WOOHOO!!! I made it through Christmas without wanting to kill anyone or without wanting to kill myself. It's a good holiday when I can say that. I get really depressed around Christmas. But this time I made it. :)

I am feeling SO much better. No queasy tummy or anything now, just fatigue. Thank god. I am, however on a quest. I made a reference to Tiny Tim and she didn't know who that was other than the little lame boy in A Christmas Carol. So, I'm trying to find a link to video of him doing Tiptoe Through the Tulips. If anybody comes across that, please leave me a link in the comments. Thanks.

I have come to the realization I am using this blog as a fancy way to simply talk to myself. I guess I get points for being creative.

I feel bad. I've had the flu the past few days and as a consequence haven't held down all my meds. I'm holding down the ones I took tonight ok, but this has led to a horrible bout of depression, right here at 1:27 am CT. I was laying here trying to get some sleep and began thinking about the movie What Dreams May Come. Now, if you haven't ever seen this, it's about a couple who loose their kids in a car accident, she goes nuts, they manage to stay together, then he dies in a car wreck and she ends up killing herself. Now this is where it begins to get really interesting. He goes to try to rescue her from hell. No, I'm not kidding. I have loved a few people in my life that much, that I would try to rescue them from hell. But I don't really feel that anybody has ever loved me that much. Now I know I'm bipolar, have anxiety issues, insomnia, and can end up wallowing in self pity. I know all this. I can't help any of it tho. Try as I might, I can't stop it. I end up feeling as if I'm a big pile of dog doo and not worth the space I take up. With this being the holiday season, that just makes it that much worse. I hate myself that I can't give people the things I want to. I feel like I am such a waste of every one's time and why do people even talk to me much less want to be around me? I know this is all classic bipolar but I can't, on an emotional level, feel that it's not actually true. What's even worse is that I know Nina is going thru this too. Her two best friends basically told her that they would rather be friends with her ex-boyfriend (who is online and they don't even know in real life) than her. And she doesn't understand how they could stab her in the back like this. I don't know either since that is something I've never understood about people is how they can deliberately hurt you in such a way. It's why I like animals more than people. If an animal hurts you it's because you did something wrong by hurting or scaring them. If a person does it, 9 times out of 10 it's deliberate and they meant it. And all this has made her feel the same way I'm feeling right now. I hate it. I wish I could take that away from her. I took her to our family doc and he refused to put her on meds cause she's only 12. He's an idiot. But I've said that before, right? What's real sad is he used to belong to the same Mensa group I did. :P

Wow. I've been watching the first and second parts in a 10 part series about Soviet Russia. It basically begins right as Lenin dies. I always knew Stalin was a butcher but I didn't know how genuinely insane and deeply evil the man really was. It's amazing that anybody survived to keep the nation populated. My great grandfather came to the United States from Ukraine. The town he left either doesn't exist anymore or has been renamed. My uncle who keeps the family records and tree cannot get any information about this town where my great grandfather was born. We have a copy of his birth certificate which is in Russian and German because his parents were from Germany and had relocated to Ukraine, but that's it. After watching this documentary, I can't blame people there for not wanting to give any information out. Between Stalin and Hitler with the religious, political and racial purges in that area, it's amazing people still live in the area and didn't flee for their lives long ago.

Yes, I know, I'm inputting a lot tonight. I just finished the second half of the show about manic depression (bipolar disorder). I already knew quite a bit about it since I suffer from a variety of it. With bipolar II you don't get the wild highs like with regular bipolar. My highs are what most people would consider "normal" and my lows are very low. Which sucks cause I know if I could get a good manic high for a couple of days I could get all the work on my camper done, hehehe. Anyway, in this show Stephen Fry (British actor) talks to other bipolar people to see how they cope, what their symptoms are, etc. He also asks them if they could press a button and all their bipolar symptoms would disappear, would they do it? Most of them said no, they would not. Which to "normal" people might sound incredibly odd. It makes perfect sense to me tho. I've suffered with this illness since I was about 10 years old. It's at that age where I first wanted to kill myself or just lay down and die, whichever came first. There were so many years where all I could see was the inky blackness of the tunnel and didn't even realize there was an end to it. A severely stressful job and a marriage made in hell pushed me over the edge a few years ago and it was worse than it ever had been. Thinking back, I spent most of the time from age 10 to around age 25 trying to be "normal". I wanted to fit in. I didn't want to hear my own voice in the back of my mind telling me I was worthless, fat, ugly and stupid. I couldn't make it shut up tho. I didn't want offhand comments made by others to wound me to the point where i could bleed to death. Sounds weird, but I don't actually know what it's like to be "normal". I haven't been anywhere close to "normal" for most of my life. Even before the depression I was an exceptionally bright kid and very shy. Any time you are very smart your life just isn't "normal". I tried and tried and tried to be like everyone else. Thank god I didn't succeed. I think I am a much more interesting person than anybody who is "normal" could be. I fight with my condition every day and still sometimes experience horribly low lows, but they aren't as bad or as often as they used to be. I feel that I am holding my own and getting my life back. Now, without my ex-husband around I can try to begin to believe that I'm not a bad person, that not everything is my fault, and that only a******s don't pay their child support. Plus, for someone with bipolar, not being bipolar is a scary thing. Just like "normal" people don't understand what it's like to be bipolar, we bipolars don't understand what "normal" is. We feel that we are normal until we decide we might be a messenger from god or maybe even the reincarnation of Napoleon or something. We fear a big change like that as you would fear becoming suddenly bipolar. If you see what I mean.

I've been kind of looking for a guy I used to know. His name is Raja Kalidas and he attended Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He wrote a paper called "Deposition and Characterization of Thin Films of Metals and Compounds," in 1986 towards his Masters Degree. (I found that tidbit of info on the school's website.) Searching the web, the only other vague lead I have is a site citing a paper called "Field Performance of Hybrid Power Systems" and it brought up this info with the listing: Raja Kalidas. David Corbus. charles_newcomb@nrel.gov. Raja_Kalidas@nrel.gov. david_corbus@nrel.gov. So, i tried to pull up the page and it gives me the cover of said paper but won't go beyond that. Weird. Then I tried opening up the homepage of the place, www.nrel.gov. I got that fine but when I did a search of employees, no Raja Kalidas. I befriended him while he was at SIUC in the 80s. We used to drink and talk about the possibilities of other dimensions and stuff. The last I heard of him, he was going to ride his bicycle to California. I don't know if he did but I suspect he might have. He was wanting to develop more efficient solar panels when I knew him, but I suspect he's probably branched out by now. If anybody out there might know a guy who fits this description, have him come take a look at this blog. I'd love to at least be able to e-mail with him, see how his life has been. I haven't seen him since the late 80s. I know this is a shot in the dark, but I haven't got anything to loose.

I heard a really excellent album today. It's by Philip Glass and entitled Solo Piano. I have been following Battlestar Galactica (the new series, not the old one, lol) and in season 2 there was an episode where Starbuck went back to Caprica, met up with Helo and they ended up at Starbuck's apartment. She had the place rigged with battery power cause she didn't pay her bills (so she said) and she turned on some music. It was a piano piece and I fell in love with it. So I tracked down what piece of music it was. It was called Metamorphosis One and it's the first track off the Solo Piano album. If you aren't into piano music, don't even bother looking it up. This has a classical feel to it with some very complex emotions floating in the music. After listening to it off and on all day, I was watching a tv show called Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive and it had another of the tracks off the album in it. Not sure if it was track 3, 4 or 5 but it was DEFINITELY off that album. Odd, eh?

This is one of the pictures I took of Nina before the dance. She felt she didn't look good but we all thought she was gorgeous. Hair, nails, dress, makeup, jewelry were all perfect. And she was in good spirits too. Of course she came home after an hour and a half crying cause her friends were snubbing her... It's my personal opinion that they were jealous cause she looked so good. And yes, she really is just 12. Not even 13 till May.

Today has royally sucked. I am not a happy camper. At all. It all kind of began Friday. Nina came home from school mad at her friend Katie because they were supposed to try out for the talent show after school Friday and Katie backed out. So Nina was really pissed off. Plus Nina's online boyfriend dumped her. Gave her some real bulls**t reasons for it then almost immediately began dating a girl where he lives and sent Nina a picture of them kissing. GRRR Ok, then there was the Winter Dance. Nina had gotten a gorgeous red dress for the event and we had her hair and nails done (Thanks to Jeff and Michael!!!) and she was drop dead gorgeous. And yes, she is 12. But she was drop dead gorgeous. Well, ends up her friends pretty much snubbed her at the dance. Then today she was trying talk to them (Katie and Johnica) online and they basically began saying really hateful stuff to her about how she's selfish and hateful, etc. We thought at first it was Katie's little brother who was doing it on Johnica's msn account but Nina later called to talk to Katie and Katie yelled at her about how she hated Nina and then hung up on her. And of course, we have no idea why this all came about. I am betting Johnica has something to do with it but I can't prove that. The sad thing is that I had promised Johnica that if I ever got the spare parts, I'd build her a computer of her own cause she always has to use her aunt's. I guess I will find another kid to give it to. I just don't understand why people have to be hateful like that. And I'm pretty sure Nina didn't do anything to deserve this. She was hysterically upset. I told her she didn't have to go to school tomorrow. Now some people would not agree with that, but they aren't in my shoes. I suffer from bipolar II and I'm pretty sure Nina's got it too. I see a lot of the same behavioural patterns in her that I had when I was her age. But the reason for it is because she needs a day to cool off and to not have to see these people. She's sad and angry and hurt all at the same time, to the point where she's making herself physically ill with it and even though she will have to see them Tuesday, I feel that a day off from having to see them will help keep things from erupting into violence when she does. I know if I had to see them tomorrow I would be sorely tempted to strangle them.

Urg. And I mean that. I really don't like Christmas much. And it's not for the reasons you might think. Mainly it's because I don't have the money to give people the things I want them to have. Weird, eh? It ends up depressing me. I'm bipolar II anyway, and this just makes it worse. Staying at my parent's house is also eroding what little sanity I have left. I think it also depresses me that I'm a giver and I'm usually surrounded by takers. There are those people who take and take and you don't ever get anything back from them, emotionally or materially. That tends to slowly kill a giver. I wish I could stop being a giver, but I haven't managed it yet. Been working on it for years too. :P

In brighter news, my other daughter Blair is now at the stage where she's feeling the baby move. It's a very exciting thing for a pregnant woman. Might seem silly to those of you who have never been pregnant, but this is the stage at which an emotional bond begins to form between the mother and the baby. It's like up to that point it's quite unreal. You know that you are pregnant, but at this stage you can FEEL the life moving around and it becomes all too real. Plus you have the whole hormonal roller coaster, water retention, headaches, backaches, foot aches, weird cravings at 2 am and suddenly the nesting urge kicks in. Well for most of us it does anyway. When I was pregnant with Blair, I decided one night to scrub out all the spots on the carpet in the house I was renting. I worked on it for HOURS. With Nina I took apart the furnace in the mobile home I was renting and cleaned that out. Not everyone gets these urges, but I can tell you at various times I cleaned for days. Since I'm naturally a slob, this was decidedly unusual. I can say I don't miss any of it, lol.

Well. I had parked my camper at a storage facility and had been paying them to let me keep it there. Well, I had paid part of the next month's rent and got a call that I had to come get it as they are resurfacing the parking lot this week. :P There's a big pain in the butt. But this does give me the chance to get some stuff done to it. In addition, I had a spare computer I used to keep in my living room for when company came over and wanted to surf. I got this out of the camper and am redoing it for Nina to use here at mom's as it does me no good at all. No room to set it up in the camper even when the camper is popped up. So I've been working on that all night but I have another problem. She has this digital cam called a Digital Blue Movie Creator. And she's lost the cd with the installation on it. Which means that she can't use it till we can find the software to reinstall the thing. So if anybody knows where I might find the software for dl (and yes, I've already checked the Digital Blue website) leave me a msg, ok?

Sometimes I wonder if anybody is reading this. Besides Rocky. I feel like I can yell HELLO and it's going to echo around an empty room. So, if it's not being read, am I simply using an exotic way to talk to myself? Maybe.

Wow. It's been a hectic week for me. And it's only going to speed up, lol. I've been rushing to finish my vinyl for the popup camper (I'm redoing the ends cause they had holes and were leaking) and I'm not even close to being finished. But that's ok. I'm going to stay in my mom's basement until approximately the 18 of December. Why the 18th? Well, because that's the projected date of my brother arriving. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't hate my brother. I simply can't stand him. We used to be friends at least, but apparently over the past year I've become one of the bad guys. What that means to me is that it doesn't matter what I do or what I've done it's not right. So, when I quit smoking, it was "Great you quit smoking, but....". There's always that "but". The last fight we had was thru e-mail. Basically he told me what he felt I should do and because I didn't agree I was wrong. Then it got to where I had to say something about the fact he never listens to me when I need to go on about stuff but I always listened to him and of course, that was wrong. I shouldn't have "enabled" that. Of course, at the time if I didn't listen that was because I was wrong and didn't love him. I went thru the same type of crap with my ex-husband. It didn't matter what I did because if it was my plan, my idea, it was wrong. I feel that I've made some great steps towards being independent. Right now I'm not getting any child support out of my ex-husband and I'm subsisting on my disability alone. I am improving my camper so that I won't need an electrical hookup to get by, meaning I'll be able to camp for free or almost free in a lot of places. Once my brother is gone, I'll come back here prolly until January. I might go to Arkansas for a bit then. I have to stay kind of close to home until April, when Blair's baby is due.

The vinyl is a big project and it's backbreaking work cause the pieces are so big and I can't crawl around on the floor if I want to be able to get up again. My knees and back don't like that sort of thing anymore. It's almost done tho and I think once it's put up it will look much nicer than that old vinyl that was there. It was the original vinyl from 1973 and it was crusty looking, heheh. I got the vinyl from this place that sells bolts of vinyl and other odd fabrics. You can check it out at http://www.ahh.biz/products/fabric%20military%20tent%20FTM014.htm . The specs on it are incredible. They say:

Weighs 14 oz. per square yard. It has a grab tensile strength of 340 lbs, a hydrostatic resistance of 500 pounds per square inch and a flame resistance
of 1X1 second (flame will be extinguished in 1 second, when removed from
flame source, if you attempt to set it on fire). Guaranteed for use in
temperature ranges from -40 F (40 below zero) to 150 F; This fabric is
mildew resistant, UV protected, Totally Water Proof and rated for constant
and prolonged outdoor use. It consists of a woven Polyester base fabric
Coated with a Specialized Vinyl. The Vinyl coating on this material is
formulated with an Infrared (IR) blocking substance; designed to make it
almost invisible to aircraft and satellites utilizing Infrared imaging
devices.

I have to say it's pretty easy to hand stitch (I'm using a sewing awl) and I'll find out how it works under the machine once I've got the major seams done. I'm using a heavier weight thread for the hand sewing than I can use with the machine for the seams that are critical. The machine sewing will just be to pretty it up, make it look nice and neat. Also, I checked on the prices and specs for marine vinyl, which is the next best thing. Not even CLOSE to this stuff, but still around the same price per yard. So of course I went with the military vinyl. If you don't believe me, check for yourself!

Here it is, early Monday morning, the Monday after Thanksgiving. Yes, I was bloated with turkey, mashed potatoes, corn and giblet gravy. It was sweet. But I haven't simply been in a turkey coma all this time. I've been working on stuff. I'm a member of a group on yahoo called Freecycle. What the people do there is if they have something to give away (free) they post it then once contacted by somebody who wants it the person then goes and gets it. Or if a person needs something they post their need and then if anybody can help them out they contact the person to let them know. I've given away a couch and a doll on there, gotten a couple of non-working hard drives and this time I hit the jackpot. This posting came up that a school was giving away all their old systems to the first person to call. I called first. They had a TON of stuff. I'm still going thru it all. I've identified 5 working systems out of the 9 they sent with me. I've used the parts from the non-working ones to beef up the working ones (these are all 300 mhz cpu or slower). They also sent quite a few monitors and some printers. I've given one to a guy I know who was running a 233 so he got the 300. I went over to his place and I swapped it all out for him. Increased his ram too. It's not speed racer or anything, but it's quite a bit better than what he was working with. I have a 233 I'm fixing up for Blair. I won't put too many details about it cause she reads this and I want the modifications I'm making to the case to be a surprise. It won't be a fast system but it will be good for typing up papers and such. I'm earmarking the other 233 mhz machine for my daughter's friend Johnica. I always told Johnica that if I had the parts I'd build her a computer. And now it's almost done. She will get a printer, monitor, keyboard and mouse for it. She won't be able to go online with it, but it will be good for typing up homework and stuff. Plus, it will be hers. Her family doesn't even have a computer right now, she has to go to her aunt's house to use one. So this will be very cool for her. And then the 120 mhz machine I'm going to give to my ex-gf. She's gone back to college and has a laptop but the laptop was given to her and it has some heat issues. So, I figured I'd give her a desktop that's slow but that she can use to write her papers and stuff on so she doesn't have to use the laptop and risk overheating. So yeah, I've been wading thru a TON of dirty, dusty, old computer parts. I've not been this happy in YEARS. I was a computer technician for a while, ran my dad's store here in town. I never realized how much I miss working on computer systems. These old systems are so easy I can almost do it with my eyes closed in some cases, lol. Oh, I forgot to mention that I'm saving all the old housings from the systems for my friend NTL in Missouri. He makes wind generators and uses a bit of scrap sheet metal. I figured this would be some nice smaller chunks of sheet for him without him having to go to the junkyard.

Now, on to what I saw that really pissed me off.

DENVER (AP) - A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace
sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan.
Some residents who have complained have children serving in Iraq, said Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association in Pagosa Springs. He said
some residents have also believed it was a symbol of Satan. Three or four
residents complained, he said.
"Somebody could put up signs that say drop bombs on Iraq. If you let one go up you have to let them all go up," he said in a telephone interview Sunday.
Lisa Jensen said she wasn't thinking of the war when she hung the wreath. She said, "Peace is way bigger than not being at war. This is a spiritual thing."
Jensen, a past association president, calculates the fines will cost her about $1,000, and doubts they will be able to make her pay. But she said she's not going to take it down until after Christmas.
"Now that it has come to this I feel I can't get bullied," she said. "What if they don't like my Santa Claus."
The association in this 200-home subdivision 270 miles southwest of Denver has sent a letter to her saying that residents were offended by the sign and the board "will not allow signs, flags etc. that can be considered divisive."
The subdivision's rules say no signs, billboards or advertising are permitted without the consent of the architectural control committee.
Kearns ordered the committee to require Jensen to remove the wreath, but members refused after concluding that it was merely a seasonal symbol that didn't say anything. Kearns fired all five committee members.

Ok, sorry AP, I cut and pasted your story. But this just really chapped my ***. This guy Kearns obviously needs to take whatever is stuck up his *** and pull it out. Now. Like if it's his head that would explain the whole thing. Lack of oxygen makes you do stupid stuff. Now, I do understand all about these communities that have the resident's rules and regs, but this is insane. It's obvious that this guy has some sort of vendetta against Ms. Jensen. I can't see any other reason for that sort of irrational behaviour. The whole idea of Christmas is Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward Men. Right? And even if it's just a "seasonal wreath" with no Christian connotations, then what is that supposed to mean???? More War in Iraq? Keep our kids on the firing line? Let's worship Satan? I think this guy Kearns needs some serious psychotherapy and some of the good drugs. Maybe even a Thorazine drip. I am enough of a weirdo that I can safely say I'd NEVER live in a community where they could tell me what color my house could be. EVER. I tried for years and years to be "normal". Once I finally stopped and realized that I'm never going to be "normal" or "like everyone else" I began to revel in my uniqueness. And I do mean revel. I always knew when people called me unique they meant weird. It was a given. Now, I earn every bit of the word WEIRD. And I'm much happier this way. I am who I am and I don't care what anybody else thinks. It's a good thing.

Yup. I've been slacking on the blogging again. I've been having technical difficulties. I've been depressed. My ex-gf has been depressed. My oldest daughter Blair has been depressed. My younger daughter Nina has been depressed. :P My friend Rocky called me on Friday and while I'm talking to him Blair calls on the landline and is sobbing. Her mom (adopted) doesn't understand about her being on an emotional roller coaster because her mom has never been pregnant. Which is, of course, why she adopted children. But this makes it very hard for Blair. Plus her mom doesn't seem to want anybody to know that Blair is pregnant since Blair is a senior in high school and only 17. Which I can understand. However I also understand it from the other side because I've been there. Almost anyway. I was 20 when I got pregnant and out of high school, but it's still a traumatic thing for all concerned. Took me quite a while to talk her down but I think it's ok now. She was supposed to call back and let me know if she could come for Thanksgiving but I haven't heard back about it yet. With all the trauma and then Nina had me take her and a friend out for pizza and then over to the mall and stuff, I didn't get a chance to call Rocky back and then forgot. I'll have to call him next weekend. Nina's been quite difficult lately She's been "dating" this guy online who lives in Tennessee. Nina is 12 going on 20 and this kid is 16. I don't actually approve of this but I let it go because I'd rather she talk to me about this relationship than go behind my back, which I have no doubts she would. The problem is that it's gotten to the point where she sobs if she hasn't been able to talk to him enough or if he hurts her feelings (the way teen boys do without thinking). Once the sobbing is done then she takes this all out on my and grandma. She had a fit today about being grounded over not doing her homework. I ground her from the computer cause grounding her from anything else doesn't do anything. She ranted and raved and had a fit about how I don't care about her feelings and how I'm hurting her because the only thing that makes her feel good is talking to her bf. I told her she was only hurting herself because she was the one who was proving to not be mature enough to deal with her homework and her bf so until she gets herself together she's off the Internet. She's got an after school detention Monday for homework me and her grandma have been hounding her about for two weeks. TWO WEEKS. I don't feel that the punishment is too severe here. Plus, this might get her thrown off the Scholar Bowl team. They don't like their members to get detentions. Guess we will have to wait and see.

I like to rant. I do. It's kind of fun. Today when I read the news I got to read about how the Catholic Bishops are still condemning gay people except now it's official (and yes, I was raised Catholic, attended Catholic school and had a great aunt who was a nun), I read about how a guy who got away with a rape in 1984 apologized to the woman he raped and is now up on charges in court, and I read about how some neo-nazi teen beat and sodomized a Latino teen with a plastic patio umbrella pipe. Our society is going to hell in a hand basket. But I'm not going to rant about any of this right now. What I'm going to go on about is the Wii. This is apparently a new game system that's going to be released (or just was, not sure on that) by Nintendo. But that's not the funny bit. The funny bit is that it's pronounced like WEE. Yes, WEE. "Mom, I want a Wii!" "Judy, get your hands off my Wii!" "Charles, I want your Wii!!!" "I really need a Wii!" Yes. Toilet humor. Me and my daughter laughed till we had tears going down our faces over all this earlier on the couch in the living room. It was good. She laughed so hard she snorted, hehehehe. Sometimes a really good laugh is better than all the ranting in the world.

Ok, today I'm going to show you pictures of my mom's upstairs bathroom. I am sure you are asking yourself why in god's name do I want to see your mom's bathroom? Well, I'll tell ya, the oddest thing happened in there the other morning and I'm using the pics to illustrate. The picture below shows the area in question. The toilet and right across from it is a nice little table with a scented candle and potpourri around it. Nice, right? I entered the bathroom, closed the door and sat down to meditate.
Now this is the part where it begins to get a little weird. This shot below is the view from the seat of the toilet. A little pamphlet to browse, the potpourri and candle to appreciate. But I notice something off. I'm still not very awake but I see something WEIRD. I see a weird old dude staring at me. And another guy staring at me too. At least the dog isn't staring at me as well. These odd little items are apparently called Homies and Nina, Blair and their friend Brianna got a bunch of them out of a vending machine at a Taco Bell in Chicago. Dude, it's very ODD to be sitting on the toilet first thing in the morning and notice a creepy old dude with sunglasses sitting there staring at you, even if it is a little plastic figure. The guy standing down in the potpourri wasn't as bad cause he didn't stand out so much. Apparently my daughter put these there as a joke. I told her later on it was an awesome joke. It was kind of creepy in a weird way at first but it's gotten funnier and funnier the past few days. And yes, I know I need to go get a life. :P

Ok, I'm pissed off again. Did you read this? http://apnews.excite.com/article/20061109/D8L9NREO1.html
I was appalled. Totally sickened. Being bisexual and living in the bible belt, I am discreet about my orientation. I don't want to deal with harassment or gay bashing. But in reading this article, I felt ashamed. For some reason, I feel like the gay community should be better than this. The reaction to threats of sodomy against the couple and their children is sick. I fully understand and condone the actions of the gay couple in this article who were taken aback by the notification that the business wouldn't meet with them because they won't work for homosexuals. If it happened to me I would do the same thing, e-mail everyone I know and tell them not to patronize the business. But for other people who heard about the incident and began with threats against the couple and their kids, that's just wrong. The gay community has called themselves "family" for a long time. Your gay friends sometimes become your only family when you come out because of the intolerance of straight people. Once I came out I've never denied what I was. Sometimes I don't announce it but I have never denied it. I have always felt that the gay community was always more tolerant of differences because of what it's members have had to endure on a personally level. So imagine how shocked and horrified I was to read about this response by some of the members of the community. Kind of leaves me with the feeling that maybe there's too many of us who are no better than the straights.

I've been really depressed the past few days so I'm reading my back issues of Bizarre News. If you haven't ever subscribed to it, you should. It's hilarious. Most of the time anyway. The url to subscribe is: http://af3.gophercentral.com/sub/classic-bizarre.html Go subscribe, then if you don't like it, blame me. This is a sample of the kind of news you will find there:

NEW ZEALAND - Bras are being used for a different kind of
support by a farmer in New Zealand. John Lee started putting bras on the
fence of his farm as a joke, but the 66-year-old says he is now receiving
undergarments from all over the world. Passing female motorists have even been
known to get out of their cars, strip off their tops and adorn his famous fence
with their bras. But thieves raided the bra fence three times in 10 days leaving
him virtually bra-less. He is now securing his bras to the fence using
rabbit netting. He had 165 undergarments at the last count. "If these ladies
keep sending me their bras I feel honor-bound to put them on the fence," Lee
concluded.

Now if you don't find that amusing enough to at least make you crack a smile,
then why are you reading my blog???!!! Seriously. If the thing about the bra isn't amusing to you at all, then nothing I say is either. Can't be. No way.

Yeah, I know, I've been slacking off in blogging. I've been having technical difficulties tho. Not with my computer but with my life. Things are just really complicated and upsetting right now. My daughter Nina doesn't seem to want to spend any time with me, although I'm thinking she does still like me but detests her dad. I spent the weekend installing a water heater for my ex-girlfriend. Yes, I said ex-girlfriend. We are friends. She lost her job and is trying to get thru this semester of school and try to find a new job so things are hectic for her right now. I found her a new water heater for $20 (new to her that is) and I installed it. Took 2 days because the idiot who had redone the plumbing in her trailer was insane. Three different size fittings on the ends of the copper piping. I finally gave up trying to match it and cut the suckers off and sweated new ends on so I could connect them to the PVC going out of the water heater. Problem now is that she didn't pressure test till today and she's got a couple of small leaks (just the PVC tho, my copper sweats were all good) and I have to go over tomorrow to fix that. And I also have to figure out why she now has no water at all in her kitchen. Which, of course, might mean having to tear out all the copper piping in the kitchen and replace it with PVC if it's got a bunch of crud in it like the pipes me and a friend replaced for her this spring. I have a sneaking suspicion that the crud was from her old water heater burning up then sitting there till the guy sold her the trailer. I could be wrong tho. I doubt it, but I could be. And with all this going on I'm selling parts of my old computer on eBay. That's worrisome for me. I worry that I won't get bids on stuff and then still owe the fees. I hate that. I'll have to get over it tho cause I need to begin to pay my dad back. I've given him some money but not enough yet. Not even CLOSE to enough. So I've got all that on my mind. And of course I hadn't mentioned Blair yet. Blair is my daughter that I gave up for adoption when she was born. Her dad died while I was pregnant with her and I kind of fell apart when that happened. It was an open adoption tho, which means that she grew up knowing me and my family, knowing that I was her birth mom. It hasn't been easy sometimes, cause there's always that part of me that felt I should have kept her. I don't know that her life would have been better or worse. Probably worse in some ways better in others. She feels that she's odd and we just accept her as one of the family. I think she feels more comfortable around us sometimes. But I digress. She's 17 and a senior in high school now. And a few weeks ago she e-mailed me to let me know she's pregnant. Yup. She thought I was going to hate her. I made sure she knew that I didn't hate her and that no matter what I would always love her cause she's my daughter. I told her that I would not go to Arizona yet if she didn't want me to and she said she would like me around till the baby is born. Now she lives about an hour and a half north of here but I will stay in the area till then. She had an ultrasound on Friday and found out it's a girl and she's due April 13th. I have to say I'm excited, upset, sad, frustrated... And maybe half a dozen other things. Excited cause it's a baby!!! Upset because I can't be a physical source of emotional support, no daily hugs, can't hold her hand when she's crying for no reason, etc. Sad cause I wish she was older and didn't have to give up the baby and also that it's going to interrupt her senior year but at least she will go on to university. Oh, and I forgot really FREAKED OUT that I'm 38 and gonna be a GRANDMA!!! Oh, and Blair, if you read this, just remember that if necessary I will kick that boy's scrawny little butt if need be. Just so you know.

Ok, it's this sort of thing that just makes me wanna puke. http://apnews.excite.com/article/20061103/D8L5PJLO0.html This guy is supposed to be a role model. He's an EVANGELIST. Theoretically he's supposed to be speaking for GOD. He's the father of five, married and apparently likes gay prostitutes and meth. WHAT???!!! Ok, I'm not a fanatic on any front, but this is a bit disgusting. He puts himself out there as a moral, upstanding person by strict Christian standards. Then he lies about all of the goings on, and then he admits to some of it but not all of it. What makes me sick is that he's a liar in the worst way. He preaches that gay marriage is wrong on the grounds that the bible says being gay is wrong yet he gets "massages" from gay male prostitutes? And, if the prostitute can be believed (and I'm sure this guy at least isn't pretending to be a moral upstanding person, so his veracity is more probable in my opinion), they had crazy drug fueled sex on more than one occasion. Of course, the evangelist denies this. I'd rather hang out with a gay prostitute who tells the truth than an evangelist who is the worst sort of liar any day. Just my two cents worth here.

Holy Batpoop Batman!!! While searching for the M. Tambourine Man video, I came across this: http://www.shatnerology.com/ Yes, a religion worshiping William Shatner. Check it out, it's hilarious.

Right now my cat, Meow, seems to be extremely jealous of the keyboard. She keeps trying to get her nose under my hand so I'll pet her head, just like a dog. It's quite funny. Makes surfing the net and typing a challenge tho.

I've been looking for a video clip of William Shatner doing his rendition of Mr. Tambourine Man. Why would I be doing that? Am I some kind of weirdo? Why yes I am!!! When I initially showed Nina the video clip I found of him doing Rocketman at the 1978 SciFi awards, she couldn't believe it. She was embarrassed for him. Since then, it's kind of become a joke between us as to how bad Shatner's singing is. It's so bad we kind of like it, in a weird way. So, I checked youtube and nothing. I'll try ifilm next and keep my fingers crossed. Somebody has to have it. They showed a clip of it on the Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner. :)

I still feel bad, but I'm much better than I was earlier. Good thing. I hate going to the doctor and I hate being in the hospital even worse. I have to say I'm going stir crazy. I have been broke for a week and a half now and I'm so sick of it it's not even funny. I have things I could be doing if I had some cash. My check won't arrive until Friday and I've been ebaying stuff but it's not much and I can't get ahold of any of that cash till pay pal verifies my account. So, until then I sit here. I decided to amuse myself earlier and "fixed" a picture I dl off the web.

I DCC'ed it to my buddy in Scotland with a note saying I thought I had found a pic of his umteenth great grandpa, LOL. Gotta admit, an ancient Egyptian looks kind of odd with red hair and a kilt...

Well, today hasn't been great. I woke up feeling off. Couldn't breathe right. I had checked and there's lots of mold in the air, which I'm allergic to. But it wasn't just that. I had an appointment at the doc's today and it was just a quick how are you doing check. I had them check my pressure and it was 150 over 90. Way high for me. I usually run 120 over 70 or maybe 130 over 80 but that's usually the highest it goes. I'm going to have a nap and hope I feel better when I wake.

I forgot to add that I am hating living in my mom's basement. It sucks. I miss having my own place, even though it means living in a popup camper.

Halloween. This used to be my favorite holiday of the year. Now it's just another day for me. It sucks that the joy has gone out of it for me. I used to really enjoy making a costume and going out in it. I think this is partially my ex-husband's fault. He never got it. He didn't understand why a grownup would have so much fun with it. Cause I did have fun with it. I loved making Nina's outfits over the years. My favorites were the dead Egyptian princess, the mermaid and the geisha. It's also my own fault because I don't make time for it anymore. I'm usually too busy with some project to pay too much attention to anything else. Like right now. I'm trying to teach myself basic electronics. When I was in high school I used to dabble a bit. I can use a soldering iron and mostly read schematics. I'm working on that part right now. And refreshing my math skills. :P Math doesn't like me. I have a feeling I'm going to be saying that a lot. The thing is that I want to be able to build my own solar powered battery charger and stuff. If I build it myself then if something goes wrong it's easier and cheaper to fix it. Logical, right? Like to told dad, it's not that I don't like things to explode, but only if they are SUPPOSED to explode.

I've been sitting here watching episode #3 of the original Outer Limits series. The name of it is The Architects of Fear. I love this episode. These scientists decide that the only way to get the people of earth to unite and stop fighting amongst ourselves is to create a threat from beyond the earth. Robert Culp is the guy who ends up getting turned into an alien. The scientists fake his death and then begin changing his blood chemistry and physiology. It's a very interesting idea. I actually don't think that it would work. I think that humans are stupid in groups and that even faced with an exterior threat we wouldn't be able to work together. I mean face it. Our planet is in horrible shape. We can't even band together to save our planet. If we can't do that we all die. But are we working together to fix things? Hell no. I think the biggest obstacle to our working towards saving the planet is the government's lack of pushing towards developing green resources. We still rely on oil. I think if a good alternative came along that it wouldn't be developed until it was too late. The oil companies and the government like the status quo just as it is. :P

OK, yeah, I have been slacking off on the blogging. But I have good reason. First I had the flu. I felt like I was puking my socks up. Then I got into a big fight with my ex-husband who was sharing site rent with me at the campgrounds. Basically he didn't go pay it (it was his week to do that) and he kept saying he would do it and then didn't do it. So I got pissed off and it devolved into a fight in which I basically got screwed not just for site rent but for money he owed me. Plus I had to figure out how to move the camper cause the campground was closing at the end of the month anyway. So. I had to arrange all that. I tried to call my friend Nancy and couldn't find her and finally called her dad and found out she's in Florida right now... :P No help there. So I called an old buddy named Carl and he and a friend of his came out to the campgrounds and helped me get the camper hitched up and we got it towed safely into town. So yeah, lots of drama. Right now I'm having to live in my mom's spare bedroom in the basement. I told my ex-husband I don't ever want to see him or speak to him again. I'm thinking about taking out a restraining order on him just because. He's a stupid ****-****ing worthless **** eating ******* ****ing son of * *****. And yes, I censored myself in case this document ever fell into the hands of children.

In other news, I'm working on an article for Wikipedia. My several times great uncle was Tracy Richardson. Who the hell is that you ask? Well, he was a soldier of fortune who was a good friend of Sam Dreben. He also has the distinction of being the only man who ever managed to make Pancho Villa apologize publicly. Cool, eh? He went everywhere and did a bit of everything. But Wikipedia doesn't seem to have anything on him so I'm going to fix that. I've got photocopies of tons of info my uncle John gathered (he's kind of the family historian) and I'm sifting thru to get all the relevant info. Apparently he and Sam Dreben were holy terrors with machine guns. heheheh

Well, I'm back in my camper tonight. I finally stopped throwing up. It's a relief to not be nauseous. I haven't been able to get anything much done since I got back. I've been watching DS9 and playing with the cat. Meow really missed me and Roxy. She has been loving all over us. It's quite funny to see a cat loving on a dog. She likes to rub her whole body under Roxy's chin. Just a hoot. She gets all wet if she does that while Roxy is trying to eat. That part is kind of gross. Dog slobber all over her head. I'll have to try and get a picture of that.

Still at mom's house. I'm exhausted from being so sick. I haven't puked this much in years. I have held down some chicken fried rice so this is very good. Maybe I'm done puking. I began puking yesterday afternoon and I puked my guts up. It was painful. I got sick on Tuesday. Didn't begin puking till I last night. Dad got me a new laptop tho so it's helping me thru this. I'm in the process of pulling parts from my old one and I'll sell those on eBay to start paying dad back. Gonna have to find some static bags tho....

I am watching some weird tv show about people who won the lotto and the fabulous things they have bought. I used to fantasize about what I would do if I won the lottery. I don't even think about it anymore. I have pretty much gotten used to the idea that I'm the kind of person who doesn't have luck if it's not bad luck. I could be wrong. It just seems that like when I'm down and really need a boost I get a kick instead. When I was younger, it was a dream of mine to own my own house. I wanted my own place, where I could make the rules, paint the walls blue or walk around naked if I wanted. I paid on my home for 7 years and when I lost it it was so devastating for me. I've never felt like I've had much security in my life. When I left the house for the last time, I was sick. I couldn't go back in it or I walnut survive. I had to throw away and leave behind so many things that it still is making me upset. Unless you have lost something that major it's something you won't understand and I hope you never have to. Right now, if I could win the lotto, I wouldn't even need a big one. A paltry $150,000 would be fine for me. I'm not greedy. That would pretty much settle all my debts and give me an opportunity to get back on my feet. The most important part is that it would allow me to have Nina living with me again.

Well, the motherboard on my laptop fried. That means no more late night updates from the campground for a while. :P My dad is helping me buy another, but the problem there is that I use a Verizon pcmcia card to access the internet from remote areas. All the reasonably priced new laptops don't have pcmcia slots they now have expresscard slots. Do I need to mention that there is no adapter to make a pcmcia card work in an expresscard slot? I did find a USB adapter that will work with the verizon card that's gonna run around $200. :P And did I say :P !!!???

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20061018/D8KQUA580.html
One creepy dude. I bet the Lone Gunmen could have cracked his code. I hope they end up frying him anyway. People like that should simply be removed from the gene pool. The herd needs thinning. We have way too many wackos out there at this point. Problem is that if I do the thinning, I'm one of the wackos too.

Well. I spent all afternoon with Nina. She's feeling much better but her infection is still bad. I am not quite as worried about it but I am still worried. I came back out to the camper thinking I'd have a nice, quiet evening. WRONG. It's been raining all day here and now tonight it's raining and windy. The whole camper is rocking. It's kind of creepy. I hope it doesn't end up making me sick. I get horrible motion sickness. Maybe I ought to turn on the electric blanket and curl up with the dog and cat and just go to sleep. Even they are kind of freaked about the weather. The wind is really blowing hard.

Woohoo!!! Back in my own bed. I will sleep tonight. I am still worried about Nina's infection tho. Very worried. Until it shows some improvement I'll be very worried. If it's not looking better tomorrow, I might take her back to the doc on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. I've been working on some new jewelry (I make jewelry- http://www.koolpages.com/reddish68/index.htm ) and I've been having a hard time concentrating on it. My mind has been jumping around like a grasshopper. I can't focus. I do have A.D.D. but I am medicated for it. I think the additional stress is messing me up. :P I think if I had somebody who could market my stuff for me it would help my brain.

Urg. Not seeming to get sleepy tonight despite my meds, although I am spending the night at my parent's house and I forgot to bring my Benadryl. I remembered everything else but forgot that. :P When I can't sleep I end up with a thousand things running thru my brain. Good things, bad things, confusing things.... I have some friends who want me to live in their farmhouse this winter and help them rig up solar and wind power for it. I am torn. I would like to do it but with my physical limitations I am hesitant. I don't want to let the guys down but it would be a good thing for me, let me put back some money and get the camper fixed up a bit better than it is. Plus, I'm worried about Nina. I am not sure she would be ok without me, even for a just 3 months. Not that mom and dad wouldn't take care of her, but let's be honest, nobody replaces mom. The thought of not being here for her in case she needs me bothers me. It might be different if her dad cared about her enough to visit with her, or even pay child support regularly. Her dad quitting his job is why we lost our house. And right now it's like I have to babysit him to make sure he actually keeps working so he will fork over child support. It's insane. Sometimes I wonder if it would just be easier on me to bang my head against a concrete wall. Might be less painful in the long run.

Right now I'm allowing my daughter Nina to play with my hair. She's 12. And goth. But she is having a lot of fun making my long hair into banana curls. I had to take her to the doc on Friday. She had this spot that my mom felt looked like a spider bite. It hurt and this started on Tuesday. By Friday it was a big huge knot under her skin, red and hot so definitely infected. They put her on some heavy duty antibiotics and she's been resting quite a bit yesterday and today. If it's not better by Wednesday, I'm going to take her back out to the doc.

In general, I don't like people. I worked customer service jobs for years before becoming disabled and I'd rather shoot myself in the foot than go back to it. For some reason, people tend to get abusive with you if they can't see you more often than if they encounter you face to face. I would love nothing more than to be able to move out into the middle of nowhere and stay there. Some days I can tolerate people and some days I can't. I was in Wal Mart the other day and some woman was screeching at the manager because the manager wouldn't allow the woman to return some ink cartridges she had bought. Now I won't pretend to know what all this was about, but I do know that listening to the woman yelling at the manager really embarrassed me. The manager finally had to threaten to call security. Plain and simple, it was a temper tantrum on the part of the woman wanting to return the ink. She began to act like a spoiled child when she didn't get her way. It makes me embarrassed for the whole human race. Too many people act like this whey they don't get their way. Now I can understand getting upset if you have been wronged. I've been wronged before and I have always managed to resolve it in a civilized manner. Yelling, name calling and threats don't fix things. And if you get your way because of doing these things, it's simply because the person you are dealing with has figured out you have the emotional maturity of a 5 year old and given up on you.

I know I've mentioned my dad's love affair with his microscopes. He loves to spend hours peering at little microscopic beasties. I like to find him new water samples from different places. One of the sources he loves to scope is his small fish pond. It's tiny really, just a few coy in it. Well, something amazing has happened. He found a creature that he couldn't identify. He posted it on the chat boards he uses and nobody else seems to know either, however a guy from a university is intrigued and not only would like to collaborate with dad on studying this thing but thinks it might be a totally new species. I'm very excited. Dad is totally in heaven. I am so happy for him. It's kind of one of his dreams. It's not often enough that people get to realize a dream, no matter how small. So many times people give up on their dreams, loose their hopes and end up just going through the motions of life instead of living it. Dad helped me realize one of my dreams when he financed our trip to Chicago to see the Tut exhibition. And then while we were gone all this happened with his microscopy. Hopefully this is just the beginning. I want him to get on to smaller and smaller things since bigger and bigger things would mean he wouldn't be using the microscope, lol.

I was doing some surfing looking for pics of the items on display in Chicago at the Field Museum and found a link to some pics of the items from when they first went on display in Europe. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/photogalleries/king_tut/

Ow. Ow. And did I say Ow? I hurt. Bad. Very bad. The walk around the museum and the walk to the CTA station from the museum was more strenuous than I am used to. Between the degenerative arthritis in my back and the aches in my knees (the doc says it's not arthritis but I'm betting it's rheumatoid) it made the 6 hour hike I took on Sunday about cripple me.

The trip to the museum Sunday was worth everything tho. I will never forget it. To see these objects that I've studied in books since I was a kid (basically since 1977-the last time the King Tut items were in the US). I saw details I never expected to see. I got to see the gold dagger from his tomb. It was exquisite. The inlays were incredible. Also the incomplete bust of Nefertiti was there. The one that's missing the nose. Anybody who has studied Egyptology knows the objects I'm talking about. To almost be able to touch it was magical for me. It still feels totally unreal. Except for the pain I have in my legs and back still, lol.

I hurt all over. We got to see the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum today. The day was insane. We got started late, had a hell of a time finding parking at the CTA station, finally got on a train and it finally left the station at 11 am. Our tickets for Tut were for an 11 am admission. They were supposed to be good for any time between 11 and 11:30 am admission. We didn't get to the museum till noon. Apparently there was a Bears game today right next to the museum. We got lucky and the guy with the tickets said it was no big deal and we got to go in late. Thank god. Those tickets aren't cheap. Then we get in the line to go in and find out there's no photography at all allowed in the Tut exhibit. GRRRRR It said NOTHING about that online and in fact said that photography is allowed in the museum but that the use of flashes was restricted in some places. So, I had drug along the camera and laptop for no particular reason. I did take some pics in their regular Egypt exhibit. Not the same tho. So I bought a book of postcards and some loose postcards. I'll scan these and put up a link to where I've posted them once I do all that. There were so many people in the Tut exhibit that I was beginning to get very irritable because people were slow and it was cramped at times. I got thru it without killing anybody tho. By the time we had done Tut and a good walk around the museum, I was beat. We decided to head back to the hotel and couldn't find a cab. So we took off walking. We followed signs that said they were pointing in the direction of the CTA station we needed. Well, they ended up leading us in a huge circle and we ended up only a block from where we started. GRRRRR Then we managed to drag ourselves the three blocks down to the CTA station and make the train. By this time I was in a lot of pain. I have degenerative arthritis in my back and have issues with phantom pain due to pressure on my spinal cord from a disk that popped a few years ago. So needless to say it was a HUGE relief to sit down on the train. The ride allowed me to recoup and manage to be able to make the walk to where we parked. By this time it was 6:45 pm. We got in the car, plugged up the laptop and plugged in the GPS unit and navigated from the station back to the area of the hotel with a brief stop at Big Lots and another stop at the Dennys right down from the hotel so we could have dinner. Being able to see an exhibit of this magnitude had been a dream of mine for years. It wouldn't have been possible if my dad hadn't bankrolled us. Me, Nina, her half sister Blair and my buddy NTL's daughter Brianna went. Blair's mom sent some money and Brianna brought some cash but it was my dad who paid for the majority of the trip. It is a trip I'll never forget.

I'm excited. I can't wait until we get to Chicago. We are going to the Field Museum this weekend to see the King Tut exhibit. It's the closest I'll prolly ever get to Egypt so I'm totally wired. I wanted to be an Egyptologist when I was a kid. I can even read some heiroglyphs. I know quite a few of the ancient Egyptian myths about Isis, Osiris, Horus and the rest. So, let's just leave it at that I'm very excited.

On a down note, Wye Supply closed. Wye supply was an old-time general store. I remember years ago skipping school and some friends took me there for the first time. The old dude who owned the store stocked all types of cast iron pots, pans, and stuff I wasn't sure what it was. He had tin stoves and carried seed in bulk and just had a bit of everything. A few years back the original building burned and they moved over to a building next to the old one. I didn't realize they had closed till mom said something about it the other day. She said the old man had died so she didn't know if the store was still open so I went by to check. It's closed. I was very disappointed. You don't find stores like that anymore. Sad even. Like when our drive in closed down a few years ago. The old lady who ran it died and her daughter didn't want to mess with it and sold it. I like some of the changes that have happened in my lifetime. Like computers and the internet, but the loss of things like the drive in and Wye Supply sucks.

Nobody anywhere is safe. Absolutely nobody. Today a milk man stormed a one room schoolhouse in Amish country in PA and killed 3 girls and himself. This blows my mind. I know that there are people that should be taken out of the gene pool. This guy was one of them. He had a wife and kids and he went to a one room Amish school, let out all the boys and some women and killed 3 girls and himself. Apparently all this was over an incident that happened when this guy was a kid. Now look, I've had some horrible stuff happen to me when I was a kid. When my family moved here when I was in 5th grade, the kids hated me. I was too smart and they didn't understand my mindset at all. So they persecuted me. For 2 years. On a daily basis I was called stupid, fat, ugly, and "goon". And to top it off, the principal of the school, Sister Virginia (yes, I was a catholic school girl), told me it was all my fault for not being friendly enough. I had no close friends for 2 years. I was harassed on a daily basis for 2 years. I felt lucky if I managed to get home without having had a spitwad or food thrown in my hair. Yes, I've considered murder. And yes, I hated all those kids for a very long time. Would I actually kill somebody over all that? Nope. Why? Because that's one of those things you just don't do. I will admit I'm not the sanest person you might meet. In fact, I'm nuttier than a fruitcake most of the time. But I don't hurt people because that's WRONG. I've never hurt anybody on purpose. I will defend myself if necessary, but I have never set out to hurt anyone either physically or emotionally. I really think that the human race might be inherently insane.

Well, went to the first party I've been to in ages Saturday night. Was kind of nice to get out for a change. I'm going to have to make an effort to get out more often.

I am advanced into my crafting of a generator based on the Wood 103. I have the shell of my stator in the process of being made, and I almost have the core with the magnets done. I'm doing mine a bit differently because for one I don't have the wood working skills that the authors of the article do and two I intend to hook it up to my bicycle instead of making it into a wind genny. My friend NTL from the otherpower.com discussion boards was up a couple of weeks ago and I have to say that without his positive attitude about it I wouldn't have gotten as far as I have. He's a whiz with wind gennys and a very supportive person.

Went to a nice little party tonight. It was thrown by new friends Michael and Jeff. Nina went too and brought her friend Katie. They had a wonderful time but we got Katie back a little later than we had planned so I hope she didn't get into trouble. We also went to a graveyard this afternoon. Hurricane cemetery. Dunno why it's called Hurricane as we are landlocked. Got some nice pics tho. Lots of the headstones (the legible ones) are from the 1800s. I have a picture of one that has a misspelling on it and a pic of one that the guy was in the Illinois militia and he died in 1863 and that was civil war era. A very busy day for all of us.

Well, had some pea sized hail today here at the lake. It sprinkled for a few seconds, then began to pour and then I noticed it wasn't all rain. Lots of little chunks of ice. And tonight it's down in the 30s (that's Fahrenheit). Of course, all my winter clothes are in my cedar chest in my storage unit. And of course, my china cabinet is on top of my cedar chest. The guys who helped me fill the storage unit had to do that to make everything fit, but I can't quite get to it by myself. I've gotta find help to more the cabinet. The cat and dog help keep me warm, and I do have a space heater and a down comforter but I'd really like to have some of my warmer clothes.

Rain. Again. I like rain but living in a popup camper it makes everything damp all the time. My rheumatism doesn't like it. :P

I got a call from the school today. My 12 yr old daughter Nina hasn't been doing her homework on time. We got to have a nice little talk about it. Or rather I talked and she listened. I don't know if anything I said sunk in, but she's way too intelligent to let this happen. I tried to explain to her how she is messing up, but she got that really pissed off look and it's hard to say if she even heard what I said at all.

I use a place on the web called Freecycle. Basically, people post stuff they don't want anymore and other people say they want it and go pick it up. You get rid of stuff you no longer want/need and you don't have to deal with the guilt of simply throwing it out. There are people out there who want it. I posted on our local freecycle board that I was looking for old dead hard drives to harvest the magnets. I'm working on building a generator based n the wood 103 on www.otherpower.com (I think I already mentioned this once...). Unfortunately I ended up with one dead hard drive. That means I'll have to wait to work on the genrator.

It's odd. This blog is the closest thing I've kept to a journal since I was a kid and kept a diary. I decided to write this now to save insights and thoughts I have about life so that I could look back in a year and see if things had changed.

My camper was safe and sound when I got back out to the lake. The only things I really missed from staying at mom's is the dsl and the bathroom. I really miss having a bathroom. I would like to be able to afford a camper with a bathroom.

I am working right now on a generator. I am basing it loosely on the Wood 103 on the otherpower.com pages. I am going to hook it up to a bicycle so I can peddle up some charge to my battery bank. I figure I can use the exercise and the electricity. I have to get things ready to leave the area by November 5th at the latest. The campground I am at now closes October 15th and I don't know of another one in the area that has electric and is reasonable and open all year. I did get a Golden Access Passport so I can stay at federal campgrounds for half price, but there's none near here open year round with electricity. But I do need a cheap place to camp till I take off. I'll figure it out I guess

I have been working on planning a trip to Chicago. Me, Nina and my other daughter Blair are wanting to go to the Field Museum to see the King Tut exhibit. It's the biggest exhibit of Tut's things ever to be outside of Egypt. I have always been nuts about Egyptian stuff and my daughters love it too. My dad is going to help fund our trip. I'll try to get some spiffy pics to post.

I just watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Again. For the umpteenth time. And I cried at the end. Again. For the umpteenth time. Why? Well, there's a couple of reasons. 1st is that at this point I've totally given up hope of our species being contacted by an alien species in my lifetime. Why? Because as a species human beings are too immature. Any race looking at us from a rational point of view would decide we are inherently homicidal and bloodthirsty beings. 2nd reason is that I've given up hope of them ever coming to get me. :P

Ok, this is sick.

Kids of Slain Ill. Woman Are Found Dead

Sep 23, 10:58 PM (ET)

By JIM SUHR

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) - Three young children were found dead Saturday, hours after a woman was charged with killing their pregnant mother and her fetus in a grisly attack in which her womb was cut open, authorities said

I'm sorry but WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE TODAY???!!!!! I will complain about a lack of common sense and an absence of common courtesy in people nowadays, but this goes WAYYYYYY beyond courtesy or even rationality. What's scary is that too much of this kind of thing is happening today. It's easy to see that people are more selfish and shortsighted but brutal? What are we teaching our kids? Is ANYBODY teaching their kids
Anything??? How could anybody think of doing this, much less actually doing it? Maybe our society is slowly driving itself insane. I wouldn't be surprised.

I totally blanked here. I forgot the most important thing from today. My dad is very into microscopy. I bring him water samples from all over so he can scope them and find little critters in them. Anyway, he was apparently locking at some water this morning and was watching a paramecium. He happened to be doing a video capture and he actually caught the thing expelling waste. Yes, that's correct. He took video of a paramecium taking a dump. What's even cooler is he posted it on his website. Check it out at www.hollosenso.com but be sure to check quick cause he changes his front page often and it might not be there long if he finds something even cooler.

Yippee. I'm at my mom's house tonight. There were some very bad storms that moved thru earlier along with possible tornados. I am hoping my camper is still in one piece. I haven't been back out to the lake to check since mom and my daughter decided that I ought to stay here for the night. Not too bad a hardship since dad has DSL and a wireless router....

Ok, I know this guy Rocky. I've known him since high school. We used to do lots of really stupid and outrageous things. I miss him lots. He's living on a boat in Florida. Technically off the coast of Florida. So I'm catching up reading his blog today (I had to import a my old bookmarks from my desktop to the laptop) and my first complaint is that he's not updated it since the end of August. And the second thing is that he went on a cruise. Ok. He went on a cruise. He lives on a boat, but he went on a cruise. Am I the only person who thinks this is slightly odd? MAYBE. But I'm quite odd myself so it's ok. If you wanna read about his misadventures, check out http://svcosmicdebris.blogspot.com it's quite entertaining reading. I wonder what it's like living on a boat for a regular person. I don't count myself as a regular person cause I get rather violent and copius motion sickness. Like projectile vomiting even. Sad but true. I've gotten ill on a rowboat on a mostly still lake. lol

I had another odd dream last night. Why I am now having weird dreams is beyond me. Possibly the stress that underlies my daily existence is causing it. Years ago I used to run a chat channel on dalnet called #lifesucks. In my dream last night I was in a room, a real room with some people. I can't remember their faces but I knew they were Thist, Atsoca, Epitaph and a couple of people I am not sure now who they were but at the time I knew exactly. And I kept asking them where Sydrian was. Now the only one of these people I ever met in real life was Epitaph. But I remember asking and asking where Sydrian was. I was very concerned that nobody had seen him recently. I hope that this doesn't mean something has happened to him for real. I worry when I have weird dreams that the dream might be connected to something in real life that I should know about.

Well, tomorrow one of my favorite websites is going down. Uproar.com is ceasing to be a place of games and entertainment as of the 30th, but tomorrow all icoins expire. Now, if you haven't ever been there you might be asking yourself what I'm talking about. You could play games there and use the winnings (icoins) to enter raffles for prizes. I used to have a lot of fun there. They have a version of pyramid solitaire that has Egyptian markings on it. Very cool. I've been playing games at this site for 6 years. On almost a daily basis. It's kind of like your favorite coffeehouse closing. No more iced mochas for you!!! :P Now I have to find another place to play. I like the old games. I don't care for the new ones. Tetris, Mah Jong, solitaire. To me those are the best.

Arg. Reality sucks. I need to figure out a way to earn some extra cash. I really need to get started on my solar panels but haven't gotten there yet. I am wondering if I ought to buy a small generator instead of stressing over the solar right now. And I wish I knew how to weld. I really should have taken welding in school. I was going to but then ended up not doing it. It's so much cheaper when you can create the things you envision yourself and not have to rely on somebody else to do it. I've found that when you rely on somebody else, especially if it's a man, to do something it either ends up done the way they want it and not the way you want it if it ends up done at all. Men seem to be weird that way. You can figure it out, draw them a diagram, explain to them why it has to be just like you outlined then it still ends up how they wanted to do it. It might just be easier to bang your head against a concrete wall. Not that I'm saying that women are any easier to deal with. It's just that most of my experience has been with trying to get men to do something because it involved a power tool that I don't know how to use. Because of this, I've learned how to operate quite a few power tools. My next learning project will be the table saw. Dad said he will show me how to use it, so that's cool.

Skipped blogging the past few days. Real life was interfering with my cyberspace time. It happens. Thankfully it is looking like things will be a little bit slower this week and I can get some more written.

I have headache right between my eyes. This is more than slightly annoying. It's really pissing me off actually. I should buy stock in Advil. I get these horrible sinus headaches because of my allergies. My doctor won't prescribe anything for them so I buy tons of Advil liquigels. His theory? I just have to live with them. I've had headaches that have driven me into the ER. I've had them so bad they made me sick. He doesn't think I get migraines. What I want to know is just how freaking bad does a headache have to be before it's considered a migraine???!!!

Urg. I have never considered myself a "normal" person. This might account for my relationships with men. I tend to end up attracted to the most dysfunctional men. I've always wondered why this is. My ex-husband is a prime example of this. I tried to make that relationship work for 11 years. Why I held on so long I'll never know. I have always strived for some sort of security in my life. And one of my goals in life was to have my own home. A place where I could paint the walls black if I wished. I had that for 7 years before I lost it. My ex decided he didn't like his job anymore. He had been working at the factory in town. Making very good money. So, after telling him that if he quit without having another job and thus the child support payments stop we would loose everything, he quit. Without the child support, I had to support my daughter and myself on my disability. And of course, we lost the insurance that covered my daughter. So that's how I ended up living in a camper. I knew this would happen and attempted to make sure I would have a roof over my head. Nina, my daughter, has insisted on staying with my mother. Which is a good thing now that school has started. This is all beside the point tho. What I've learned is that no man that I would date is worth dating. So I'm done with dating men. I had my cousin ask me once what about all the good men out there who want to take care of a family. I asked him "Where the hell are these men cause I sure as hell don't know any of them!". Sad, eh? It's ok tho. If I need companionship I have a dog and a cat.

Have you ever noticed that a housecat's head kind of looks like the grey aliens are supposed to look? Minus the black eyes that is. My kitten, Meow, has brown eyes but the shape of her face resembles the drawings of grays that people make. Weird eh?

On another note, I had a weird dream the other night. I lived in Festus, MO. as a kid. I lived on a street that had 2 dead ends and a cul de sac. Looked kind of like this:
Both sides were hills, the round
bit is the cul de sac. I lived on the left hill and if you went up the right hill, you could walk thru some woods and down into a field that was next to Govroe's Pond. I don't know if I spelled that right, it's been a long time and I don't think I ever knew how that was spelled. Anyway, in the field kids had made bike paths and jumps for motorcycles. Nothing too elaborate, this was the 70's. So the other night in my dream I go back and visit this place as an adult. And in the dream, I see a big hole in the midst of these bike tracks. When I was a kid, there was a big piece of metal tubing, the kind they use for culverts. It seemed big but I was little. In the dream this piece of culvert metal was set in the ground. I went over to it to see if it was the same as it was when I was a kid. When I was a kid, it wasn't set in the ground. So in the dream I go into it and see that there's mining equipment that's been abandoned. This bit has no basis in reality at all as I know it from when I was little. As I am standing there looking around, I think about how it's all just as I remembered it. So, I see this side tunnel and think to myself that nobody has found it. Yeah, this is getting wierder. I enter this side tunnel and and all the sudden I get this vision. And everything makes sense. I know, from a welter of confusing images, that the reason the mining equipment had been abandoned is because of the people running it getting these weird images and it driving them away. I recall that as a kid I got these images too but it never bothered me or seemed strange. Then it hit me that the reason I was tolerating them now was because I had been exposed to them as a kid and why I was now understanding it. Apparently an alien craft had crashed here eons ago. The alien who had been stuck on Earth had left a record in case her distress call had attracted anybody. That's what the images were. They were the record of her life here being broadcast from the remains of her ship that was still buried beneath the field. This dream was odd, to say the least. It's been bothering me. I don't know why. Something about it is nagging me. I guess I'll just have to get over it.

Ok. I've been thinking about time travel. It gets very complex. To a person who isn't traveling, it seems like some impossible tings could happen. But from the person in the timeline, time appears to travel in a straight line. And for the person traveling time appears to move in a straight line. What's even more interesting is that say you are the person moving forward in time as you are supposed to, not traveling. You could meet a guy on Thursday, see him get killed on Friday and then run into him again on Saturday. His personal time line might have begun on Thursday, he traveled to Saturday (where you were surprised as hell to see him) and then back to Friday where he got killed. Make sense?

Ok, the timeline starts at 1900 and goes thru 2030. Say our traveler is born in 2000. In 2030 he begins to travel. First he visits 1900, then 2000, then 1950 and then goes back to just after he left. He's the green line. But say we look at it from his point of view.

For him it's a straight line. But for our regular time line, it's impossible to properly represent in 2 dimensions. The red line attempts to follow but can't. Our guy was in 2000 twice, once as a baby and once as an adult. He was in 2030 twice also, but again, we can't represent it properly in 2 dimensions.

So, by now you are asking yourself why in the hell am I torturing my brain over this. It's easy. Lots of people believe that time travel is impossible. I don't believe that. I think it will be horribly difficult but I think it's possible. I think one of the important things is to not think about why a thing is impossible, but how you could accomplish it or circumvent the restrictions. I have come to believe that nothing is impossible. Improbable maybe, but not impossible. I have been trying to not worry about things that are impossible, but rather to think about how they could be accomplished.

Today my weather webpage says there's less than 13 hours of daylight. I have always hated watching the days get shorter and shorter because it meant winter was comming. Since I'm going to leave for a warmer climate in October, I am wondering if this will change my outlook on the expanding darkness. I like the night. I've always been a night person, usually able to get more done in the solitude and stillness of the night. With an expanded darkness but not the extreme coldness I have to deal with in Illinois, maybe I'll have increased capacity for getting things done, although I've been pretty good of late in getting things done. Since I've been at the campground, I've put new zippers in the canvas of the popup part of the camper, hung curtains over the openings where the sleeping platforms are (I use the one on my side for storage), hung the mesh type baskets you see hanging in kitchens for storage, built a countertop that sits over the 2 burner propane stove that's built in (I don't use it but rather a hotplate) so I can sit my computer monitor on it and I have the cpu underneath. I am in the process of building a door that can be locked to go over the opening where the cpu is. I sewed and constructed an awning that hangs over the front door and is fairly sturdy but will be easy to take down and store the poles-1/2 in. pvc pipe and fittings-quite cool actually. I built a step but I might redo it. I think it needs to be wider. I've done all this with a manual saw, lol. Oh, and I redid the bottom half of the door but I'm short a bit of luan plywood so I have a bare bit about 5 inches wide and 21 inches long in the middle of the door. But I really HATE to go buy a whole sheet for just a little bit. Even if I replaced the whole thing it would still be just 27"x21". Thanks to dad for letting me have the scraps of plywood I find in the garage. I've had to play with the hardware for the door. The problem was that there's a catch between the top of the door and the bottom of the door so that when the camper collapses the top half installs on the ceiling. Now this wouldn't ordinarily be a problem except that at some point the maniac who redid this camper (whoever he was I'd like to strangle him) moved the hinge for the bottom part of the door over so he could use a thicker bottom half of a door. The result is that the top and bottom of the door don't work together right and the aluminum hasp that was screwed to the bottom part of the door with a wingnut broke off because of the wobble back and forth this disaprity between the hinges caused. So I had to figure out how to fasten the top and bottom of the door without it being permanent and make sure that it would have plenty of play so that it could be fastened. I ran down to ACE Hardware (they know me there, lol) and got a chain door lock. This allowed me to connect the two halves and still be able to unlatch it to lock the top half of the door for when I collapse the camper and has enough play so that the door swings right. I might have to tighten it up a bit, I'll have to see.

I also managed to buy a new potty. It's a Century and it was the cheapest one I could find that wasn't a hassock toilet. $65+tax at Wal Mart. At least now if I have an issue in the middle of the night I won't have to try to run the block down to the bathrooms without having an accident. :P

I was taking some pictures today for my daughter and took this one while I was down by the lake shore, about 40 ft from my camper.

Later on a friend and I went to Taco Bell. I took this pic.


Can you honestly say that this doesn't remind you of Mr. Bill? Unless of course you are too young to know who Mr. Bill is.

OK, I got it. It's http://sarcasticlove.deviantart.com/ and it's quite cool. I'm very proud of Nina and her artwork. I hope she ends up having the courage to do the things and take the chances I never did.

I found out this evening that my 12 yr old daughter is now into photo editing. She was just doing online art, but now she's into taking something and making it her own. When I figure out where I put the piece of paper she wrote the url on I'll post it.

I made out a wish list today that's viewable thru my profile. This is stuff that I intend on buying, not that I'm trying to solicit anybody to buy for me. The cameras are just wants not needs. The solar panels are needs. I need to be set up so I don't have to have an electrical hookup. I intend on boondocking a bit. This means camping where there's no electrical or water hookups. Once I'm set up to do this it won't take me long to be able to afford the cameras. The one I really want is the Panasonic. You can play with the exposure time and I'd like to see if I could get a shot of the milky way once I'm in the desert. It would be cool to catch a meteor shower or two as well. The digital camera I have now is nice, but you can't take good close up pics or decent pics at night. I could do both with the panasonic. The campgrounds that I'm at now is on a lake and there's all kinds of dragonflies about. I love dragonflies. They are just so cool looking, kind of like strings of jewels, reflecting the sun, with wings. The camera I have now can't capture a decent pic of one. There's lots of different hues of blue ones and blue is my favorite color. It's just very frustrating.

Elwood: Illinois Nazis.
Jake: I hate Ilinois Nazis.

If you don't know what movie that came from, I pity your life.

Have you ever noticed that your propensity for diarrhea is proportionate to your distance from a toilet of any kind? The further you are away from a toilet, the higher the risk. I'm thinking that ought to be officially made a corollary of Murphy's Law. Like the Butter Side down rule. What sucks even worse is that I had a toilet. It was an old Mansfield Sani Pottie. Scary, eh? It was that yellow gold color from the 70's. But of course, it broke. What's worse than a chemical potty? Emptying it. What's even worse than that is that they are EXPENSIVE. See, I refuse to use one that doesn't have a seperate tank for the "black water". So, not only is a portable chemical toilet gross to empty but expensive to replace. I wish I could afford a nicer rv than this popup camper that had a real toilet but I can't so I have to deal. It just doesn't seem fair to have to pay out the butt "so to speak" just to have to deal with feces. :P

I just watched one of my favorite movies, Contact. Afterwards, I began asking myself the same questions I usually do. Would we even recognize a truly alien lifeform as intelligent? I mean, say we encountered a big mass of green goo. Kind of like the blob. Hell, let's say it is the blob. A dude gets it out of a meteor that fell to earth and it immediately devours the guy. Ok, first of all, there could be quite a few reasons it ate him and then everyone it encounters. It could be that our flesh is simply liquefied by it's substance. Possibly it's species communicates by enveloping and mixing with whomever it wants to talk to. Won't work with us. I guess you can see where I'm going with this. And we, of course, panic. It looks like it's eating people. Seems quite hostile and inimical to human life. The problem is that instead of finding out anything about this entity, we react with typical hostility and immediately try to kill it. And they say that dolphins are as smart as people are. Ok. Then why can't we speak dolphin? I know that there are scientists out there working on it, but we are talking about animals from our own planet with intelligence. I doubt they care if we figure them out, otherwise they might be trying to help us figure them out. But here we are, not even understanding the animals on our own planet that have intelligences comparable to ours and we have the arrogance to assume that we could figure out an alien if they landed????? For that matter, with our prejudices, could we even emotionally deal with an alien society? What if they had three sexes? What if they were completely androgynous? Lots of people have a problem with the concept of gay marriage, can you imagine the uproar a hermaphroditic race would create? Or a society that considers monogamy a sin? I don't think the human race is ready for alien contact. We need to grow up as a species I think before that happens.

Well, I am not a happy camper. Yet. Although I think I will be soon. My plans have changed somewhat. Looks like my daughter will stay here with my parents while I travel the warmer climes until April when it will be warm enough to come back here. I had originally planned on going to Arizona to make a home, but I think I'll skip that now. I'll just be a homeless nomad for the moment.

Staying here in southern Illinois when it's warm enough to doesn't make me happy at all. For one thing I'm allergic to everything here. I have a lung condition called pulmonary hypertension. It will probably be what kills me. It's a chronic condition that will only get worse as my life goes on. This is a statement of fact, not a declaration to get sympathy. I neither want nor need sympathy or pity or any of that crap. I was diagnosed with this condition last year in September and one of the things they told me I could do to lessen the impact of this was to go where I wasn't allergic to everything. Thus I figured Arizona. My brother is out there and I figured my daughter could stay with him until I got on my feet there. My original goal was to be there in July. Well, I had my final appointment with my shrink, was wrapping things up and getting the camper ready to go when my brother e-mailed me to let me know that Nina couldn't stay with him till December cause he got a roomate and he had already discussed this with my mom and Nina so it was all set. Of course, it was never discussed with me, just handed to me after the fact. I didn't say anything. It wasn't very nice to do that without at least giving me a heads up, but my brother isn't generally a common courtesy kind of person. Well, he might be to other people, but not to me. But oh well. He was going to let Nina stay with him and that was cool. Well, I have been very frustrated and upset about things lately and my brother e-mailed me. It was an "I'm glad you are taking steps toward getting your life together but..." kind of letter. And it set me off. You know when you hit the point where you have taken eough crap from everyone and then one little things makes you loose it? Well, that was it. My brother has always been kind of condescending towards me. He's always better or more of whatever than I am. I think this comes from the fact that he's not as smart as I am and he feels inferior and thus has to point out anything he perceives as a lack in me as a fault I need to correct. While this might amuse him I've had enough of it. In the past couple of months I have lost my home of 7 years and almost everything I own. I had a guy I thought was a good friend of mine who was working on my camper for me rip me off for about $300. I had two people I have known for years, a guy named Vance and a girl named Sarah, ask me if I was still an athiest. Then I had another dude named Lance ask me if I was still a witch. For the record, I'm not an atheist, nor a witch, nor a christian. I have my own religious beliefs and I am not going to explain them because I'm tired of trying to explain my concept of god to people. All it does is frustrate me because they don't understand how I see god and then they end up thinking I'm some sort of athiest or witch or something. Why I care what people think is beyond me, but it does upset me that people freak out because my ideas don't conform to their idea of what god is. Why can't I just believe what I believe and all of you leave me alone, ok??? So, that said, I probably shouldn't have blown up at my brother, but I'm tired of him doing this to me. Because I am not how he feels I ought to be, there's something wrong with me. Because I don't think or believe or act like he thinks I should, I am defective. I have been diagnosed with bipolar II and he thinks I should stop taking the medication that has kept me fairly stable for the first time in my life. He's also a taker. You can do and do and do for him but he's one of those that you can't ever expect anything in return. Maybe he's not like this with other people, but he's like that with me. It's sad. I have finally realized he's just like my ex-husband. :P Anyway, all this said, I won't be hanging around Flagstaff anytime soon. The rest of Arizona, maybe. We will see.

My dog on my bed in the camper.