My Lil Ghetto House

I just got a phone call from the person who has decided to purchase my lil ghetto house on the Easside bitchez!!!!! (oops, sorry, that was a regression into my adolescence). I purchased this house from my Dad a year ago and poured a few thousand dollars ito it to try and make it a little nicer: new roof, new garage, new flooring, new kitchen counters, new fence. One of the renters' father died when he was very young and left him a lot of money. He is now able to access this money so he wants to buy my house. I DID try to talk him out of it but he was adamant. (Okay, maybe I didn't try very hard but I did try.) But how often do you come across a house in the ghetto that someone actually wants to buy? It is my childhood home and I am attached to it, but not that attached. I am willing to let it go for the price he wants to pay for it. Hell, I would let it go for less. My experience as a landlord has been frustrating but not without its rewards. However, I would prefer not to deal with it at all. And now I don't have to. Thank you JESUS!

This sale has been pending for a couple of months now and I really had my heart set on buying a 1979 Pontiac Trans Am, Bandit edition, complete with tee tops. But, *sigh*, I realized that I am a grown up and I have to do grown up things with the money. So I decided to pay off my credit card bills, take my cousin Andyro on a trip with me, and save the rest. The trip is going to be fun. Paying off the credit card bills is not, but I have to be big words like RESPONSIBLE and ADULT, not to mention DEBT FREE. I'll thank myself for it later.

By the way, the picture above is NOT my house, or any area near my house, although it does look quite similar to the East side of Flint. This is just a picture I snagged off the internet when I typed in "GHETTO HOUSE." My house looks much nicer than this. It's 1500 square feet, with a full finished basement, large screened in front porch, seperate laundry room, three bedrooms, and one bath. It also has a good sized backyard. The entire yard is fenced in and the garage is detached with a brand new roof. It was built in 1952. So it's old. But the tenants have taken awesome care of it over the years. We've been lucky enough to have the same tenants for twelve years. Thanks, guys! Sondra loves ya. Now if I could just get you to pay your fucking rent on time!

Mean, Drunk Sisters And The Phrase "Shut Up"

(This is my mean, drunk sister and my nephew Ricky at a party this summer. Thought I would post a pic to match the face with the stories.)

I swear I spend half my life saying this phrase. I say it to my husband more than once a day, usually in a laughing way. Sometimes, I really mean it, though. Sometimes, when someone is talking to me and I don't want to hear it, shut up echoes very loudly in my head. I even say it to people who will never hear me say it, like the guy in the car to my right at the red light, who is talking non stop on his cell phone. I am so cruel. I just automatically think to myself, Shut the fuck up, you fucking retard. Can't you live for just two minutes without that phone clinging to your ear like some kind of afterbirth that you are pychologically unable to part with? Just shut the fuck up already. I realize this is unhealthy but it's just me. And to think I am going to be a social worker....(shudder.)

Tonight I went over to my nephew Ricky's house. He lives with his mother, my mean drunk sister. Not the totally awesome, cute and pregnant one. No. The mean, drunken, blame everyone else for her problems sister. Anyway. Ricky proceeded to tell me that the neighbors allow them to do laundry at their house sometimes and when they do, Ricky is only allowed to wash her clothes. And he also told me that sometimes when he brings the clothes back, she will complain that they are "a little damp." This is how my mean, drunk sister is. She is the most ungrateful bitch to ever walk the planet, which is why I hate her. That, and the fact that she hated me first, for no reason.

So I asked Ricky if he had any dirty clothes, and he said they were all dirty. I told him he could come over and do laundry at my house tonight. So he is here, playing some video game next to me, while I work on this blog and do some other things. It's kind of fun to have someone to stay up with. My dear hubby is already asleep. He stayed in the bedroom all night, because Ricky has a tendency to get him riled up, and he has to work in the morning.

As for Sally, I have decided that I am going to let it ride, for now. I do not have the money at this moment to give to her. However, I do think that I have to pay her because I agreed to. There was no stipulation as to how long she could hold on to the check. Just like Andy said, if I went to court on this, I know I would lose. But I am going to stretch it out as long as I can and make her wait for it. There is no rush. I will keep stalling her and avoiding her until I am ready to give her the money. I don't know who she thinks she's dealing with, but I am not going to jump at her command. She should have thought about how she needed the money before she decided not to cash the check. And no, she hasn't cashed it. And, oddly enough, when I closed my account with my Florida bank, I never received a check back for the $100. Just the initial $50 I used to open the account. I don't know how that happened, but it did. Strange.

Thanks to everyone who responded. I appreciate it. Have a good night!

*I decided to come back and edit this entry to just reassure everyone that I am not as nasty as I may sound. I actually really like people a lot and I can deal with stupid people as long as they have a legitimate reason for being stupid. As a social worker, I would like to work with teenagers in trouble, because I used to be one and I can relate to them really well. Kids usually like me, and I like them. I just wanted to affirm that before I got a nasty post from someone, accusing me of being a potentially bad social worker. :-D

I Hate Dealing with Stupid People

My cousin Elizabeth is visiting here from Jacksonville, Florida and we've been hanging out for a couple of days. This morning I took her to her mom's, Aunt Anne's, and came back home to start baking stuff for the various Christmas parties (okay, 2) I will be attending.

When I came in the door the phone was ringing, so I answered it, thinking it might be Lynn or someone else worth talking to. Instead, a stuttering female voice asks to speak to Sondra and then she pronounces my last name wrong. I corrected her, since I didn't know if it was a business call or what, and then she indroduced herself. I'll call her Sally.

Sally is the daughter of the woman who used to own this house. She was the one handling the sale of the home for her mother. She was a total pain in the ass. No one was living here at the time, and we had moved up from Florida in a desperate attempt to outrun hurricane Dennis, and we stayed with my Dad until the sale on the house closed. Anyway, she made everything difficult, from getting access to the home to making herself available for us to contact her. My Dad didn't really have any room at his house, and we had so much stuff, that I decided to ask her if we could take up a little room in the house we were buying and store some stuff in there. She said she would think about it. (This house was pretty much empty except for the living room, which contained a chair and some sewing items. ) I understood that, and, a week later, she called to tell us we could move our things in under a few conditions. One, we were to only use two rooms. (Why, I don't know.) Two, we absolutely could not move in until the first of August. Three, it would cost us a hundred dollars.

The first two conditions ticked me off slightly but the third one sent me through the roof. My Dad called her a "rotten bitch." My nephew Ricky started bitching about people on "power trips." I just didn't understand it. Part of my problem is, I don't realize that most people don't think like I do. See, if I had been Sally, and was getting CASH for a house, I would be at least a little bit accomodating. If I had been her, and I saw two young people who shoved everything they own into a 17 foot UHaul truck and two cars, with a child, and outran a hurricane in order to save everything they had, I would not have a problem letting them put some stuff in the house. What would it hurt? No one was living there and we would have had enough sense to put everything in one or two rooms anyway. That is how I would have handled it. I just live my life by the law that if you do right by people, people will do right by you. Sometimes they don't, but there's karma, also. And I just feel better when I do nice things for people who need it. I would have never charged anyone a hundred dollars to stack boxes into a room of a house that they are buying with CASH anyway. That's why I don't get it.

So, pissed off but having no choice, I wrote the check. Our only other alternative was to put our stuff in storage for three weeks, and then rent a UHaul and do it all over again when it came time to move in here. Ugh. So, I wrote the check out to Sally, dated July 16th, for $100 and in the memo area I wrote, "storage fees paid in full," just in case this shady, greedy bitch tried anything else. The check was hand delivered to her, and two weeks later, we moved in.

I wrote the check off of my account in Florida, because, obviously, that was the only account I had at the time and I explained that to her. She had no problem with it. I went on with my life. The account was closed, and I opened a new, local account.

Today, the phone rings, and it's Sally. She tells me she's calling because, well, "you know the check you wrote me for storage fees?" I said, "Yes," in a cheery tone. "Well, uh, I just wanted to, uh, let you know that I, uh, never cashed it, uh, because I was afraid it wouldn't be good anymore. Because it was an out of state check. And I figured you'd open a new account" Now, at this point, I feel my blood begin to simmer. See, because I am a sharp cookie, and in a blinding flash of anger and reality, I realize what has happened here. But I let her go on. "So, the reason why I was calling was because, uh, I was wondering if you could send me out, uh, a new local check by the end of the year, if that would be convenient for you." Stunned, shocked, and completely disbelieving, I used the oldest excuse in the book: I told her I would have to discuss it with my husband and that I would get back to her. In truth, I don't have to discuss anything with him because everyone around here knows that all major decisions fall on me. But I couldn't very well say, "fuck you," and hang up, could I? Or maybe I should have?

In any case, I know what the deal is. I am not fucking stupid. That dumb bitch forgot about that check, or held on to that check for so long, that she decides now is a good time to try to collect on it because it's Christmas time. And she could probably use that $100. The absolute nerve. Before I even gave her that check, I informed her that it was an out of state check, but that the account was in good standing and she would have no trouble cashing or depositing it. She said she had no problem with an out of state check, as long as it was good. I assured her that it was. So we had an entire conversation about this check being written off of my Pensacola account and it was totally fine with her. Now she calls me up saying she was "afraid" to cash it because it "might not be good anymore"? That is unacceptable.

So now, I don't know what to do. My instinct tells me to just fuck it off, but my conscience tells me I agreed to pay her a hundred dollars, so I should just pay the hundred dollars. The problem is, I don't have it right now. This bitch doesn't know that I am a full time student and my husband is working, and what he makes is barely enough to clear the bills. I didn't explain it to her because it is none of her business. It just seems odd to me that she's calling me four months later. Why didn't she call me in August? September? October, even? Why now? Because it's Christmas and she wants the money. I just don't know what do, so any advice would be helpful.

A Mini Rant and Some Boring Stuff

I was just going through one of my favorite blogs that I had commented on earlier today, to see if anyone else had posted a comment, and one guy actually wrote, "Sondra, I hope that picture of you is not really you because you are really one of the ugliest bitches I have ever seen in my life."

LOL! I think that's funny. I bet that person would not say that to my face, if we were standing nose to nose. I bet he wouldn't say it to my face over the phone. I cannot stand people who are brave over the internet but weaklings in real life. Really. If you have something to say, say it to my face. Don't go out on the internet and try to offend my outer attributes. Be a real human being and take me up on an issue that is legitimate. Of course, in this case, there is no legitimate issue. But still. And I never, ever attack someone on the basis of their looks...that is just stupid and shallow. If I have something to say about someone I attack their character. But I think that's just too deep for some of these morons that post mean stuff on this guy's blog. Enough said. The only reason I'm pissed off is because I know for a fact that this person would never confront me directly with a comment like that. They never do, do they?

Moving on. I have been so busy the last couple of days. I actually got around to painting my hallway, which I have said I was going to do for the last four months. And I did it all in one day. I am so proud, it actually looks pretty nice. I am wrapping up my holiday preparations, which includes some baking, something that I am not good at. I'm really not. But I'm going to do it anyway.

Today, my Dad took me to Wal Mart to buy me a new entertainment center for the 36 inch TV he gave us for Christmas. I really liked the one he picked out and we were all ready to buy it when we came across this really cool chair that sits on the ground. It has speakers on both sides and you can hook it into your video games so that you can comfortably play for hours. I don't play many video games unless you count the original Nintendo system that I picked up at a flea market about a year ago, but my daughter has every game system known to man. She spends very little time playing them, since she has been grounded recently for bad grades, not to mention that I actually hate the thought of her sitting around on her ass playing video games instead of socializing with real people. But this chair was so cool. So, to make a long story short, she got the chair and I still need a new entertainment center.

Well, I'm off to read more blogs........

For Your Amusement..Little Tidbits of My Life

This is a picture of me and my children, taken sometime in December of 1998. The twins were almost a year old, and I gave them up for (open) adoption at birth. Alexa was in kindergarten. (Lord have mercy, she's 12 now.) This was the last time I've seen them in person but I have photo albums full of pictures, report cards, etc. It's not quite the same, of course, but I take pride in my children, even though they are not raised by me. They have two wonderful and loving parents that were not only blessed, but who have blessed my life as well for being who they are. They are truly wonderful, kind people who are also probably very tired. LOL. The babies will be 8 in February.

I also want to take this time to say thank you to the people who have left me such warm comments about me making the President's list. I could not be more proud of myself right now, given the place that I come from. My life was never easy and the odds were stacked against me, but I made it, not without the help of some very patient and faithful family members. Thank God for them is all I have to say.

Now, I want to get to the good stuff. I have a problem and it's driving me crazy. See, I like to go shopping from time to time, but I aboslutely hate being around all those people. I have a tendency to get a little anxious in public, but I can control that. What I cannot control are the surges of anger and animosity I get toward people for the simplest things. I am not kidding. There have been times when I have wanted to punch people in the face for stuff. Here's a few examples:

Last night, I had a Christmas party to go to with Lee and I needed something to wear, so I went to Wal-mart with my gift card and was hurriedly looking through their selection. I was in the process of desperately flinging shirts around, trying to find something that did not have bunny rabbits, fruit, or the american flag on it, when I saw out of my peripheral vision, this woman coming right in my direction. My first thought was, shit, I'm going to have to move. My next thought was, literally, fuck her. I was here first. She kept coming closer and closer to me and I kept getting more and more anxious and irritable (this is what it's always like) and then I did a double take. Laying on the bottom of the cart, where you put your twelve packs of soda and stuff, was a kid, a boy, probably not any older than eight. Just laying there, screwing around. His mom, or whoever was pushing the cart, didn't seem to notice or to think that this was dangerous in any way. I tried to ignore them by standing my ground and going through the t shirts some more, and then I decided it was a lost cause. I grabbed my cart and intended to push it out of the corner where I was, and it happened. What I call the Grocery Store Mexican Standoff. No one's moving. She wants to stay and I want to go. Or does she just not want to put forth the effort to maneuver her way through the racks and whatnot to get to the other side of the aisle? At this point, she's too close to me for my comfort and I don't give a shit, so I rattle my cart a bit in an effort to get her to move the fuck over so I can get out. At this point, the kid on the bottom of the cart says loudly, "Excuse us."

What? What the fuck did you just say to me, you little fucking brat? In a state of total anxiety ridden terror, the kid damn near had his head taken off by the front of my cart as I shoved past his rude ass. His mom never once made eye contact with me, just kept looking around at the store, wide eyed and dazed. I almost expected to see her tap her feet together and chant, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home," the bitch was so out of it. I thought to myself, how in the hell do you allow your kids to talk to people that way? I would smack my kid right in the head if she ever did that. To a perfect stranger. Unbelievable. Parents like that are the reason why our teenagers do not respect authority, do drugs, and have no empathy for human life. Is it any surprise? I think not.

And since I'm rambling on and on, I'd also like to point out that I am very bad in the grocery store, or any store. I tend to get hostile....to myself. I never act hostile because even I know that would be crazy, but I think it. I think the most awful thoughts like, get away from me, asshole and no, you don't need to come down here. You don't NEED to come down here. Shit! They're coming down here. I hate you people. All of you. See, I don't like strangers getting too close to me, so when I'm standing in line somewhere and someone is literally standing so close to my back that the front of their shoes are touching the ends of mine, we have a problem. I don't want to smell what you had for dinner on your breath. That is too close. I don't want to hear what you say when you whisper. That is also too close. Why do people do that anyway? Don't they know that we Americans like to have at least 7 feet of personal space when dealing with strangers? For me it's even more than that, but there's nothing I can do about it because I realize that I'm the one who's not normal and I just deal with it. I usually forget about the frustration and anxiety on the ride home, but it can be trying sometimes. Lynn has told me that her grocery store anxiety is so bad sometimes that she has left carts full of things in the aisle and just left. I wouldn't be able to do that because #1: I have to finish what I started, #2: It's a sign of weakness if I don't, and #3: I'll be damned if I'm going to show weakness to anyone. Bottom line is, I'm harder on myself than anyone else ever could be.

New subject: My mother died in 1981, when I was 4. It was an unexpected, tragic death for everyone. I did not know until I was 14 that I had a sister...that my mother had had a baby girl before she had me and had put her up for adoption. It wasn't until I was 21 that I actually met her. She is Michelle, my most awesome sister. Not the mean drunk sister. The cool one who is a lot like me, and in essence, must be just like my mother. She looks like my mother and we both have the same quirks so I have to assume that my mother was nuts, too. I don't really know much about my mother. The only thing I know is that she was adopted, had contact with her birth family, and was a hot blonde with great legs. I had the great legs until I got fat. LOL. I also know she was a prankster and was a Daddy's girl, which pissed off my Aunt Anne more than anything. Aunt Anne was adopted also, and she and my mother are the same age. Anne was largely ignored by my grandparents because of all of my mother's shenanigans that got her kicked of out schools, etc. Anne went on to get good grades and was quiet and no trouble at all. My mother got pregnant for me, and then right afterwards Anne got pregnant with my cousin, Mary. Thus began a war that Anne started, which I call, "my kid, your kid." Anne began doing all kinds of petty things to my mother, like slashing her tires and stealing her baby shower presents. My mother retaliated by doing nothing about the fact that Anne knowingly married her first cousin. (Gross. Gross. Gross. I mean first biological cousin, not the adopted family.) When Anne called my mother in a panic, screaming that her husband had tied her to a chair and taped her mouth shut and left her in the garage, my mother hung up the phone laughing so hard she cried. I was born in May, Mary in July. Then Anne got pregnant again and had Elizabeth, who was born in March of 1979. Elizabeth and I are extremely close. Mary and I are not, but we see each other from time to time and I enjoy being in her company very much, but we just don't have much in common. Not only that, but Anne spent all their lives talking me down, how I was worthless, that I would amount to nothing, that our grandparents, who have money, were wasting it on me. I was going to end up in prison someday. I had so many mental issues there weren't enough psychologists to fix them, blah blah blah. (I also feel that I should point out that while Anne was running around telling everyone that her sister's baby was damaged goods, she was divorcing her husband/cousin and decided to wear one of my mother's dresses to my mother's funeral, which almost caused my drunk, mean sister to beat the living shit out of her. But that's another story).

So anyway, Anne has spent all 28 years of my life treating me like shit and talking me down. I am not sure why but the only thing I can deduce is that she's jealous. Her I.Q. is really not that high and neither is Elizabeth's. She's not very attractive, she's rather loud and masculine. No matter what I do, it's not good enough for her. If she is front of other people, she will be civil to me. But when we are alone, she literally sneers at me. She really, really hates me and has since the day I was born. I gave up on her about five years ago, when my grandma went away to Canada and suddenly, inexplicably, every single picture of my mother disappeared from the house. Every single one. My grandfather, before he died, had created a photo album just for me full of pictures of my mother in various stages of growing up. He also had many pictures of her and I together. Gone. All gone. The pages were ripped out of the photo album. Not just removed, but ripped. When I noticed this, I pointed it out to my grandma, who was immediately shocked and began wondering aloud if she had done it herself. I said, "No, Grandma. Who was watching your house while you were in Canada? And did they have a key?" She said, "Of course they had a key, to water the plants." I said, "Who was it?" She said, "Well, Anne, of course." I then exploded, screaming and carrying on about how she removed my mother's pictures. My grandmother got very upset and called her to ask her. Anne, of course, pretended she knew nothing and then suggested that perhaps my grandmother, her mother, had removed them herself because she was "getting up there in age". Then she said that maybe I removed them myself, for attention. I grabbed the phone and told her I didn't need attention that bad. The pictures were all I had left. She hung up on me.

Now, Elizabeth is going through a hard time. She is living 1000 miles away from home, letting these ghetto hoodrats stay at her house and steal her money and her belongings. She has severe emotional problems and has attempted to pass her GED tests THREE TIMES to no avail. She has not worked in over a year and I know for a fact she's into cocaine. She has had her car stolen, been beat up numerous times, and has threatened or attempted suicide more than a few times. She always calls me when she's in a bind, because we are so close, and I have been telling her for months now that she needs to come back to Michigan. I even said that she could live with me, rent free. Over the weekend, she got arrested for writing bad checks and when she was released, she called her mother. Anne, furious, told her that she was going to come back to Michigan and do it "her way" and that was it. I soothed Elizabeth by telling her that her mother would calm down eventually and that when she did, they would be able to have a rational conversation. I told her to mention that I had offered her my spare bedroom in exchange for nothing more than getting her head on straight. Elizabeth replied, "I already told her that and she said she would rather me be dead than live with you."

What? Are you serious? What the hell? Yeah, I had a brush with the law when I was 17 (for assault) and it landed my ass in jail for three months, which is right where I needed to be. I never went back. I never used drugs or drank. And my self esteem was never so low that I would let the scum of society take up residence in my house. So what the hell is so bad about me? I shuttle my daughter back and forth to her activities, arrange sleepovers, go to school, pay my bills on time, do my homework, cook dinner and occasionally breakfast, my husband works every day and he is not into drugs or alcohol, so what the hell is the problem?

Ten years ago, that would have hurt my feelings. Now, I don't give a shit. I don't care because I don't need someone who is obviously so mentally and emotionally insecure that they have to beat up someone else to feel good about themselves. And to be over fifty and doing that is beyond my comprehension. I can say that I really don't like that woman, but more than anything, I pity her. How sad it must be to be that angry at nothing. Anger is like a disease that festers and spreads until it kills all that is healthy and new. Do I have time for this? No. As my grandma would say, "Sondra, it's not your problem."

Elizabeth is flying in on Tuesday. She is supposed to leave early on Christmas morning and I have no doubt that she will. But while she's here, I hope I can talk some sense into her about leaving the situation she's in. Last night, she slept in her car because the people she let live at her house wouldn't get out when she asked them to. I'll be damned! So, hopefully she'll take me up on my offer to help her out, and if she doesn't, oh well. I guess it's not my problem.

The Craziest Member of the Family

This is Feather, AKA Feather the Bird, AKA Mr. Chicken. He has been in our family for over twenty years. My dad got him when he was just a baby. He is, literally, insane.

My dad gave us Feather the Bird, because he has another parrot, a female, and Feather is a male. I love Feather, and I think the feeling is mutual most of the time, but sometimes he reacts to me in very strange ways.

This picture was taken a couple of months ago. I was in the office, as usual, doing something and Shawn was in there with me. Suddenly, Feather the Bird took flight off of his cage. Feather doesn't know how to fly. He has never really flown before. In doing so, he got himself caught up in our dining room light. I knew he was scared, but I had to snap this picture. After I did, Shawn got him down and as we both talked to him and attempted to soothe his ruffled feathers, I snapped the picture of him with Shawn. He seemed fine as he chattered away and we put him back in his cage.

Ever since then, any time I approach his cage, no matter what he's doing, he attacks his toy bell that's hanging from the roof of it. In the morning,when I get up and open the shades, he sees me coming and attacks his bell. As soon as I walk away, he stops. If I attempt to take him out of his cage, he backs away from me with his beak open, pretending that he's going to lunge at me any moment, which he has never done. But if he sees me getting into the cupboard to get him a treat, he excitedly walks around the top of his cage mumbling to himself. If all of us are in the living room and then we suddenly disappear, Feather starts chattering away nonstop: "Hello? How are ya? Whatcha doin? hee hee hee. Hi Feather. Hi birdie. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hee hee hee. Whatcha doin?" until you just have to go back out in the living room and give him attention. He seems to prefer men to women, as my father's other parrot prefers women to men and loves me so much she gives me kisses. Feather wouldn't dream of such a thing. When he's locked up in his cage and I walk by, he snaps at the bars like he's being a bad ass, yet, if I open up his cage and talk to him, he will extend his foot out far enough for me to rub his paw. I don't get him. Also today, I was sitting in my room, recuperating from this god awful sickness I have and trying to sleep. All of a sudden, I heard the frantic sound of feathers and Feather's unmistakable nervous laughter. I went flying into the living room only to find Feather content in his cage, feathers drifting down to the floor, and both cats laying on the couch, looking at him like, What the fuck is your problem, dude? He appeared to be all right, and I was relieved. It does get to be a pain in the ass, rescuing him from picture frames, cupboard tops, and dark hallways whenever he gets the urge to fly. But I love him. He is a Yellow nape Amazon parrot, and very temperamental. We threaten to "cook the birdie" all the time but that would never happen. Feather is a good bird, has endured a lot, and he will stay with me until one of us dies. He is a member of the family.

Look At Me Now!

Final grades were finally posted today for this semester, even though they were supposed to be posted yesterday. I just checked them and the vote is in:

I have a 4.0 GPA!!!


I also made the President's List at my college!

This is a first for me, getting straight A's. I've always had pretty high grades throughout my college career. But never straight A's. So now I get to go to a special dinner banquet held for all the students that made the list. I am so excited. That just made my day. Yay, me!


*Note...after publishing this entry, and re reading it, I realized I spelled "students" in the wrong context. I had originally spelled it with an apostrophe, as in "student's." I never make grammatical errors like that. Good thing I caught it before ya'll laughed at me. Here I am excitedly telling everyone I am on the President's list, and I can't even use the word "students" in a gramatically correct manner. LOL.

Classic Sondra..Rising the Blog from the Dead

This, again, was a post from my Yahoo journal. It is dated September 6th.




I just got the worst phone call of my life. Well, almost the worst. It's right up there with the three phone calls I've gotten notifying me of the death of my beloved maternal grandmother in 1995, my closest guy friend Tom in 2000 (who is in my picture album), and my best friend Heather in 2002. No, no one died. But it's bad enough. Couple that with about one and a half hour's worth of sleep, and you get a very cranky and tired Sondra G. So that got me to thinking about things that irritate me and I thought I would list them here. They are in no particular order, nor do they necessarily make any kind of rational sense. It just emphasizes the fact that I am loony. Which I think is funny and take a rather sick delight in. hee hee.

I HATE, HATE, HATE the ringing of the phone or the knocking sound on a door. I can't stand it when my phone rings, and when it does, I have one objective....to silence it immediately. When someone knocks on the door, unless I've been expecting them, I do not answer it. I hate that sound. I HATE IT.


Which brings me to what I call the "incessant ringing of a telephone scene" that seems to be in most movies. You know, where the phone just rings and rings and either no one is there to pick it up or someone is there, staring at it. That just drives me apeshit. I usually hum through the scene so I don't have to hear it. People in movie theatres witnessing this behavior must think I am out on a day trip with the clan from the local loony bin. (Ever seen the scene in the movie "Constantine" where the lady is sitting, working on her laptop, and all of her phones and pagers begin to go off at once? AND SHE DOESN'T ANSWER ANY OF THEM? I clapped my hands over my ears and began rocking back and forth, screaming, "Make it stop!" until my nephew's girlfriend Kristen turned it off. If there is a hell, that's what it's like.)


The sound of soda being poured into a glass. (shudder). I don't know what it is about that sound, but I don't like it. I really don't. It's just so obnoxious. If I have to pour soda into a glass, I tip the glass sideways and hold the bottle or can almost at a ninety degree angle. This eliminates most of that sound. You should try that if you are an enthusiastic, obnoxious soda pourer. You never know who might be cringing around you, ready to take that bottle or can and shove it right up your everlovin' ass.


This isn't really something that irritates me, per se, but I feel I have to mention it just because it is so strange. I DO NOT LIKE ELECTRICITY. I am scared of lightning. I am not scared of it during the day, but at night I am terrified of it. It's not the actual lightning that scares me, it's the BOLTS of lightning. When I lived in Florida I used to see heat lightning almost every night for most of the year, and it never bothered me. Something about bolts of lightning makes me think of evilness. I don't know why. Also, I'll never be the first one to flip on a switch in a new place. I don't plug things in if I don't know for sure that they work. And here, in this relatively new house, we have a whirpool in our bathtub. It's great! Brand new and hardly used. There is a child safety switch on the wall that keeps the power out of it until it's turned on, and in order to get it turned on, that switch has to be up and you have to push the button on the side of the tub. The other night I had every intention of soaking in the whirpool and reading a book, but once I filled the tub with water, I could not bring myself to push the button. I kept thinking, "What if it's not grounded right and I get electrocuted?" I have used it before but I made someone else (SG2--more about that later) get in it and turn it on before I would get in it. I even sat in the water with my finger poised over the button trying to force myself to turn it on. I couldn't. So I called SG2 and he came to push the button, but then I totally freaked out and jumped out of the tub, which caused the jets to spray water all over the bathroom floor and mirrors. Then I made him stand there with his hand on the button for 20 minutes while I tried to decide if I wanted him to push it or not. Finally, I decided against using the whirpool even though that was what I wanted to do in the first place. JUST IN CASE I get electrocuted. Hey, fuck you. I'm not taking any chances.


Here is something that just chaps my ass. And I'm gonna say it like this: To all you stupid fucking people out there that think it's just SO cute to put your fucking kid on the phone with me, to hell with you! God I hate that. I can't tell you how many times I've been on the phone with someone and in the background I can hear loud kid noises. (which is another thing that bothers me, by the way). Almost certainly whoever I'm talking to will always say, "Do you wanna say hi? Say hi," and then put the fucking kid on the phone. Then I'm forced to make conversation with the little monkey. And what do you say to a goddamn baby? I don't have shit to say. Put your mommy back on the phone. I don't want to hear you screaming in my ear. Jesus Christ. Go back to screaming in your mommy's ear.
(P.S. The last line does not apply to L.C., Z.C., K.S., or I.S. You know who you are. I love talking to your kids, and that's okay.)


I really, REALLY hate it when people spell and pronounce my name "SANDRA." It is not "SANDRA", you grammatically challenged, obviously BLIND, peabrain fuckfaces. It's "SONDRA." You see, the "O" speaks for itself. And I cannot tell you how often---several times a day---I get called "SANDRA" or even, God forbid, "SANDY" and I just grit my teeth and take it. Not that I have anything against the name "SANDRA." It's a perfectly lovely name, if a little common. But it's not MY name. MY name is spelled with an "O". SONDRA. SONDRA. SONDRA. If you can't remember that, then just call me Pearl.


I know I'm fat. Please don't stare at me. I went through my sensitive stage and got all weepy about the way people looked at me. Well, not anymore. I'm over that shit now. I weighed 135 lbs when I got pregnant with my first daughter. I know what it's like to be on the other side. And I know the difference in which I've been treated. When you're as big as I've gotten, people really do look right through you, or they avert their eyes because they're thinking something that's not so nice and they feel guilty. Hey, it's okay to be disgusted by fat people. I am sensitive to the fat cause, but don't ever label me a "BBW". I am no "BBW". What I am is a sick person whose thyroid has failed to function, and I have no metabolism. Couple that with a little bit of an overeating disorder and a great love of food, and you have a 300 lb disaster coming right at you. But you better watch what you say about me or other heavy people in front of me, or all 300 lbs of me will be on your chicken neck ass at breakneck speed and you won't know what hit you. Be sensitive. Save your comments for when you know you won't be overheard. It's okay to be appalled, just handle it gracefully. Fuck what's politically correct---I'm apalled at myself sometimes---but use a little discretion, common sense, and maturity. And keep in mind that there is a sexy bitch underneath all this fat. And when it all goes away the only guys I'm gonna talk to are the ones who talked to me when I was fat. The rest of ya, well, I have no use for ya. Just be careful, is all I'm saying. It COULD happen to you, and remember, karma IS a bitch. Oh, and one more thing...don't assume that all fat people have low self esteem. I certainly used to, but I don't now. Actually, I really like myself and the person I have matured into. I just don't like the way I look.


The show "Gilmore Girls" gets on my nerves. It's cute and sometimes funny, but their manner of dialogue gives me a headache. I can't stand how fast they move and talk. It makes my head hurt. Sorry, R.C. I'll do anything for you, but I am not watching a Gilmore Girls marathon with you.


The number one thing that irritates me, infuriates me even, is when I am whining about something or in crisis over something, and need a solution QUICKLY. Some asshole will inevitably say this phrase, which is equivalent to throwing boiling oil in my face and wrapping me with cheesecloth: "I don't know what to tell you." I HATE that. If you don't know what to tell me, then don't say anything in the first place. That's kind of like the phrase, "Needless to say," which doesn't bother me as much. If you don't NEED to say it, then don't.
Well, that wraps it up for the things that irritate me. I am too tired and too hot to think of anything else right now. I am so tired. And so hot. And needless to say, if you don't like my complaining, then I don't know what to tell ya

To Aunt Sondra's Tim-Tees...I Love You

This is a post I originally wrote for Yahoo concerning my great nephew. I miss him so much I can't stand it, and I hope his mother reads this. I love her, too. This post was written on September 6th.

This is a letter to my great nephew, Timothy Lee. Most of you know the story, and those of you that don't, well, maybe you soon will.


Dear Tim-Tees,

I am writing this because I want you to know that I love you so much it makes my heart hurt, even now. The fact that I haven't seen you in seven months is devastating; not knowing if you are okay is even worse. I miss you so much, and long for the days when you used to live with me and I could come to you in a matter of seconds if you needed me. I miss the way you used to baby-babble and pull yourself up on my pant legs when you saw me making a bottle or getting your lunch ready. I miss the terror tantrums you used to throw when you were tired or when you weren't done eating yet and I made the grave mistake of taking a break to clean up your face. I miss the way you used to frantically crawl after me as I went to bathrom; and when I closed the door on you you would cry as if your little heart would break. I miss taking you to Wal-Mart and laughing at you as you slouched down in the cart, unable to hold yourself straight up yet. I miss packing you up to take you everywhere with me. I miss waking up to the sweet sounds of your laughter as you woke up in the morning, always content to play for a while before demanding attention. I miss your fat little feet, your big beautiful brown eyes, and even your stinky diapers. You were like my own child, and even your mother and father acknowledge and understand that fact. Even though I don't know when I will see you again, I am still grateful for every day that you were around, from the time you were two months old until you were almost nine months old. We were very close, and though you may not remember that now, I do. I have pictures to prove it, and video too. I miss you as if you were my own child, and my goal is to someday be reunited with you when you are still a child so that we can re-bond. My love for you will never change, Timothy, and I think about you every single day of my life. I wish I could hold you and kiss you, and I will someday...just not today. And there is NO ONE on this earth that could ever replace you in my heart. You hold your very own, very special part. No other child will ever be as close to me as you were, and that is a fact. I have every reason to believe that I will be able to see you and hold you and smell you and love you again. That's the hope that keeps me hanging on.

As for your mom and dad, well, right now I am not very happy with your dad. He and I are very, very close, much like brother and sister, and he senses that I am not happy with him. We will work it out, though. And your mother...I love your mom as much as I love you. She is a special girl, very smart and very funny. She is also a good mom to you, and wants the best for you that she can give. I have to remind myself that's why things are the way they are now. She doesn't like it either, I know, but when the time is right, things will change. Your mom will always be part of me, and be close to my heart. It's hard for people to get close to your Aunt Sondra, but she did. I trust her to make the best decisions for you. She loves you more than anything, little man. Maybe someday you'll realize how lucky you are to have so many wonderful people who love you. Or perhaps we love you because you are so special, and you just can't help it. At any rate, you are loved more than you could ever imagine.


So, with that in mind, Tim-Tees, I am going to end this letter now. Writing this is extremely painful, and it's hard to make other people understand what I am going through. When you are old enough to understand, I will show this to you so that you can see that you are never going to be completely off my mind, not even for a minute. I love you, baby boy. Give your mom hugs and kisses for me and try not to forget about me.


Loving You,
Sondra

Classic Sondra--Rising the Blog from the Dead

This is an entry from my old blog at Yahoo that I started when I first moved to Michigan. I thought my few readers would like it. (I love y'all!) The date on this is September 9th.

Since I already composed a list of things that piss me off, I thought I might now write a list of things that make me happy. It took forever. (Fuck you. I'm kidding.)

These are not in any order, by the way.

* Food. I love food. Any kind of food that I like makes me happy. Not for very long, because after I eat I berate myself up for about an hour. I should be eating salad.

* Listening to my XM radio instead of that jacked-up, bling bling, tuneless, talentless drivel that is on the radio. Matter of fact, I would probably shoot myself in the fucking eye if not for Ares and my XM.

* The song "Shiny Happy People" by R.E.M. I call it "liquid happy in a bottle." How the hell can anyone listen to this song and not feel like dancing, even if its in the car? I always bounce around when it's on. Plus, I LOVE that woman's voice. I don't know her name, but she also did "Candy" with Iggy Pop and sang with the B52's. I am attracted to her because of her voice. It's amazing. The only other voice I have ever heard that compares with hers is Amy Lee from Evanescence. Plus, she's hot.

* Traveling makes me happy. I love to get out and see new things. When SG2 and I got married in Vegas, the wedding was merely a pause in what was nothing but a little vacation. I had never been there before so we spent most of our time there doing touristy things instead of gambling. I know better now. (R.I.P. Biloxi).

* Getting money in the mail. I love that, since I am not working right now. It's like Christmas when I open the mailbox and sitting there is an envelope with my name on it with MONEY INSIDE. I love it. And then I always go out and buy something that I don't need and that I can't afford, just to remind myself that life is short and I DESERVE THAT FUCKING NEW TOASTER, DAMMIT.

* My friends. My friends make me happy. I got the best damn friends in the world. Most of my friends have known me well over ten years, and it's fun kicking back with them and discussing the old times and reliving the past. Not that my past was all fun and games. It really wasn't. But these people know and understand me in ways that even SG2 doesn't. But I love him, too.

* I'm running out of things to say because my attention is being stolen from Ares. I am downloading a bunch of songs and I keep pausing in my writing to play them. Then I lose my train of thought, so then I try to remember what I was saying, and I can't, so I have to reread what I previously wrote, and then I remember, and then.....what the hell was I just talking about?

This is me, by the way, taken last summer.

Moving on.

Last night, even though I am coming down with something horrible, Lynn and I decided to go to the mall and do some Christmas shopping and then head out to the bar for a few drinks. The shopping was fun and I was able to get my daughter some really cool things. Then, we went to the bar.

Feeling old, we couldn't even decide where to go. For one thing, we usually go out with our husbands so it was kind of fun and new to go out by ourselves. Not that we haven't done it LONG before James and Shawn existed, but it has been a while. Anyway, we decided to check out Bubba's, a new "bar and grill" that just sprouted up in our town.

We knew we made a mistake the minute we got out of the car because we could hear the music thumping and we both began giggling like crazy. Lynn said, "One drink! We can do it, one drink!" I agreed, and in we went.

We were then greeted by an overzealous security guard who locked eyes with Lynn and declared that he knew her from high school. He kept asking her if she remembered him, which she didn't. He was holding on to her license, staring at her and saying stupid shit, while I stood next to her holding out my license. Which he never even looked at. He told her, "You're just as pretty as you were in high school," which I thought was a really cool thing to say, even though the fucker was ignoring me. (See previous post. I am used to it.) He made comments about her being married, etc and finally we got a seat. He had shown her his ID so she knew who he was, and she said, "He doesn't look anything like he did in high school, but I can tell he's still psycho." I nodded and we sipped our beers as we watched young 18 year old girls in barely a stitch of clothing dance and strut around each other. It was painful for me to be in there, because I cannot say how much I absolutely despise that scene. She does too, so we were both kind of giggling and giving dirty looks and trying to drink our beers really fast when Security Guy came up to Lynn again, talking to her and interrupting our conversation. In restrospect, I should have said, "Excuse me? We're trying to have a conversation here and you're being a rude fucker. Would you kindly go away before I let your boss know you're harassing the customers?" I didn't, but Lynn and I have an unspoken rule about going out together that we have always followed: Thou must have thy girlfriend's back at all times and at any cost. That means that if someone is talking to her, I am on the lookout and pay very close attention. She does the same for me, and I will get to that in a minute.

So anyway, while Security Guy was drooling all over her and disrespecting the fact that she had on her wedding rings, I watched him closely. Call me paranoid, but I trust no one. Eventually, he went away and we rolled our eyes and finished our beers. We left that hellhole and went to a Cheers type bar that is right across the street. I like it there. There's not a lot of young kids and the people there are pretty much regulars. The owner tends bar and is strict with her rules,which is good. There is a pool table, a jukebox, and a way to play Keno. That's it.

So, we go in there, sit at the bar, and order a couple of drinks. Sitting at the end of the bar is an older lady that Lynn has talked to before. We talk to her for a minute and I like her immediately, even though I can tell she not only has a drinking problem but probably mental health issues as well. I'll call her Karen. We talk to her for about fifteen minutes and then this guy bursts in, loudly declaring that he got kicked out from the place next door. Lynn asks him if he means the barbershop, and Karen and I start laughing. The guy, who I'll call Keith, starts laughing too and says no, it was the VFW and they were having a private party, but he didn't think it would be a big deal because "they love him over there." Lynn and I start laughing and she asks him if he is a VFW member, and he says yes. She asks him his name and he tells her. She then laughingly demands to see his VFW card. "I think you're lying. I think you tried to crash the party," she teases.

He produces the card which is legitimate, and then we kick back and have good conversation, Karen, Lynn, Keith and I. Everyone is laughing and I start to relax. Just as this happens, this old, old man comes and sits down next to Karen. Lynn and I introduce ourselves and he says his name is Tim. We like him at first, because he's older than my father (68) and because he appears intelligent. He tells Lynn how beautiful she is and she tells him she likes his hat. The jokes go on and we have a good time. Suddenly, I notice that Keith is sitting awful close to me, kind of pushing against me, and since we are on barstools it's almost impossible for me to scoot over. I try anyway, and then he starts telling me I have beautiful eyes, beautiful hair, I am just beautiful. I say thank you and blush. Lynn hears the conversation and starts giggling madly because this guy is a lot older than me and obviously intoxicated. It's funny because this always happens to me. The weirdos and drunks always hit on me, without exception. I don't know why. I just seem to draw in those kinds of people.

Then he starts hugging me and pulling me close to him and I keep trying to pull away. It's still funny and I am still laughing, but now I am pretty uncomfortable. I don't like strange people touching me. Lynn, who, thank God, was sitting right next to me, told him he had better knock it off. He then declared, "But I love her. I love people. I love real fucking people man, and she's real." We both started laughing hysterically which made him laugh, but he did not understand why we were laughing. "I'm serious. She is so beautiful. She's so damn pretty and a real woman." We were practically pissing in our pants we were laughing so hard. I know I was crying at this point, laughing so hard I was crying. He was like, "What? She's a beautiful woman. A big and beautiful woman." At this point I stop laughing and Lynn makes a sound like, "ooooh," under her breath. He keeps going. "She's beautiful and she's big! She loves it! You know you love it," he said as he pulled me closer to him. "I just want to kiss her. I just want to stick my tongue down her throat, in her ear, everything."

Lynn said, "Keith, if you don't let go of my girl, I'm going to kick your ass and I'm not playing with you. I am not joking. Let her go." He started arguing with her and Lynn was like, "She's a beautiful woman, not a big beautiful woman, and what you just said was rude and wrong and I'm telling you right now to let go of her. I mean it." He apologized and let me go and to tell the truth, I wasn't really mad at him. He was just some pathetic drunk guy that happened to come to the bar the same night I was. It's just that I know a lot of people put me in that category, and I can't tell you how much I hate it. When I get hit on, it's always by some asshole that has to make a comment about "liking big women." I cannot describe to anyone how much that hurts or how humiliating it is if you do not embrace that label. Like it or not, "big woman" is my master status right now. Lynn understands because, as I said in my previous post, she lost 80 pounds a few years ago on her own. She has always been beautiful regardless of her weight, but it was a personal decision for her. So she knows how that feels. Thank God she was there.

I wanted to cry but didn't, and Keith felt bad although he didn't know why, and I didn't bother to explain. I just told him not to say things like that unless he is sure that the woman he is saying it to will not be turned off by it. Just then, some other guy showed up, I'll call him Lee, who planted himself next to Lynn. He was a business owner and he and Lynn began having a business conversation which I found boring so I talked to Karen for a while. Tim was standing up at the other end of the bar, ordering a beer. Lee got up to go to the bathroom and when he did, Tim went up to Lynn and started, again, telling her how beautiful she was, that he loved her eyes, and began kind of tickling her. She was laughing but told him to stop. He was a drunk old man, and after telling him a few times to (laughingly) quit it, I grabbed her and pulled her close to me, away from Tim, and made a few lewd comments about us spending the night together. Tim left and Lee came back. I tried to join in the conversation with them, but every time I said something, Lee dismissed me. I got very pissed off but said nothing. People continued to play pool and the jukebox, and I talked to Karen some more. Keith left me alone for the most part, but stayed friendly without being touchy feely. At some point, I overheard Lynn say, "Well, you see, you can afford to hire me." (Long story but she is awesome business minded person and is also very successful at it.) Lee replied, "I can't hire you." Lynn asked, "Why?" Lee said, "Because I'd be thinking about making love to you all day long." I snorted into my beer and Lynn took it like a champ. I think she just totally blew the comment off. However, I think that comment creeped me out more than Keith did.

Just then, a ruckus between Keith and another guy erupted over the use of the pool table and Keith, who was obviously well known, was told to sit down at the bar and go nowhere else. We began talking about his daughter (who is 25) and the fact that she was going to have a baby. I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. I could see, and I told Lynn this later, that in his sober mind he was probably a pretty good guy, a smart and fun one. Unfortunately, that's what happens when alcohol takes over.

After a few minutes of conversation, he threw his arm around me again and attempted to kiss me. I cringed and turned the other way, toward Lynn, who saw it happen. His sloppy kiss landed on my neck. She smacked him as hard as she could on the hand---it was loud, everyone in the bar heard it. He was like, "Oww! What the hell was that?"

"That was God," Lynn said ominously.

Eventually, we left, but not before I had to listen to that fag Lee whine about Lynn being married. Her wedding band was on the whole night. He kept talking about how depressed he was about that. She called James to check in, and this rude asshole kept saying, "Is that your husband? Is that your husband?" over and over again. Now, if you know James, you know that is the wrong thing to do. As with any person, he has his faults but he is seriously protective of his family. He didn't make a big deal out of it, since he knew we were going to leave soon. But not before Keith got kicked out of the bar for telling the owner she "can't fucking tell me who I can and can not talk to." He stormed out and we left. I got home at the ungodly hour of sometime after two, and my sweet and loving husband made me something to eat while I lay in bed. He wasn't happy about me being mauled, either. I wonder how he's going to feel when I lose 150 pounds. LOL.

Lesson Learned: I am old. I am not fun anymore. I would rather drink beer with old friends than new ones. Drunk guys are dumb at any age. I love jukebox music a lot better than shit like, "My Humps." God help us all. The End.

This picture above is me about a year ago, when I still lived in Florida and was visiting friends from Michigan. This is a pretty accurate depiction of what I look like now, minus the long hair. Oh, how I wish I wouldn't have cut my hair!

First of all, let me say that I am happy with the response I got from my Barbie story. That kind of had a life of its own. I found the picture and began writing whatever came to mind. I'm glad my readers don't think I've absolutely lost it. I have found more Barbie pictures and I will be writing more. I really enjoyed it and the response I got. Kas, you probably think I'm nuts. LOL.


Anyway, I wanted to write about this a few days ago and decided to wait until I had enough time to do so. It is not 10:00 AM, I've been up for two hours drinking coffee, so I guess the time is good now. As you can see, I was not heavy. I was always a few pounds overweight but it never bothered me in the least. I had my first child when I was 16 (a story for another day, trust me) and I put on some weight but still not enough to really bother me. Through the ages of 17-20 I would say I was pretty comfortable until one day, when I was about to turn 21, I stood on the scale and it said "222." I was so upset but immediately started dieting, taking pills, walking, and watching what I ate. I didn't lose any weight. In fact, between the fall of 1998 (while this was going on) and the spring of 1999, I gained 45 pounds, putting me at about 270. I desperately began walking and exercising. Don't get me wrong. The exercise was great, made me feel so much better. I also didn't get colds as often as I normally did, so I knew I was doing something right. But the weight just would not come off. In the summer of 1999, I went through a phase where I didn't eat much and instead drank alcohol every single day. I lost twenty five pounds or so, without even realizing it, but didn't want to continue doing it that way. I gained it all back in a few months.

In January of 2001 I moved back to Michigan from Kentucky and decided I'd had enough. 265 was just too close to 300 for my comfort. I worked as a server at a local restaurant, which put me on my feet all the time, and I had no money to join a gym, so I walked two miles a day (even in the blistering cold, and I didn't mind it at all), ate a lot of vegetables and healthy soup, avoided soda, and did Tae-Bo every single day. I enjoyed Tae-Bo because at the time, I did it so often that it felt like workout without me feeling like I was going to die. I did this for a few months and successfully lost about fifteen pounds. Then I went to Kentucky to visit Ray over Spring Break and ate all kinds of food, and gained all the weight back plus more. Discouraged, I quit trying for a while. Then, after Shawn and I got married, we weighed ourselves. I weighed 289, and freaked out again. Once again, I went on a diet and exercise regimen that included cutting down my caloric intake and walking for exercise. I lost,again, about 15 pounds. Then gained it all back.

In January of 2004, we decided to join a gym, as well as modify our caloric intake. I bought some diet pills and committed myself to working out. I enjoyed it. I started out walking on the treadmill 2 miles a day at a medium speed and then doing some water aerobics. Over a few week's time, I was walking up to 6 miles a day, weight training for forty five minutes, and doing the elipticals for a half hour, and then swimming a few laps before soaking in the hot tub. I have to tell you, I never felt better or healthier. And even though I was still obese, I felt like I was in the best shape of my life. I probably was. I successfully lost about 45 pounds, my biggest loss ever. Then we went to California to see my dad through heart surgery, and we both kind of fell off the wagon. When we got back to Florida, we continued our diet and exercise regimen, but it was too late. We gained every pound back, plus more. After that experience, I was discouraged but not quite ready to give up just yet. I wanted to go back to the gym, but I was so tired all the time I couldn't quite do it. Finally, I went to the doctor in the fall of 2004. She made me lay down on the table and she poked me for a few minutes. She said, "God, you're swollen." I said, "Swollen?" She said, "Yes. You have a bad case of edema." Then she asked me, "Have you ever tried to lose weight?" I said yes and explained all that I had done over the years. She nodded and then asked me if anyone in my family had thyroid problems. I said I didn't know. She then ordered me to have blood tests. I did. A few days later, I called her at her office to find out about the tests. She told me she was shocked to discover that not only was my thyroid dysnfunctional, it didn't function at all. (The thyroid is the gland that produces the hormone that regulates your metabolism, in case you didn't know.) She then explained to me that all thyroids produce a hormone they call T3 and T4. T4 is the one that regulates the metabolism, and sometimes people produce very little T4, which can cause them to gain weight easily. That seemed obvious to me. No metabolism, no weight loss. Then she told me, "Your thyroid gland produces NO T4. There is not a trace of it in your blood work. None. Which explains why you are so swollen, tired, and unable to lose weight." I said, "But I can lose weight. I've done it before." She explained to me that yes, I could lose all the weight I wanted, but I was jump starting my metabolism by doing so. In other words, it was like walking on a treadmill that's not turned on. You can walk on it, and make it move, but as soon as you stop, it stops. I was like, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Suddenly it made perfect sense. Working out was great, but my metabolism stopped as soon as I did, which is why anything I ate after working out would hardly be metabolized. No wonder it was so hard to lose it and keep it off. She prescribed some medication that I have to take the rest of my life and referred me to an endocrinologist. The endocrinologist prescribed a stronger form of the medication. Now, I am at 297 pounds but I have not gained any more, thanks to the pills. I'm not losing any either. When I moved to Michigan, I became very aware of how miserable I was. I started seeing commercials on TV for the Hurley Bariatric Center. We've all heard of gastric bypass surgery, but now I started paying more attention. Now that I have insurance, I called the center and asked them to send me some information, which they did. I sat down on my bed and read every piece of information included in the packet. I was so choked up by the time I was done reading that I had to fight back tears.

I am so sick of being fat. I hate it. No one looks at you, they look through you in most instances, and I feel so ugly and unattractive. I feel ashamed when men hold doors open for me. I wish they didn't. I don't feel like a real woman, but rather a second class citizen who doesn't get the same rights and privileges as other people do. I hate going shopping, I hate doing anything in public. I can't breathe right half the time, and if I fall asleep on my back I'm in for serious trouble, as I cannot breathe at all like that. More than once I have felt like I was strangling myself in my sleep, lying on my back, semi-conscious and unable to turn over to save myself from asphyxiating. I have huge, deep abrasions all over my body that look like gigantic pimples. They hurt. My skin is terrible. Half the time, I don't even bother doing my hair or putting on makeup. What's the point?

So, I called my insurance company and asked them if they covered the procedure. They said they would, if it was deemed medically necessary. Then I called the center back and they answered some of my questions. I will be unable to get the lap band surgery, because my insurance won't pay for that. They will only pay for gastric bypass. They also informed me that my insurance requires that I be on a physician supervised diet and exercise program for SIX MONTHS before I can get a referral for a consultation. That part I didn't like, but I'll do whatever it takes. I am serious. I am going to have that surgery. I've read up on the risks associated with it, and have concluded that the risks are worth taking. If I don't, I'm going to die anyway. My heart is under stress, I almost certainly have diabetes, and I just overall feel like hell. I am so excited about this that I have called most of my family members and discussed it with them. My sister Michelle, who is tall and slender and beautiful, said that she understood why I made that decision and even though she has never been heavy, she wouldn't want to imagine what it's like. Lynn is a little more nervous about the risks, but she also understands and supports me. (She once lost over 80 pounds herself.) My husband is supportive. My father is supportive. My grandmother is ecstatic. (The woman is 84 years old, about 5'4", and weighs a healthy 105 lbs. She also plays tennis competitively and excercises every night.) My cousin Andyro is right there with me. Everyone is. If what the center says is true, and I have to wait six months for a consultation, then I will do that. That means that right around this time next year I should either be reuperating from surgery or just returning to normal after the surgery. I don't know how long the period is between the initial consultation and the actual surgery, so I am estimating that the surgery will take place sometime in September. The healing time is 4-6 weeks, not unlike a C-section, of which I've had two. Anyway, it was the center that told me it would take six months. The insurance company didn't mention that, they just said they would pay for it if it was deemed medically necessary. I don't think I'll have a problem with that. All you have to do is look at me. So, hopefully, a year and a half from now, I will be posting pics in this blog of how different I look. Of course, the blog is not going to revolve around my weight loss. That's boring. I will continue to talk about everything else. But I wanted to share it with everyone. Because I want to be feel better. I want to be healthy. I want to look good. I want the attention I used to get. I want to be able to wear clothes that don't have puppies and kittens and bowls of fruit on them. I want to spend thirty bucks on an outfit, not go to a specialty store and pay $65 for a shirt.

That's it for now. I'll be back later, I'm sure. I have developed this really nasty cold with a sore throat, so I'm going to go lie down for a while. I've been keeping track....this is the 4th time I've been sick with infections (even though the cold is not an infection, I'm counting it because I have a sore throat) since September. I have a few weeks where I feel fine, and then I'm sick again. I can't wait for this shit to stop either.

So here are some pics I think you'll like, me in various stages of growing up. It took me forever to load these stupid pictures but it was worth it. Enjoy!

This is me, on the left, my awesome grandmother, and my even more awesome sister (not the mean dunk one). This picture was taken in 1998.
The picture above is of me and my nephew Ricky. Somewhere else in this blog is a picture we took together last year. He was making a funny face in that picture, too. Not much changes. I was about 12 years old, maybe 13, in this picture.
The picture above is of me at about 14 years old and a friend of the family, and I have no idea where we are. Only that I am personally responsible for a gigantic hole in the ozone layer.
The picture above is me in 1995, at the tender and all-knowing age of 18.
The pictures above are pictures of me in the 7th and 8th grades. (8th grade is the yellow sweater and the rather frightening hair.)

I think I like this Barbie better than that one bitch who has everything.

This Barbie is saying, "What'd you say to me, punk? You better watch it 'fore I buss a cap in yo ass."

The other Barbie would have said, "Oh, hee hee, silly me. I must have said something that angered you. I need a brush, does anyone have one? Anyway, I'm so sorry. Would you like to join me for some jazzercise? It's so exhilirating and will help relieve the tension!"

This Barbie once caught Ken in a passionate embrace with Skipper, and pulled him out of the mansion by his hair and proceeded to pistol whip his ass in front of everyone in their exclusive, gated community. While he lay on the perfectly manicured ground, unconscious, she slashed all the tires on his pink Corvette and busted out the windows. Yeah, she might have paid for the car, but he was the one driving the bitch.

This Barbie doesn't care if she notices a few pounds on her impossibly perfect figure. The baggy pants and boxer shorts she wears hides it, anyway. And who cares if her hair isn't perfectly coiffed? She puts it all up in her bandanna, anyway.

This Barbie once spent time in a federal prison for the distribution and manufacturing of crack cocaine. She knows what a hard life is. She met her best friend, Rayanna, in prison. Rayanna's last name is Bratz and Barbie invited Rayanna and the entire Bratz family to live with her. She said she would find them jobs. Now they all live with Barbie in her mansion. She has taught them how to cut the coke quite well. Ken pretends to ignore them, but he knows what's going on.

One day, the Bratz family thought it would be hilarious to hide Ken's tennis racket and cardigan sweater. They found it highly amusing that Ken would go out the tennis courts by himself and smack the ball around. No one else wanted to play. The day they hid his things, Ken stormed around the mansion, yelling, "Where is my cardigan sweater?" This got on Barbie's nerves and she finally said, "Nigga, shut the fuck up, foe I smack yo bitch ass." Ken immediately shut up. Everyone thought he was scared.

In truth, Ken was afraid of Barbie, but he was more afraid of the Bratz family. They knew a terrible secret about him. One time, Rayanna's cousin, Jade Bratz, walked in on him when he was getting ready to take a shower. He turned bright red as she gasped, clapped a hand over her mouth, and then began laughing uncontrollably. She fled the room and told all of her cousins. They all laughed hysterically at what she said. Jade then called her boyfriend, Joe, who was a G.I. in the army, and told him, too. He laughed for five straight minutes and then said, "Well, I may be little but at least I'm anatomically correct."

Every time one of the Bratz saw Ken, they laughed and giggled at pointed at him. He just kept his head down and pretended not to hear them. He didn't want Barbie to know that they had found out that he only had a small, plastic, shapeless lump for a penis. Barbie herself didn't know, thanks to her sweet twin sister's invention. She invented an apparatus that Ken could attach to himself whenever they were intimate and she never knew the difference. Ken secretly loved the good Barbie, and would have been happy to marry her in a heartbeat, but everyone knew she was a lesbian.

One day, after visiting with her parole officer, Barbie stopped by her supplier's house. She tapped out the special knock on the door. The door slowly opened, and Barbie walked into the house. "Yo," she greeted the boss.

Her boss ran a hand through her stringy red hair and said, "You comin to pick up the shit?"

"Sho 'nuff," said Barbie, making herself comfortable next to her boss's brother Andy. "Hey Andy, whassup, yo?" she said as she jostled him. He said nothing, just stared vacantly ahead.

The boss was mumbling to herself as she sifted through some envelopes on the table. "Shit, man, I wish they would stop addressing my mail like this."

"Like what?" Barbie asked, adjusting the pistol in her waistband.

"These motherfuckers," spat the boss, throwing the envelope in her direction. "They keep mixing up my first and last names." Barbie caught it and examined it closely. The name on the envelope was Miss Raggedy Anne. "Ain't that your name, cuz?" Barbie asked.

"Fuck no!" replied Anne. "My name is Anne Raggedy. But they keep on doin that shit to me and Andy." She paused as she tugged on the hem on her gingham skirt. "So anyway, you ready for some good shit, B?"

Well, I have been working on my blog ALL day long. I have learned many things that I didn't know before, like how to insert html codes. It's been interesting.

I added the ads to my blog just to see what happens. I don't get a lot of traffic yet so I doubt I'll make any money. But there is potential. One of my favorite journalers, http://www.dooce.com/ started displaying ads on her journal a few months ago and has reported that she has raked in some cash. But she is a professional, and I am just an amateur hanging on to her coattails. But anyway, one click generates money. It's interesting. I can't wait to see what happens. Perhaps in the future I will have my own domain, which would be great, since I can't even google myself on here. At least, I haven't been able to so far. Reading up on this linking stuff is like reading a foreign language to me.

I also changed my journal name, but not my URL. My URL will not change. It is http://sondrathepearl.blogspot.com/. I don't have any reason for choosing this name other than the fact that Adesense creates links to ads that are relevant to the journal,and I think that if anyone out there reads this that is a little bit tubby, they might benefit from an ad for weight loss or anything else relevant to it. And again, I make money if they do.

So please bear with me, as my page looks a little out of proportion right now. I am still figuring out how to link things. I want to post a real entry, and I may do so tonight. It directly correlates with the "Is this a fat chick thing?" I'm so excited about it I may just explode, but I'll try to wait until I at least write it down first.

Well! I finally figured out how to post my picture with my comments. Thanks, anyway, Santa. All I had to do was read some simple fucking instructions. But that's me, making it harder than it really is.

I also added a counter so I can remind myself how pathetic I am. I am sure that most of the counts you see on there now are mine. It's just a daily reminder that I have no life. That's okay, though.

Today was the last day of the semester and final exam day. Both of my instructors today were nice enough to let everyone know what their final grade would be. I have A's in both classes. Now I sit and wait for a week just to find out what I got in Sociology. That was my most challenging class and the one I had to work the hardest in. As of yesterday, he had not graded two assignments and would not be posting the grades until Tuesday. Most students will usually know what they're going to get at the end of the semester, but I really have no idea. He had so much work, and all of it carried different weights. I know that I got two B's and three A's on our major tests. (worth 65% of our grade.) On our quizzes, of which there are five, I know that 3 are C's. (worth 5% of our grade...the other two he has not yet graded.) I received five extra credit points for doing an extra credit paper. I got six out of a possible ten points for two reaction papers, and 8 points out of a possible 10 points on our third reaction paper. (all worth 20% of our grade.) We were also required to do five current events, of which I think I only did four. So those are worth 10% of our grade. So, as you can see, I have no fucking idea how to calculate this. Anyone comfortable with math out there? Be my guest and throw me a figure. I am seriously obsessing over this. I WANT TO BE ON THE PRESIDENT'S LIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, tomorrow, I will be aimlessly wandering around the house with nothing to do. I mean, I have things to do (like writing) but I doubt I will start on them tomorrow. I have to paint the hallway and I have been saying that for months now, but I really have to. This room also needs painting. I'm sure I'll get around to it while enjoying this month off.....I LIKE to paint, but most people I know don't.....but I also checked out a few good books from the library. As cold as it is, nothing sounds more enticing than a nice hot cup of coffee and a good book right now. I also need to do laundry and some mundane housework. But at least I get to sleep in. YEAH!

I can't stay away from my journal today.

Thanks to everyone, for the comments. It's nice to know I've been read. Especially to you, Santa. I'm still going through your site and I think you're a genius. And I'm going to take you up on your offer to help me with this stupid picture posting thing.

Not to steal any of Santa's ideas, but I have to post these links because they are TOO funny not to. You can see these and a whole lot more funnier ones, at http://www.steakandcheese.com/ You just have to be able to navigate through the porn. So be aware not to look at this site while there are kids around or while you're at work. It's not a porn site but certain porn sites have clips on here and this is a vulgar, trashy place. If you click on the links below, it will take you directly to the clip so you don't have to navigate around the site, but you may notice porn stuff on the side of your screen. Don't worry, if you don't click on it it won't hurt you, but if you prefer not to I understand. And I also thought I should mention that none of these clips are pornographic, although there is some swearing. But they are funny, I promise! (well, one of them isn't that funny but you'll see what I mean.)

Sometimes I feel sorry for that lazy, cocky, murdering ingrate Bush.

What stupid people do with too much time on their hands.

What stupid young college guys do with too much time on their hands.

All I can say about this one is, I would have backed the damn thing up.

And I saved the best for last. The first time I saw this, I laughed so hard and so loud it's a wonder I didn't have an aneurism. Laugh here.


That's it. Enjoy. I'll be back.

Oh, the faces of innocence, righteousness, fairness, and love. NOT.

Let me tell you about this guy. If that's what you want to call him.

I won't reveal his real name, but I have referred to him in previous posts as PWF--panty wearing faggot. LOL. I'll call him Ray today.

What a complicated and stupid story it is. I met him through Lynn, when I first moved down to Kentucky with her. I immediately began chasing him around, absolutely sure that he was "the one" for me. I loved the fact that he was so tall (6'7 1/2") and had long hair. What happened was, I built him up as a person in my mind that he wasn't, which of course, left me bitterly disappointed. He wasn't abusive, but he changed me in a lot of ways, some good and some bad.

He completely destroyed my sense of self by making me feel inadequate. He did this by criticizing my weight constantly. He placed a high value on physical beauty and did not really pay much attention to the inside. Amazing, since he is not the most gorgeous creature to walk the planet himself. Anyway, he made me very aware of my weight and I remain obsessive about it to this day. I had low self esteem when I met him, otherwise I would have never clung to my ideal of him to begin with, but he crushed it even more. What I did not know when we first met was that he had fallen for Lynn in a big way. She didn't know it either, until he began to actively pursue her...in front of me. We were on again, off again for three and a half years. Three and a half long, hard years. Whenever we were off, he would call Lynn and attempt to pursue her, no matter how much she tried to convey to him that she wasn't interested. Then when he tired of her rejection, he would come back to me. And I always took him back, without question. Even though he was trying to be with my best friend.

Of course, the story is more complicated than this, but I do not have the energy to write it all down. It's embarassing to me. I have to ask myself why I let him be a part of my life at all. He didn't deserve me, that's for sure. I tried so hard to be a person that I wasn't, just to please him. He insisted that women should always look their best when they went out, and he hated seeing me wear sweats..even around the house. When he was around, I cooked, cleaned, and primped more than when he wasn't. Thank God we didn't live together at any point in our relationship (he felt he couldn't commit to cohabitation with me, even after three years..but I'll get to that in a minute.) We had a long distance relationship through the last part of our relationship that actually worked out well. (I was in Michigan, he was in Kentucky.)

In the first few days of August 2002, we had made plans for me to go to Kentucky to see him. He had just inherited his grandfather's house and was working on it. We spent hours on the phone discussing the house; the ultimate plan was for me and my daughter to finally move back to Kentucky and move in with him. This, I thought, would be the cement to our relationship. I could not wait. We decided it would be sometime in the summer of 2003. I didn't want to pull my daughter out of school to move, so it seemed like a sensible decision. In the meantime, he consulted me on every little thing, such as drapes and tiles. I was so happy to be included in the decision making process, but yet, I don't really care about things like drapes and tiles. I put on a good front and showed some enthusiasm, which is what he would have wanted me to do. What he didn't realize was, at the time, I would have happily lived in a cardboard box if it meant being with him.

Anyway, come the first weekend of August 2002, he was expecting me to be down there sometime in the early evening. I ended up being able to leave earlier and I called him to tell him that I would be early. This is what happened, verbatim:

Me: Hey, it's me. I just want to let you know that I am going to be able to leave early. I should be there after 1 if I hurry. Will you be home? Or will Kenny (his cousin) have to let me in?

Ray: Uh, well. I meant to call you.

Me: (Used to feeling disappointed...but feeling a good bit of being pissed off coming on.) Oh?

Ray: Yeah. I don't think you should come down here.

Me: What? Why? (I laughed, but I was starting to feel that all too familiar rise of panic that I associated with this relationship.) I'm already packed. What's the deal?

Ray: I just don't think you should.

Me: (no doubt yelling by now) What the fuck is going on? Why don't you want me to come down there?

Ray: Because I don't think it's a good idea.

Me: (surely screaming now) WHY NOT???

Ray: Because I'm sleeping with someone else.

Without hesitation, I slammed the phone down in his ear. I was too shocked to even contemplate what he had said. I just know that the words he used pierced my heart through and through. I sat and stared at the phone for a moment and then picked it up and called him right back. As soon as I heard his voice, I demanded to know what the fuck he was talking about. Did we not have a commitment? Did we not have plans? Three years down the drain, gone?

He explained that he had simply met someone else. And that he had been pretty much staying with her since he met her. Since he met her? We had been together for three and a half years and he wouldn't commit to living with me, but he was willing to be with her within moments of meeting her, practically?

I lost my mind and drove down there anyway. During the four hour drive, I felt desperate and heartsick. TWO DAYS LATER, he finally sat down with me and told me, to my face, that he was through with me. While I cried hysterically, he just sat there looking at his watch...because his "girlfriend" was expecting him. Something inside me snapped, and I suddenly thought to myself, what the fuck am I doing? He doesn't even care about me enough to pretend like he cares. Why am I humiliating myself like this?

On the way home to Michigan, I formulated a plan. I decided that I would move to Florida. Number one, it would put some distance between us, distance that I so desperately needed if I was to ever move on. Two, because I needed a change. And two weeks later, that's exactly what I did. Me, my daughter, my cat, my 1993 Oldsmobile Achieva, and a U-Haul trailer. We made it down there on our own, and moved into our new house in Pensacola. I had friends that lived there, so I wasn't completely alone, and I was also dealing with the death of a very close friend, which I haven't written about yet. At first living in Pensacola seemed so strange. But now, when I look back on it, it was the best decision I had ever made.

Ray called me every now and again. He found out I had landed an awesome job with an awesome company and kept making comments about "being proud" of me. While his praise used to be so important to me, after I moved to Pensacola it only annoyed me. We continued the sporadic phone contact for a few months until I met my husband. When Shawn and I decided to get married, we settled on a date and began making announcements. I must have called Ray to tell him, because he called me up on my birthday, which is, coincidentally, six days before my anniversary, and said, laughingly, "What's this about you getting married on my birthday?" This pissed me off more than words could say. It happened to be a major coincidence, nothing more, yet I was sure he was stroking his ego over it. (His birthday, and my wedding anniversary, is on May 24th. My birthday is May 18th.) So I replied, "You know, Ray, I wasn't even thinking of you, if you believe that. We coordinated our wedding around our work schedules and this is the most convenient time. It has nothing to do with you. And you know what? I don't think you should call me anymore. I really don't want you to." Stunned, he asked, "Is that what you want?" Looking at Shawn sitting next to me, I said, "Yes. That's exactly what I want."

I have not spoken to him since.

I wrote about this because I just wanted it to be in print how stupid I can be. How I will never be that stupid again. "Nobody's Fool" by Cinderella is not one of my favorite songs for nothing. I can't believe I spent all those years with Ray, vying for his attention, when I could have been with someone that appreciated me for me. Ray hated it that I was such a tomboy and tried to change me into some ultrafeminine goddess that I wasn't. The reason for this is clear to people who know him: he's a crossdresser. Yes, he really is. I am not speculating. I know. I knew within the first year of our relationship. He told me to my face and it was the weirdest, most fucked up conversation I ever had. I was only 22 and had very limited knowledge of myself so I thought I could easily handle it. I could not. It was more difficult than you could imagine. The shame and embarassment is only half the story. Since I have to be politically correct here, I will state that his crossdressing was a personal issue for me but I don't think all crossdressers are like him. Also, doesn't it seem pretty obvious? He wanted me to be what he himself could not be--- a feminine girl who uses tons of makeup, perfume, and whose outfit always always included a pair of black pantyhose. And I wanted him to be what he could not be, ever---a real man, in love with me.

I'm going to end this post with a couple of quotes, or sayings, that apply to it. First, as Garth Brooks said, "Thank God for unanswered prayers." Second of all, Semisonic hit the nail right on the head when they said, "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

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Well, I figured out how to post links. I don't understand why they look somewhat different, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. Now, if only I could learn how to post my picture to my profile so that when I leave a comment everyone gets to see my face........(any advice would be greatly appreciated!)

Last night, I couldn't sleep, so I came in here to the office to play around on the computer awhile. Thinking about an old friend of mine, who I'll call Jerry, I decided to log onto AOL and see if he was in the chat room he could always be found in...the one he helped create. I haven't spoken to Jerry in a little over a year, but I miss him sometimes. I met him in 2002 and that's a whole other story, but let's just say that yes, I do know him in person. Anyway, it was about 1:00 AM when I logged into AOL. I hardly ever log into AOL anymore. But now I'm getting ahead of myself.

So I go into the chat room and ask if "VOODOO" still comes in there. That's his screen name, it never varies, it's always something with VOODOO in it. Immediately, some girl with the screen name of "peggy dew ldle" or something says, "who are you?" Figuring this to be a reasonable question, since chat room folk are quite protective of their regulars, I immediately reply, "Well, my name is Sondra and I've known him for about three years. He was friends with one of my best friends, Heather, who died." This was sort of a convoluted version of the truth, but close enough. I don't like to reveal too much to chat room people, especially AOL people. She comes back at me IMMEDIATELY with, "Well, Dem is his girlfriend and she really doesn't like people taking her man." Shocked, I scanned the room list and sure enough, there was a screen name with "Dem" in it. Feeling a little angry, I shot back, "Well, I'm just here looking for him because he was once a good friend of mine. But Dem doesn't have to worry--I'm married!" I added an "LOL" to add an air of humor to the statement, hoping that peggy whatsherface would back off. Just then, Dem started talking. At first, I thought she was talking to me, but it turns out she was talking to peggy. I sat there and watched the chat roll up the screen for about five minutes. She completely ignored me, but her and that peggywhatsit got into a five minute conversation about---I kid you not---the logistics of shooting candy, mostly M&M's, out of their butts. Dem made the comment that she "hit him in the eye once." I sat there blinking at my screen. I mean, I'm almost thirty. Is this the way people still talk? I talked like that before adolescence, when I thought it was funny. At thirty, it's not funny, it's stupid. I just sat there watching this when peggy whoseewhatsherface says, "See Sondra, you can't do those kinds of things for Jerry, only Dem can, so you better try to find another man to steal." I said, "LISTEN, YOU DUMB BITCH. I ALREADY TOLD YOU I'M ONLY HERE BECAUSE HE WAS ONCE A FRIEND OF MINE. I AM MARRIED. THAT'S ALL." Then I clicked the send button without realizing a very important thing: These are AOL people I'm talking to.

Believe me, there is a difference. I think the miscreants, deviants, and the borderline retarded members of our society congregate on AOL. I'm not talking about people who use the server for their email or even some people who use AOL for journal writing or other things. (I use it for the AOL radio..very good stuff.) I'm talking about people whose sole purpose in paying for AOL is to be able to interact with other people who need excessive amounts of attention. They sit in chat rooms, put each other down, harass each other, stalk each other, and act as if they know each and every person in the room as an individual. This may be true in some cases, but in most cases they are just lonely, needy slobs sitting in front of a computer who found a way to connect to thousands of other people just like them. And then they gang up on the people who don't follow their little AOL culture, making people's lives absolutely miserable. I have a friend who is profesionally employed, and after getting into an argument with one of the AOL chat room deviants, she found out where he worked, his last name, his office number, his phone number, and other various little pieces of information, which she then passed out to the other members of the room, who then began a month long rally of harassment to my friend. He didn't back down or show fear..he just began slapping them with harassment suits one by one. (One thing they forgot in their little campaign of senseless harassment: he is an attorney.) But he still had to take the time to trace phone numbers and get addresses for these people in order to serve them, not to mention the money it must have cost him to hunt them down, since most of them were not in his state. He called me and I listened to some of the messages they left him...a giggling gaggle of idiots that had nothing of real value to say, just called his machine and giggled and breathed into it. And these are grown people we're talking about, not adolescents or children. GROWN FOLK. Sickening.

So after I sent that message stating my position and realizing it would do no good---peggy is probably the reigning grand dame of that room and avoidance of reality is her specialty---I sent one more message, something about "who has time for this shit? fuck off" and signed off. I half expected to see an email from Jerry today but there wasn't one. Not that he owes me an apology, he doesn't act like that. At least I've never seen him act like that. And I know him in real life. He's a mellow, laid back, "I don't give a damn" kind of guy. But if those are the kinds of girls he's attracted to, then perhaps I'm better off without the stress of dealing with an overzealous, irrationally jealous AOL girlfriend. It's just not worth it.