kid. a: paul wanted the dog first and b: I’m not planning on getting pregnant for quite some time.
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Abortion is a touchy subject. There is, I believe no right way or wrong way to go about it. Me personally? I’m pro-choice. I like having the option that if an unwanted pregnancy came up that there was an option for me to terminate it. but it’s the people who ABUSE it that irritate me. It’s the constant stupidity people use towards sex and their own health that drives me insane. I don’t begrudge my friend for having the abortion — i begrudge her for not taking care of herself first in the first place. This is why, in so many ways, volunteering for a PP or for a rape crisis center is something that really speaks to me. I’ve seen too many women waste their lives by having kids they did not love because they were pregnant or abuse the system that was given to them. There are WAY too many people running around in this world who think AIDS/HIV/STDs and pregnancy won’t happen to them because they don’t fall into the criteria for the demographics.
If you are in a relationship with someone or are sleeping with someone, do yourself a favor. respect yourself and use protection. i don’t want another person going through what my friend did.
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rants and raves
well.
I’ve been busy, what can i say? the last month or so has been completely insane and crazy as I’ve been working and Pauly has been up here to start moving his stuff up as well as GET THE GODDAMN JOB AT ANDOVER! woo! I’m so excited. we even, gasp, opened up a joint checking account. 😮 dude, this is like so incredible 🙂 Anyways, email pauly@geek-haus.org to congratulate him on his new job.
Anyways, on to better and other things. For all of those who thought that since Lisa found true happiness, that there would be no chronicles, let alone sad/depressing/insightful ones as i am prone to doing in the past. wrong. as many of you have already know, not only am i Gemini! but i am also seasonal depressive, mixed with obsessive/possessiveness, bipolar manic depressive and a touch of multiple personality disorder.
basically, this past weekend, i had a list of stuff that i was working on and just didn’t do it. i stayed in my big queen sized bed, watched crap on teevee and ate. i swear the only person i talked to was paul. hell, i could barely get out of bed to take a shower. i felt, just, so out of it. everything came crashing down and the reality that paul won’t be here for another three odd weeks is just so overwhelming. i know he was just here last week, and in that three week period he’s gonna be moving in lock, stock and barrel, but just the utter loneliness of living alone was killing me.
firstly, i thought after being alone for a few weeks i was going to resent him when he came up because i had already marked this territory as mine, but once he got here he just fit in so well. we fit together like gloves. being with him, the time we were together, just seemed so precious. and i hated having to drive him to the airport to watch him fly back to Miami.
making love to paul is this intense experience. and it’s not about the rhythmic thrusting it’s about looking down and seeing that silly little grin he does when he’s happy.
now where the hell did that tangent come from? oh yah, so paul was up here, i met some of his family — but that isn’t the issue here.
but my depression is. I keep having these fleeting moments of thought when paul will come to me one day and say that he no longer wants to be with me – and that scares me. i was telling him on the phone the other night that everything about him is perfect. there is not one thing i feel that i have sacrificed for being with him or want to change in him. he is mein gott. literally.
but this depression thing, it can be a drag — if you know what i mean. i just can’t handle how it affects me somedays or how it treats me. i learned when i was at the emergency room way back when (October) that i probably had polycystic ovarian disease, which means i have too much tetersone in my system. which makes a lot of sense. which would explain the aggressiveness and other things (including heavy duty mood swings). and that simply by going to the OB/GYN and getting the right mix of birth control pills and drugs, I would be peachy. I know I would probably feel better, but I probably won’t be able to do anything till after the first of the year.
This time of year just sucks, so horribly. And it’s not that I miss paul so much or want him up here, it’s just that my first instinct is to always just go into hiding (and eat) and just do nothing. there is so much rattling around in my head that i haven’t quit figured out what to do yet. it doesn’t help that i do not get along with my family in the least bit (other than my brother) and that for the most part, i feel like a damn orphan. i sit there and listen to paul literally gurgle about Xmas with his family and the traditions that they have and i get caught somewhere between jealousy and envy and wishing i could be a part of that. and yet, it’s not yet. it’s too soon. i just, i just find it so hard to relate to people this holiday season as they rush to and fro to be with everyone.
I just don’t get it, I suppose. It’s not the happiness or the spirit of the season, but just that i feel more detached than usual. I guess right now it’s a mixture of everything that is wearing me down. And I was thinking, Paul and I have been going back and forth about me flying to Miami to meet his parents for Xmas. Logistically, it would be perfect, but, emotionally it would be too draining – at least on me.
I feel so helpless sometimes. All weekend, when paul had the opportunity, he’d call me to reassure me that everything was okay, i was wonderful and that everything was going to work out okay. You just get to the point where being strong just isn’t worth it somedays. And between sniffles, I told him this. And other days, I’m ripping him a new asshole because I cannot find that happy medium that would just make me happy. I wish I could give him that for Xmas, just no issues about anything, just being me and being happy with him (which, for the most part I am).
I’m finding, as usual, the more i write the more off topic I’m getting. Next thing I would be telling you that I’ve never had a vaginal orgasm. which is true. and that for the most part, I’ve never liked oral sex performed on me. i have way too many issues for one person. and yes, paul knows about this. and it’s not that i don’t find sex unfulfilling (au contraire) just that i can’t fucking let go of issues matters and concerns to take it where it needs to go. This is obviously something paul and i are working on.
HOTHOTHOT DOMAINS FOR SALE!
About a month or so ago, I got really bored and started looking at domains that were being auctioned off at Yahoo. When I finally organized the domains into some sort of order (listing them by bidders and then by amount) — i was flabbergasted. Over 1000 domains were up for grabs for obscene amounts of money and yet very few people were buying them.
Back in 1995ish (or thereabouts), I had several goals: a: to take up c++ to code my own bot for irc (my unix teacher said that irc was going to be the death of me yet — amazing how my addiction to irc landed me to where i am today, eh?) and to host my own domain. I had gallant plans, I did. I was going to do everything locally and be cool and stuff.
Needless to say, the first thing i did was check lisa.com, which was obviously taken. as was lisa.net and lisa.org. then i literally thought that all the domains were hosted independently on their own servers (I mean, this was way before virtual hosting took off) — and the prospect of owning a domain seemed daunting. I thought i would literally needed to run unix at home to run my shit. and i was prepared to do it 🙂
I guess the point too all of this is just that HOW FUCKING STUPID PEOPLE ARE! no one is going to spend a million bucks to buy a domain just because you list it on a website. I can’t but help to laugh at people who do this for a “living”. It’s like the dumbass customer we had at slip.net who purchased something like 10 domains of popular movie star names, but spelled like this: e-l-v-i-s-p-r-e-s-l-e-y.com. Um. Hello. Am I the only one who doesn’t get this?
news
I’m alive. I’ve been thoroughly fooked 10 ways till Sunday (in a good way mind you), but I’m alive. Tired. But alive. 🙂
Anywho, a lot of changes have been taking place round these parts. So here is a listing of what’s going on:
- The cam has a permanent home! You can now found Paul and I swinging from the chandeliers at: www.geek-haus.org. We’ve broadcasted our first party from there and the came has been running pretty smoothly since we got the cable hooked up in Fairfax. I had automatically changed all the proceeding links so if you are not a cam watcher, become one 🙂
- If you’ve been sending me email to lisa@simunye.com, STOP! That domain *might* be going away in the future, and I need everyone to list me as either lisa@simunye.org OR lisa@geek-haus.org. While I own 6 domains, only one is being hosted at First World (formerly Slip.Net) and they have been screwing with accounts and could cancel me at anytime. So you’ve been warned ahead of time.
- Yesh, that’s the happy couple to your left. 🙂
- I’ve put up a new section called “Files” (located under alt.stuff->files). What this is a listing of stuff I’ve uploaded in the past like .wavs, .zips, etc that were part of a chronicle or what have you and became lost in the shuffle. So if you’re looking for stuff that I’ve mentioned to download in the past, it’s now listed in one brand spanking new place.
time line
Friday 10.8.99: Leave Oakland and start the drive cross country.
Tuesday 10.12.99: Arrive in Atlanta.
Thursday 10.14.99: Paul arrives in Atlanta and we don’t leave the hotel for four days.
Sunday 10.17.99: Paul goes back to Miami, I drive to Virginia Beach.
Saturday 11.6.99: I move from Virginia Beach to Fairfax.
Monday 11.8.99: I start working at UUNet.
Tuesday 11.23.99: Paul arrives @ Dulles from Miami for Thanksgiving week.
Tuesday 11.30.99: Paul flies back to Miami to tie up loose ends.
Thursday 12.30.99: Paul flies back to VA for good. (tentative. could be sooner.)
those are the losers, and we are the champions!
as i write this, Pauly is now half way home back to Miami. I hate, HATE taking him to the airport. It always feels so final, even though I know he’ll be back. bah. Anyway, his flight was originally scheduled for Sunday but that got bumped to monday night as he had an interview with Andover yesterday afternoon. it was schweet! We got to have lunch with some of the guys from Andover as well as meet the people from ThinkGeek. I finally tasted my first bawls. Tasty stuff.
so we are driving to Regan National, and Queen comes on singing the above song. Paul and I were rocking out to it on 66 and it was just amusing how it seemed to fit our mood so perfectly. it’s like, when we are together, everything comes into play. everything works out, there are no problems, it just happens. Both of us are sitting back wondering when the shoe will drop and we’ll fall apart, but it’s like none of that has happened yet. we’ve had setbacks but it’s stuff that we can’t control. it had nothing to do with us. Paul also forced me to watch rasslin’ last night. 😮 that peegfooker! 🙂
We get to Regan National and find out that United had cancelled their flight to Miami and that they were bumping everyone to American Airlines, which was Pauls airline, and that flight was booked solid. Also, they had screwed up when Paul had made the changes and put down that the change was to December 29th, not November 29th. So we changed the flight to this morning and woke up at an ungodly hour to take him to Dulles (which, is thankfully, near our apartment) and sat there till his plane left the terminal. he’ll be back soon — unfortunately not soon enough.
The funny thing was that last night on our way back from Regan National, we drove by the Washington Monument. I was like yelling and screaming “Pauly, look! We /really/ are in Washington. We are really here!!” and Paul had this half-bemused look on his face and just said “purty”.
For me, it hasn’t really clicked in that we are making this work. I know that back in March when I met him that I had no idea or inclination that it was going to go this far. He said he knew it — it was just the matter of timing. He says he’s been obsessed with me since the beginning but it wasn’t until I had that crush on cartoon boy that he realized that he either snagged me or lose me. and thusly, the eternal obsessive/possessive dance begun again.
Many people have commented to me that they want to me to write about Shellys reaction, what else was going on, all the little nit picky stuff. I’m getting there, I just need time. I’m now settling into my fourth week at UUNet, the apartment is finally coming into shape. Pauly’s signed the lease and we have bills coming here in both our names. We also signed up for a joint checking account :o. It’s almost scary man.
Several people have said “well, now that you are happy, you won’t chronicles anymore.” It’s not that, it’s just that everything has simply been overwhelming. I mean, it’s not been a piece of cake putting this all together. We’ve had problems from the start: having to find the money for the down payment and rent for the first month. the phone getting shut off (accidently). Half of the appliances not functioning correctly in the apartment. Always seemingly feeling like we are out of money. The downstairs neighbors already complaining about the noise (oh, that was fun!). I mean, there has been a lot of static since day one. Just for once I choose not to write about it because I didn’t see the point.
That’s all going to change now. Now that I feel more comfortable with things falling into place, I feel more comfortable writing and telling the world about it once more. Good thing I didn’t go IPO as planned — my investors would be demanding their money back! 🙂
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moi
Thank Yous
Well, seeing as it’s after 4am and I can’t sleep, I thought I would finally write a chronicle. 🙂 I’ve been pretty freaking busy and haven’t had much time lately to much, so, this one promises to be pretty freaking long.
Before I begin, I need to give “shout outs” to several people (who, because of recognition and fame) who came to Paul and I’s rescue this week. You see, we finally got approved for our apartment this week. Now, the exciting thing for both of us (well, probably more so me than him) was that we didn’t need a co-signer (something I had feared due to bad credit habits in my tumultuous youth), but the deposit ended up being first months rent NOT just the meager 300 dollars as promised (well including the 300). Several people came to our aid to make sure that we (not I, bad habit to get rid of) got moved in this weekend. So, hugs and kisses and yes my first born child will be named after you guys. 🙂
If you are curious, we are getting “The Penderbrook” and the bedroom to your left is ours while the bedroom to the right is the server room. Paul is excited about the god damned (*g*) space for HDTV and I have become Martha Stewart — ph33r.
On that note, I’m going to start at the beginning and carry you faithful reader up to now as surely a month has past since I’ve written — and I’ve only jotted down notes to keep those of you bugging me for info at bay.
The Drive
total miles: 4011.2
states driven in: CA, AZ, NM, TX, MS, LA, AL, GA, SC, NC, VA
total time driving: 5.5 days
My initial plan was to leave early Friday October 8th in the afternoon, drive to San Diego (and visit Jonathan, ducky, bear and batty and possibly TJ); leave early Saturday and start the drive to Atlanta. Arrive in Atlanta in the whereabouts of Tuesday October 12th, stay until Sunday the 17th and drive to Virginia Beach, VA and move in with Shelly. After driving I would be taking a short break and then driving up to Fairfax, VA to interview at UU Net for the position of LAN/WAN Engineer.
What actually happened was this:
Me, being me, dilly dallied around until the point that I did not leave Oakland until nearly 4pm Friday afternoon. After much consideration and debate with myself, I had decided to NOT drive to San Diego. Since I knew Paul was not flying in until Thursday morning, I did have plenty of time, however, I wanted to have enough time to meet up with Graham, Dan, John (hugme) and other assorted Ufies as we were preparing to descend on to Atlanta. I also had friends who lived in the Atlanta area and wanted to spend time with them as well.
So after finally getting all my shit packed up and on the road — what happens? I got snarled in a traffic jam by the 580/680 exchange, no more than 20 miles out of Oakland. Even though this little drive should have taken me moments, it took me an HOUR to get past 5 miles. Yesh, the traffic was that bad. I finally settled in somewhere past Bakersfield (I knew I was about 75 miles north of LA at that point) for the night. I stopped, as the good doctors had wagged a finger at me for, every couple of hours for a “break” and write in my journal.
Saturday I made the long haul from North of LA to Phoenix, covering nearly 500 miles. I had woken up late, gotten into another traffic snarl around LA and opted to stay at some Days Inn by the Phoenix airport. After finally figuring out the toning sequence for doing calls via calling card (18 seconds here, 10 seconds there) and got the local access number in Phoenix and got online.
Now, I knew, that a lot of people were worried about me doing this drive alone. Hell, I was fooking worried. I mean, anything could have happened, and while there were a ton of people literally sprinkled on my route who could be of help, i was utterly alone. It was a scary and very liberating feeling.
After plotting with Graham and other people on #userfriendly, I had figured the drive from Phoenix to Abilene, TX wouldn’t be that long of a stretch. Wrong. It was nearly 1000 miles and I was stupid to even have attempted it. I ended up driving from Phoenix to outside of El Paso, TX into a crappy little motel in a town called Fort Hancock, TX.
If you can’t find Fort Hancock on the map, trust me, it’s there. The drive from Phoenix to Ft. Hancock was almost 600 miles in it self and the additional drive to Abilene would have put me at another 400+ miles. Now that isn’t so bad, but when you look at the map of Texas and see that there is basically NOTHING between El Paso and Abilene, you’ll see my problem.
Now during all of this, I had Shelly calling me at various times to make sure I was okay. A few weeks prior to me leaving I had gotten the boot from FirstWorld (nee Slip.Net) and suffered a stress/panic attack that freaked me out so bad I had gone to the hospital (hence the doctors warnings above (seeing lightbulb appear above your head)). Now driving during the day was fine by me. I was bouncing along, bopping to music. Stopping to write in my journal occasionally, talking to Shelly and plotting my course towards Atlanta. But even though I was feeling carefree — something was eating away at me. Thus, Sunday October 10th, I had another panic attack at the hotel in Fort Hancock Now Fort Hancock is so small, that the nearest hospital is in El Paso (50 miles back west) and we were so close to the Mexican border, that when I picked up and tried to use my cell phone, I got a lot of dialogue in Spanish instead. The people at the hotel were very gracious in calling the EMS that was local — where they checked my vitals and other cool stuff, gave me oxygen from a bag and told me i was fine — just another panic attack.
Logically i knew this — but subconsciously, I was born to worry. After tossing and turning all night and finally being told “yesh, you’re fine. you are going to live.” i saw things in a new light.
I left Fort Hancock with a valuable lesson and plowed my way to Dallas/Fort Worth.
I did the drive in less than nine hours and no one believes me.
You see, when speaking with the caretakers at the hotel in Ft. Hancock and with the check in chyk at the Days Inn in Dallas, no one believed I did the damn trip in that short of time. Everyone told me that the trip would take a minimum of 14 hours and maybe as much as 16.
Well I did it in 8.5, thank you very much.
The wonderful thing about driving through AZ, NM, and TX was that the speed limit is 75 — so, hypothetically speaking, you can do say 80 and the cops won’t blink. Well, there ya go!
I arrived in Dallas excited and even more bouncy. By now it was late monday night and i had completed nearly 2/3rds of my trip. I had, thank ghod, gone through Triple A for trip tik’s and maps and was calculating every step of the way my drive east. I knew what cities I was stopping in, how far it was between gas stops, etc. So, when I mapped out the trip from Dallas to Atlanta, I figured “Oh, about 700 miles. I can do that if I get up early enough.”
Well this is me we are talking about here.
I didn’t roll out of bed until nearly 10 and checked out of the hotel until 11am. Once I got on the road, I knew I would lose an hour for the time changes — and thusly showed up at the Renaissance Waverly Hotel in Atlanta at almost midnight Tuesday October 12th.
The thing is, when you have been driving for so long and you are basically staring at nothing but on coming headlights and shrubbery for nearly 5 days, AND YOU ARE ALONE, you sort of start to hallucinate. And somewhere between Alabama and Georgia (or was it Louisiana and Alabama?) I did just that. I just was so freaking tired of driving and so hungry to meet Paul. I as tired of fast food, tired of sleeping in motels and tired of being alone. I NEEDED HUMAN CONTACT! But my own drive, which sometimes surprises me, kept me going. And I swear to christ i almost kissed the well lighted and well paved ground at the Waverly when I pulled in.
Now, what I’m going to do is talk about AFTER being in Atlanta, cos Atlanta deserves it’s own section. So this is Sunday, October 17th we are up to now.
After dropping Paul off at the airport (and promising not to cry, even though I started shedding tears in the ladies room at the Waverly), my friend Dan and I packed up my Saturn (I really, REALLY need to email them with my story *g* — I wanna be in a commercial!), took the last few remaining shots left in the disposable camera and took off towards Virginia Beach.
Now the drive from Atlanta (or “Hotlanta” as several people have told me) to VB takes about 8-10 hours depending on traffic and weather. We did it in nearly 13. We got caught up in Hurricane Irene (ironic that the hurricane is named after my cunty ex-roommate in California).
We had a blast driving up through GA, SC and stopped to play some Tekken 3 in a small gas station in SC. I kicked Dan’s ass btw — 🙂 I rock at Tekken! We saw signs for “billions and billions” of fireworks and went to stop to check it out, but late Sunday afternoon, in the south, just ain’t kicking it for a couple of city kids like us.
The drive was pretty effortless. I was contemplating on driving Dan up to Syracuse, NY and drop him off — but it was depending how I felt. Dan snored I bopped to music and then we hit Ole’ Virginny.
Now, both MapQuest and Triple A say if you are driving from the south and going to VB, to get off of 85 onto 58 and take it the whole way in.
DO NOT DO THIS!
58 is an in-state “highway” (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA) where you can do no more than 50 at any given time and there is no gas stations or anything open (it felt like) between the turn off and hitting towards the Hamptons Roads area. I am SOOO happy that I got gas before getting there — we would have been fucked. We ran across a 7-11 on the route and Dan and i were both thirsty for a slurpee and dying to take a piss when we find out that it’s FUCKING CLOSED! What 7-11 is closed? BLASPHEMY! Dan, being a guy, pisses alongside the store. I end up holding it in.
Once we started towards the shore, we came across the rain (hahahahah) of the aftermath that is Irene. My driving was reduced to 40ish speed as we crept along the “highway”. When we finally found my new apartment (thanks to Dan’s ereet skills) it was nearly 5am in the morning and we were both soaking wet from running up and down looking for the apartment. The next day, I dropped Dan off at a Greyhound, in which he took that back up to Syracuse.
And save for the little trip up to Fairfax for my interview, I’ve been here ever since. Well, until this Saturday when I move up to Fairfax that is 🙂
Oh, strange thing about VB: I’ve been able to use my cell phone effortlessly across country during my trip. It seems that my cell works EVERYWHERE but in VB. I was able to use it outside of DC and in the general Fairfax area, outside of Richmond (the capital) but once I got to VB, it would switch over and “force” me to pay with either a MC or AMEX for the calls and the charge is 1.95 a fucking minute! And the phone menu to make the fucking call is absurd! god. I can’t wait to move!!
Actually, it’s nearing 6am and I have to be up in three hours. So, I’ll leave this journal here and start in on hotlanta tomorrow. 🙂
I promise.:)
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Mrs. R-S.
