soma,

i play oblivion on the PC. the problem is that although my daughter, my b/f and i all have laptops, we only have one desktop and that is the only computer that has high enough specs to play the game. so i have not been able to put in as many hours as i'd like b/c i have to take turns with both my daughter and my b/f who are both lame and just get in the way of my oblivion domination.

i started a new character because i didn't like what i picked for my first one. i was an imperial, because i thought i just wanted to fight my way through the game. but after playing for a while, i decided that i wanted to be better at magic and thievery so i restarted as a dark elf and i made my own custom class.

also this might be kind of rediculous, but i plan on joining all of the guilds, including the dark brotherhood, and doing all of the quests and exploring all of the ruins and caves. i found a map online showing ALL of the structures, caves, mines, ruins, etc and there are so fucking many that it's mind blowing. when i was an imperial i was in the theives guild and the dark brotherhood. This time around, so far, i have joined the theives guild, but have not completed all of the quests yet, and joined the mages guild, again not completed all of the quests yet.

at the rate i'm going it looks like its going to take me months and months to get through the game. i am taking my time to build my skills, and explore the world around me. i especially like making my own potions out of just about everything and anything i find. i have moved on from novice to journeyman in alchemy.

i still have not started the main quest. i did when i was an imperial, but decided this time around to wait until i gained some items (wishing for the skeleton key) and experience (although i know that the enemys get more difficult as you gain experience). I'll keep you posted on my progress if you care to know.

2nd entry of the day.

jury duty for today is over. I really wish the jurors could stop the lawyers and ask question. for example when they are cross examining witnesses who testify that the bullet casings had not prints on them, I wanted to ask whether shells usually don't have prints when they come from a semi-automatic gun? I mean if they usually don't then its no big deal. if they do, then that may be significant. also when the witness says he examined a bullet hole in the rear bumper of the car, but did not find a casing anywhere near by, I wanted to ask if he could tell what type of weapon was the bullet from. why didn't the lawers think of this?

anyways,
mike here are the pictures of the ornaments.

guess what yall, I've been selected to sit as an alternate juror on a double attempted murder trial. the jury selection was yesterday and part of this morning. the trial began this afternoon. its so exciting. I sit right in the front row next to the witness stand. its like a real life law and order episode. I love this kind of stuff. I feel so important and its like a min vacation from work. (roswell pays me my full salary while sitting on a jury)

I went to the main place mall today, I wouldn't call that dump a mall at all, but I did find the buffalo store and it did have buffalo ornaments. so mike you need worry not. I took some pictures. ill post them as soon as I get out of the trial.

so its my first jury duty experience. I am sitting here along with 500 other people trying to figure out what to do with myself. luckily I have this handy dandy phone onwhich I can do just about anything. for all you PPC6700 nerds, did you know that you can make you phone a universal remote control?

I wish I could sit here and play oblivion. unfortunately that is one of the few things my phone can't do. although, they do have a mobile version but its not anything close to the real thing.

here is a pic of the jury room. I'm not sure if this is legal but who cares! I'm a rebel!





and here is our christmas tree decorating experience we didn't get to finish because our lights went off but ill post a finished pic in the coming days.

ohhh! looks like I'm being called into a court room.

Anyone who wants to see National Lampoon's Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, let me know.

I have two "admit two" tickets for Thursday, November 30th @7:pm at Elmwood Regal.


First two to contact me get the tix.

Here's a doggy love fest for you all....

WAIT THERE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE PICTURES WITH THIS ENTRY!

this is the hard work I've been doing all night.

I lucked out on the flowers for the table since the kid at wegmans that was checking me out only scanned one of the tags for the flower arrangement. so instead of it being 25 dollars it was 2.99!

ok, so it looks like there are a lot of people in favor of having an estrip secret santa this year. I will collect everyone's name that wants to participate and give them to a neutral party to randomly assign.


we will exchange gifts during the estrip holiday party at (e:pmt) 's.

Updated: we will keep the price of the gifts to under $20. if anyone has any objections to that price limit, let me know.

so, all that want to participate, please send me a post-it. if you don't i will pester you until you do or until you tell me you are not interested.

let the holidays begin!

Hi ____
 
I read your message and can understand what you're going through. I don't really know what to say other than, I don't really know (e:vycious) except through some friends and now estrip, so it's hard for me to gauge the situation. I can see that you're hurt and I see that he's pissed, and I know that the both of you have two different takes on the same story. I am not on anyone's side. However, the one thing that I have learned as a woman throughout the years, is that when, in the beginning, a man tells you that he does not want a relationship, regardless of how things proceed or what feelings develop, you, the woman, will end up getting hurt in the end. I have learned to take things at face value when it comes to men, and decided that I will not set out to prove them differently or help them change their minds. Doing that, I have found, usually backfires in the end.
 
I was dating a guy last year, one of (e:vycious) ' friends, who initially, said that he wanted nothing more than a sexual
more relationship. He made it clear that he did not want a girlfriend, did not want to fall in love, wanted to see other people, etc. I said fine, no problem. But secretly, as most of us girls do, I hoped that somewhere down the line he might change his mind and so I started a relationship of sorts, and waited to see where it would go.
 
Well, he did change his mind. He did decide that he wanted to make me his girlfriend, he did say he fell in love with me, he did want to be monogamous. So we began officially dating, albeit, somewhat cautiously. I didn't put much hope into the relationship, because I remembered what he initially said to me, and I surely was not going to put all my eggs in one basket. And guess what? I'm glad I didn't, because after about 4 months of official dating, he dumped me. His excuse was that he didn't get to see me enough, and that he felt like he was in a full time relationship with a part time girlfriend and he just could not go on like that. In reality, what had happened was that he realized once again that he DID NOT want a girlfriend after all, DID NOT want to be in a committed relationship and DID NOT love me the way he thought he did.
 
Can't say I didn't see it coming so maybe that is why I didn't shed too many tears or waste any time moping around by being depressed, but it did reconfirm for me the fact that what a guy says to you initially, is probably what he really means and that no matter how much you wish and hope that things will change, they probably will not.
 
I hope things work out for you. If not with vycious, then with someone who will want to be with you and appreciate you completely. I know that it's a little too late for this situation to use the advice I've given here, but think about it for future relationships. Don't waste your time on people who are wishy washy and indecisive. Focus your energies on relationships that are open, caring, trust worthy and honest.
 
I wish you luck on whatever you decide.
 
 Warmly,
 
(e:imk2)

i was going to make this a comment to vycious' post, but realized that the size of this comment would probably make a much better post.


so
vycious,

you can only beat yourself up about what you should, could, would have done only for so long before it turns from overwhelming guilt to overwhelming self pity. We all make mistakes that we wish, till our dying day, we could take back. We've all done slimy, selfish shit that when looked back upon 5, 10, 20 years from now will baffle and embarrass us and make us hang our heads in shame.

My ex-boyfriend refused to spend any time at the hospital with his dying father because "he just couldn't see him that way". this now he realized was code for, i'm a selfish prick that could not put my discomfort on the back burner for the sake of little bit of time that would have ultimately made a huge difference in his and his father's life.


i've been down the same road.

i went to visit my father in poland after being taken from him by my mother 13 years prior. when i returned, he absolutely refused to see me, but i sought him out, surprised him at the door, and had a tearful reunion. he was the most intelligent man i have ever known, who threw away his entire life for a bottle of vodka and lived in a one room shack by the time he was 51. a brilliant geologist who now realized what a tragedy his life had become and was embarrassed that his now adult child had to see him this way. he was ashamed and afraid of what his little girl would think about the father she had once proudly placed on a pedestal.

i, on the other hand, just wanted to see the daddy that had held my hand each sunday morning, when we walked through the woods as he pointed out the moss that grew on trees, or tracks left by deer. i wanted to see the daddy that read me bedtime stories by haans christian andersen, and argued the existence or nonexistence of adam and eve. i wanted the daddy that took me to see my first brue lee movie when i was 5, that taught me to eat properly with a knife and fork when i was 6 and showed me how to tell time by the position of the sun when i was 7. i wanted the daddy that took care of me from the time of my first memories, at around age 4, to the time when my mother returned from america and took me away, at age 8.

i only had two days to spend with him when i arrived for my three week visit to poland, and he tearfully asked that i come back the following week and spend a few more. i had brought a fiend who i had to take back to a different city, so i promised i would. i felt i would. i really wanted to, and planned to do so. i asked him to call me in a couple of days, so that we could make some plans.

however, he never called and i caught the flu that week and felt so worn down and resentful that i decided that if he cared he could just as easily have made the effort to at least call, much less come and see me. so i never went. poland is a very small country. to get from one city to another is like driving around new york state. i was staying with his brother's children, two hours away. he could have taken the bus, or a train. why didn't he? i didn't hear from him at all during the remainder of my stay and returned to the US angry, sad and disappointed.

a week later my mother called my apartment telling me the words, "i have some bad news".

my father whom i loved more than any other human being, who lived as a legend in my perpetually 8 year old psyche, who was my icon, my hero, my teacher, my only real parent, my father who had over the years become a mystical figure of wisdom and misguided genius, was dead.

i waited 13 years, so that i could be old enough to travel out of the country on my own. after seeing him for only two days i promised him that i would come right back so that we could forgive each other for our mistakes. i would finally have the opportunity to tell him that i forgive him for drinking his life away and tell him that despite his rampant addiction, he taught me the lessons that have become the fundamental building blocks of everything that i am; despite having the opportunity to do all of those things and after waiting 13 long years to do it, i threw it away and would now never have the chance to make peace.

a feeling of heavy remorse has sat with me since the day i bid him farewell as a 8 year old who could only think about my wild dreams of america. ever since my mother returned and claimed that she would be taking me back with her, my anticipation of what america would be like, took over. the last day i saw my father was when my mother drove me to the hospital, where he was recovering from spinal surgery to say my final goodbye.

while he lay in that hospital bed for nearly 8 months in a full body cast, crying tears that i could not understand, looking at me without being able to outstretch an arm with which to hold me, while he suffered terribly, not from the body cast but from the fact that he was about to loose his daughter, i stood motionless and emotionless, by his bedside, wondering why no tears were coming from my eyes.

the dark heaviness of that day has cloaked me with guilt for 13 years. i did not feel a tinge of sadness then, all the while knowing that i was about to leave the only parent i knew and loved to go to a country known for its over abundance and wealth with a strange mother I barely knew. i was blinded by the neon lights that i thought america was made of. i was seduced by thoughts of mountains of candy bars and bananas and orange juice, that were unheard of in poland. i was blinded by promises of barrels full of toys and boxes of 64 crayons and bribed with ice cream and pretty dresses. i sold my love for my daddy for a cabbage patch doll and two barbies.

i didn't care that he was crying because he was afraid of never seeing me again, i didn't care that he was crying because our house would now be empty, and there would be no one to read bedtime stories to or take for the sunday walks. i didn't care that he was crying because he was loosing his little girl, the one that tugged on his mustache while sitting on his lap, the one that drew him pictures of butterflies and flowers. the one that wrote with black marker, "i love daddy" on the living room wall. i didn't care because all i wanted was M&M's and Coca Cola.

so 13 years later, when i was now a parent myself and needed forgiveness and wanted to forgive, i threw the chance to reconnect with the most important person in my life, right out of the window. my mother called with the news my father died a few days after i returned to the states. He went into the hospital a few days after i saw him.

he died alone, with no one by his side. not one single person was notified by the hospital. he died completely alone, demented, as a vycious cancer that suddenly spread throughout his entire body ate him alive. he never knew he had cancer. he went into the hospital 3 days after i left, because his back hurt, and was then told that he had cancer in his lungs, stomach, pancreas, bones, liver and brain. he didn't survive the week. very quickly, his body gave up.

and so upon hearing the news, i made my second trip back. i had only been home a week, but i flew back for the funeral and to collect some of his things, things that i now hold as my most valued possessions; letters, pictures, writings. he saved every single letter i sent him and on an old calendar i found the day of my departure circled with the words, "one day we will meet again my love" written in english.


the day of the funeral seemed surreal and unfair. i was just here a few days ago, i thought to myself. i told my mother before the initial trip that i wanted to be able to see my father just in case something should happened to him, just in case he died. that thought will stay with me forever. how could i have known?

and so, when i walked into the room where the coffin, laden with wreaths laid, i cried.

i cried because this seemed so familiar. this is how we said goodbye the first time, when i was 8. he laid still, unable to move, confined this time not to a hospital bed but rather, a coffin. however, this time it was i that cried. this time he held back his tears. this time, it was he who was blinded by the promise of a place with neon lights, and candy, and happiness and peace. this time, he was taking a journey to a place which forbade crying and only had room for smiles and laughter. this time it was he that lay motionless and emotionless and watched me say my tearful good bye the way i should have 13 years prior.

and so i said my goodbye and even now, every once in a while, i repeat it to him and myself. i still ask for his forgiveness for not coming back when i promised. and now i think he has forgiven me just as i have forgiven my self. i still have that regret but it has taught me a valuable lesson. i have learned that regardless of where you are, where youre going or what you have, it's who youre with that matters the most. i have learned that being close to my loved ones is my single most valued attribute. my family and loved ones are the reason i can say that i am happy. having people who love you is irreplaceable and loving them in return is much more gratifying than one might think. we all make mistakes and hurt each other in the process. but we must realize what we did wrong, repair the damage and forgive ourselves and vow to never do it again. no one's judgement is perfect, especially when we're young. that's the beauty of getting older; you become less angry, less selfish, and more giving.

i love you daddy. i'm sorry for not saying goodbye. i am sorry for not coming back. i'm sorry you never got a chance to see your granddaughter; i know she would have adored you, just like i did. you were my hero, my superman, my everything.

you were my daddy.

hmmm, been so busy lately. not enough time to post much of anything. did i mention how much i like my job?

yes?

oh, ok.

did i mention how much i like nelly furtado's new song, maneater? this will be my new user sound and since i never change my user sounds it will be around for a while.

i can't believe the holidays are around the corner. are we going to do secret santa for estrip?

pleeeeease?

AND

i'm finally getting LAID!!!