TheExHusband – Page 17 – A Most Unreliable Narrator

smart, sexy, fabulous

every time i’m in a store that sells magazines, i always look at justin and say “one day i will look like that” as i point to the latest issue of vogue, glamour, mademoiselle (which are all ironically owned by the same company).
i always see this breathtaking beauty with boobs out to here and legs so long even that drives me insane with my 34 inch inseam. i look at what i’m holding in my hand, whether it would be a can of diet coke or a bag of something fat free, and suddenly start chastising myself for not being the chick on the rag.
okay, i know that something like 8% of the population is that model-icious, however, whenever someone hears that i’m 6′ tall, the impression i always feel is that they expect me to be -that- small. and i’m not. and there is no way on this earth that i could weigh that little and not be in the hospital.
it angers me, on many levels that i feel this way. it angers me that i, after 26 years, can’t feel comfortable in my own skin. it angers me that i can’t accept myself as i am, and it also angers me that i can’t be the chick on the mag.
living in a world, at least in my mind, that feels so image driven, my personalities are always at war with each other. i could go out with friends and have guilt trips about eating pasta. on the other hand, i attempt to try and find solace in something and eat my fat free ice cream drowned in hershey’s syrup (which is ironically, a fat free food). diets, pills, self-hypnosis, i feel like i’ve tried them all.
to me, i feel like a freak. justin says i’m beautiful (and i quip he’s only saying that because he is sleeping with me), and every man i’ve met thinks i’m beautiful (again, because i feel that they are saying that because they are with me). getting a man has never been a problem (“lisa,” justin says, “you have a big ego.”), but feeling good about myself has been.
i’ve always felt that i’ve been at war with myself because of that. i have always feel that i either do one of two things:

lose weight
gain weight to wear lane bryant clothes

my body is in this in between stage: too big to buy ‘regular’ clothes and too small for the ‘fat stores’.
this past summer, justin and i found several stores that catered to the ‘plus’ size woman. i found the funky clothes that i liked without feeling awful about the size. so i thought. one time, i grabbed this really cute long blue patterned skirt, and it said it was a size 3x. i tried it on. a tad too small. the skirt was on sale, and i figured i was just bloating so i bought it anyway. i took it home and showed my roommate who put it on. now, my roommate wears a size 9/11, and the skirt fit perfectly. she and i started laughing about the irony of a size 3x skirt that was made for ‘my size’, and fits my roommate instead.
t’s a joke.several months ago, i made plans to meet sonya and group of friends for a night of bar hopping. justin and i had been driving with michael all over scenic highway 1, from sf to santa cruz. we had gotten home really late, and i was planning on just jumping in the shower and getting dressed. after picking out my clothes and laying them out, i started drying myself off, and started getting dressed. my shirt felt tight, my skirt even tighter. when i did my hair, my face looked bloated and unreal. i felt totally disgusted with myself and started crying about how fat i was and how miserable i felt. i quickly got undressed and put my clothes away. i put my fav sweats on and sat in front of the computer, doing nothing but moping about my lack of self-esteem.
justin keeps telling me how much of a beautiful body i had. what wonderful skin, and how curvy i am. he keeps telling me, over and over, about how great i look in certain outfits and how men react to me. he’s just saying that cos he’s fucking me.
i recall this one time, alan and i had gone bra shopping. we were wandering around this store looking at all the pretty bras, when alan said to me: “with your face and cindy crawford’s body, you could make a lot of money (modelling).” i grew so angry at that, and to this day, i can still us in my hindsight, in the store and how i felt. and how his words haunt me to this day, six years later.
i guess the stigma of being the ‘fat girl’ in my younger years have never really left me. of all the times i’ve been set up on blind dates to be dumped later on because i was ‘too big’ (or too tall or too this or too that). or that when i was involved with someone, that i could never really feel comfortable being naked with them because i was always conscious about my size. it never mattered to me what they thought (honestly), it was what i thought they thought about me that made the difference (in my mind).
i’ve always tried to be honest with myself and my body image. the days of wanting to be a size 6 is long gone, and i’m comfortable with that. i just want to feel and look good, to my own design. but when i see magazines, that cater to my generation, showing 6′ models, with size 2 body, it piss’s me off. and i still don’t get why, after 20 years of feminism, that those magazines are still talking about ‘how to get the man you want!’ (which ironically still applies to those ditz’s who are too insecure with themselves.) or some other crap about this that or them some. it always has pictures of these super-skinny models with their model bf’s. real life isn’t like that.
nearly a year ago, i lamented about the same thing, and i had started a section on my web pages called ‘life’ that was in tuned with the more current issues at hand then my usual blathering. i had included an image from the body shop (which promotes beautiful women in all ages and sizes and has a great skin care products to boot) and a rant similar to this one. the image showed a ‘big woman’ and the face looked like barbie. the makers of barbie were pretty indigent about how having that ‘similarity’ on the body shop’s page, and the body shop was forced to put an x in the middle of the doll’s face. the doll was called ruby btw.
i got a lot of email from strangers telling me how great it was to find something so positive about being a ‘bbw’ (i hate that acronym, and what it stands for. i always feel like i should be weighing 300lbs and be called bertha). and it’s not that i was feeling positive about the whole, it just piss’s me the right off that we can’t just accept each other for who we are and not what we are.
i won’t kid myself and think that everyone thinks i’m beautiful, because it’s not true: i mean, this is what makes us all induhviduals is the fact that what we like is all different. it just pisses me off that magazines, retailers, clothiers, and everyone in the fashion industry keeps trying to push down our throats that we need to all not be larger than a size 6. it’s fucking ridiculous and no one should have to stand it.
but we do stand it, and it’s sickening.
recently, a new magazine is in town, touting to the plus sized women (starting at size 12 and above). so far, from what i’ve seen, the magazine has been a success and people are clamoring that it’s been a long time coming. thinking along those lines, i subscribed to the mag, and i’m going to see what it’s all about. will it actually cater to fashion that i like (the high falutin crap/trendy crap) or is it going to be the retread of the now defunct mag BBW that pretty much showed big ass women wearing clothing from omar the tent maker?
i guess we will wait and see.

fixed memories

i fixed the links for my ‘personal’ page. so instead of looping around to this index, you actually get to see more of me. (crowd roars)
memories
i was driving into SF to pick justin up from work today, when i felt that i was in some sort of time continuum. it felt like the mere 15 minute drive was hours. i looped around downtown sf, looking for a place to park, and i felt like it was this continuous flow. i am attempting to clarify what i was feeling at the time, but it’s not quite getting there.
hrm.
i hate it when i have all this information i wanted to talk about, and it’s not coming out like i want it to.
that really sucks my dick.
fan mail
since i can’t remember, what i was thinking of, i decided to head on to another topic: fan mail.
last night, i received a few pieces of fan mail, pertaining to yesterdays entry. i was both pleased and surprised at the same time. i get fan mail, occasionally, but sometimes it’s from people who want me to find god or some shit. whatthefuckever.
both emails, which came in fairly close to each other, talked about how funny they think i am. i think “hey that’s great. i can be pretty funny.”, but, sometimes, when i’m in moods like this, it’s not about being funny but what i feel. (hey johnny, what’s it going to be?) but thanks guys for the email 🙂 you’re the reason that i write this crap (well, not the only reason, but i’m not going to start arguing with myself to get more hits.) always tell me that you love me.
memories part deux
GODDAMNIT!
i’m sitting here crawling around my desk, tearing things apart looking for my fumbling towards ecstasy cd, thinking that this would help the semi-writers block that i’m having, but i can’t fucking find it. i’ve torn apart my stereo, my roommates stereo, my cd-case, my cd holder. i know it’s not in my car. i can’t find it in my house. god damnit, thelma!
i think i’ll go do something entertaining now.
like pick my nose or something.
actually, I just found solace, so i can deal. it’s sorta jived my memory about what i was thinking about earlier (dammit i should have pen and paper always around me).

strange currencies
i was dating this psycho-wench for a while.
she absorbed everything i liked and did and
began mirroring me. all i seem to have
picked up is emoticons.
Ralph W. Middaugh, Jr

justin was dinking around his machine, and we started kissing. which lead to us fucking in the kitchen, which didn’t work too well because he is soo tall and even with me on my tip-toes, i couldn’t bend over enough for him to do me like a dog. so we commence into the bedroom, rip our clothes off and fuck like crazy. i say something like “i don’t want to hear you talk about love.” and he says “okay, i love to fuck you then.”
after we are done, and talking, he says something that sparks this weird correlation in my head.
(getting ready to run windows for the first time.)
i remembered my roommate (psycho-bitch irene) calling me when I was in pennsylvania about the fucking rent. which lead my thoughts to when i found a strand of long red hair in the towel in the person’s bathroom i was staying at. which lead me to remember phone sex. which i haven’t done in, well, probably a year. which now leads me to remember making snow angels in the front of the dorm at wilkes-barre university. which reminds me that my friend michael telling me about how his hero did the groundwork for the train between wilkes-barre and new york.
i’m in a strange mood.
i just emailed ralph and told him to entertain me.
every time i go to kiss justin, he says “now don’t bite!”.
i feel angry, sad, depressed, melancholy, aggressive, nosey.
i think i will just go watch another harrison ford movie, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or
something. Harrison Ford was soooooooooo hot when he was young(er).
shit, this entry is worthless drivel. and it’s past midnight, so it’s the fourth already.
just fuck me running.
(in 1992, there was only 2,000 domains registered on the internet. now there is over 5 million.)

i’m da man

the head honcho for our company asked me to fix his PDA. Seems that it has an infrared device that allows him to export files from the PDA to a desktop computer, so that he can interchange the information when he needs to. I had attempted to, and got as far as, getting the software functioning properly for back-ups on non-used machine (he said it was crashing on him all the time when he attempted to do it on three different machines).
I spent the better part of my day yesterday researching the stupid thing: downloading the pdf manual of the PDA, reading the instructions for the infrared device and attempting to track down a human at sharp. majority of it ended in vain as i wasn’t able to get very far in my research. the phone numbers by sharp for an ‘authorized’ dealer were actually to: a home and a cell phone. the phone numbers given to me via their voice prompt to a place in Texas, was no longer existing. so i packed it up and went home.
this morning, i got the bright idea of installing the damn thing on my machine at work (running windows 98). amazingly, the software installed with no issues, and with some jiggling and muttering “work you piece of shit,” i got the zaurus to communicate to the infrared device. i was able to export the files to a .csv files, and finished within 30 minutes (more time spent getting the two infrared devices to see each other and communicate).
I walked in and told don that i had it working and backed up the files. he said ‘your da man!’. I grabbed my crotch and went out for a smoke.
i love you. i love you not.
last night, as justin and i were lying in bed, i started speaking in this monotone voice about how it all was -before-. it encountered my walks through life, and with how my previous relationships were corresponding to my depression. i talked about danny a lot, because that is all i kept remembering. i thought about what it was like when he and i were living together, and how trapped i felt. how i felt that i could not possibly feel for him as much as he felt for me.
sometimes, when i see justin, i still see danny. it hurts you know, to look at one person, think of someone else for all the wrong reasons. both danny and justin have the same gentle manner, both just want to be happy, and both loved me beyond reason. but, i feel like it’s hopeless. that i will never ever allow myself to be content enough to settle for one person. i’ve often thought of polyamory as being my main choice of how i will handle relationships, but even then it feels tainted. i don’t know what it is about me. i know a lot of how i feel is correlated to my depression, but how much and why? i said to justin last night: i wish things were much easier for me. i wish i could be the kind of person that could find the one person that i could say was the ‘one’, like everyone else does, but, i can’t. i have so many ‘ones’ that it’s just a joke now. i smiled sarcastically when i said this, but justin understood.
i spend a lot of my time thinking about how justin feels as he watches me go through this. i know things that i say or might say will be painful to hear (they are painful to feel), but if i don’t tell him, our relationship (which is hanging by threads in some areas) could fall apart. he’s given more to me than anyone else in my past and i do not want to not lie to him.
so it’s a tough decision.
i feel so detached from him and from anything else. i want nothing more to have the same problems that everyone else does, but i can’t see my life living in that way.
right now, as i wait for my ramen to cook, i’m typing this up. i’m looking at a black/white picture of justin & i together, that was taken at one of those cheesy photo-booths and I can’t even recall what I was feeling on that day. And that only happened less than a month ago.
oops!
yesterday, when i was updating the lisa chronicles, i had inadvertently dumped the main index file for my personal site. i was going to upload it again last night when i got home, but winders 98 and photoshop 4 seemingly are arguing, and just gave up. i’m redoing the index page anyway, so it would have changed 🙂
something neat
every now and then i go looking for myself on the internet and see where i’m linked from. chances are, more often than not, i find myself linked from the same people’s page (of people that i know). But here is some cool stuff i’ve found about me or my namesake, simunye:
– my friend dan named his car after me, and it won a race.
– from my days of hanging out with the hax0rs
– someone had one of my old ass pages in their bookmarks. i did email them to let them know i was no longer at that address.
-University of Georgia Augusta has access logs for April 21, 1997. My reverse dns shows up as i had been to the site.
– A quote that I had in my sig file that actually made it to someone’s page. I’m so pleased 🙂

a poem
one thing i found on the net was a poem that i had written on the day i went to a beat-l party, and found out wm. s. burroughs had died. the poem sucks, but heck. works for me.
a generation gap
a sparking of times, events, and people
i scarcely recognize
grabbing together all pieces in my memory
of who these people are
and almost succeeding
talking of times, events and memories that
occurred before i was born
of sex, drugs, events, places that no longer exist
a matter of bridging together those who knew
and those who are just beginning to know
of sparking interest in new blood to
rejuvenate the passion and the rawness of the
beat generation
of drinking wine,
of laughing,
of smoking dope
and feeling like a child sitting at the adults party
just listening and absorbing everything in
and learning along the way
-a ‘poem’ i did for the death of wm. s. burroughs, 8-2-97. it’s crappy, i know but i found it on the net 🙂

shiny happy people

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.

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.

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.