Went on my first swim of the summer yesterday! The first swim is always so nice! My parents supposedly love their garden and so never got a pool. I think that is stupid, I would be so much hotter and tanner if I had a pool to float around and drink in.

This week at work has been so high stress. So many problems and so not enough people working. I have never been so glad to be done for the week. And to top it all off, they took away my training position and trip to Rhode Island....my district manager said he was doing me a favor by having someone else do it..and he said my store couldn't handle losing me as much as hers could... I odn' tknow...it pisses me off...i need a new job!

People:
1. How did you find out about/why did you become of estrip?
I am one of the originals because my amazing web brother , i mean web designing brother created this crazy place.

2. How "out" are you about having a publicly accessible online journal. Do your friends know? Does your family know? Do your co-workers know? Does your boss know? Do you use your real name? Do you use your real photo? A lot of people know though I don't htink people from work read it a lot and i don't' tlak about it a lto there. Now customers are starting to notice my bumper sticker, don't love hat. since my brother invented this place, my family knows, though i'm not sure they don't check it often.

3. How many epeeps have you met real life? so many, i am unsure, prolly 50ish

4. How has estrip changed the way that you meet people, on and/or off line?
I have met many people I never would have met but I haven't changed in that I still ususally require people to come up to me even if I recognize them because I am afraid they won't recognize me.

5. How has estrip affected you love life?
no, not relaly, maybe it has made it more public

6. How many of your friends have joined estrip because of your influence?
like 5ish

7. Are you from Buffalo/do you live in Buffalo?
yes, well kenmore

Equipment:
1. What type of hardware or software purchases have you made as a result of using estrip? i don't think any

2. Have you used the mobile version of estrip? Why or why not?
yeah whne i had the web on my phone for free, also have used it numerous times on (e:paul)'s phone
Lifestyle:
1. In what way has estrip changed your Internet surfings habits? Describe the amount of time you spend on estrip, when you use it and about how long?

I guess I use estrip more now that we have dsl. I check it many more times just like when I have a spare minute. I guess it has become like something I always check when I am online so it has increased my internt habits.

1a. How many journals do you usually read per day?
Usually everyone who has updated but a lot of them I just skim real quick. I don't often read the news stories people post, just their commentary.

2. In what ways has estrip changed the way you perceive your local community?
I don't think it really has that much. I guess it shows how lots of different kinds of people can get along but I think I already knew that.

3. How has journaling about your life affected the way you spend your free time?
Sometimes while something is happening I start to tihnk, how will I write aobut tihs ro when will I write about this. It becomes mroe about the story.

4. Has estrip changed your living situation in any way?
nope, still ath ome

5. Do you find that you mediate/document more of your experiences now that you share them with others?
In some ways yes, in some ways no. LIke I have always been a hardcore documenter so I always was big into pictures, videos, writing down things that happpened. I guess with estrip I probably might record smaller events that may have passed by otherwise. In other ways it almost has made me record less becasue I figure oh someone else will mark it down. LIke I take way less pictures because I figures someone else will and will post them so I don't need to. I miss that and actually that is a recent goal of mine is to take more of my own pictures at events.

6. Has publishing on estrip affected the way that write?
I might have gotten an overall more relaxed kind of writing, I think that is due to the internet in general though and maybe estrip in particular.

7. Do you have other online journals? If so, with what service and has estrip affected your usage of that journal?
no

8. Have you ever gotten in trouble for using estrip at work?
no, except with the bumper sticker on my car lots of customers ask what kind of strip club I am advertising for, so that is awkward cuz I don't at the same time relaly want some of my customers to check out my online journal so I don't relaly want to say what it is.

9. If you have stopped using estrip, why?
nopei will never stop

I saw Lakehouse last night. The movie with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock being in love but living two years apart and are only able to communicate through a magic mailbox type thing. I actually thought it was good. Not great but good but I don't think the other people I saw it with liked it very much. (E:jill) called something at the very beginning that I wish we wouldn't have realized right then but still it was good I thought.

Anyway, it made me realize that I am very able and willling to suspend disbelief for a movie. I don't need to think about like "oh could this really happen" or "this doesn't make sense if that happened". I just get caught up in the emotion and don't care if it doesn't make sense. Movies aren't meant to always be realistic, I like ones that are realish with some whimsical senselessness thrown in. Sure if you work out all the times and the action maybe it doesn't make sense, but why bother, why not just bask in the emotional goodness!!

oh and i want a Lake HOuse

So yesterday me, (e:jill), and jen went to Shawnee Stables on Grand Island and rode some horses. It was super fun! Not something I would do every day, but I would do it again. Of course my horse, Molly, was a little bit of a devil. She liked to run even when I didn't want her too. And she liked to eat which theya ren't allowed cuz they choke because they have the bit in their mouth so I had to keep pulling her head away from the plants and I tihnk she wasn't too fond of me because of that. Mine and JIll's horses were referred to as the "witches" by the lady riding with us. And thye were the ones that like to kick! Needless to say the ride was little painful cuz it was all bouncy bounce smack down on the horse. Hopefully I can still have children one day!

And of course my horse had to be troublesome and try to go in the wrong direction. Though we were going in a circle the whole time, me and jill who were usually in the lead did not realize this and never knew which direction to go in. I thought the leader yelled go left but she said Don't go left but Molly wanted to and she took off to the left. ANd i was trying to stop her and the lady was yelling HOLD ON< JUST HOLD ON! so i thought she had just given up on me and was like just hold on for your life, your horse going wherever it pleases. But she meant to pull harder on it to stop it.

Well its fun, now I am a certified cowboy, so watch out little doogies!

First off, me, (e:jill), (e:mk) (e:libertad) and a few others went to Rendezvous on Niagara Street. I really like that place. The outdoor patio is so nice, especially when they have all the fires lit which they didn't last night but it is still so nice! I really like it , it is so cool looking. You think little dive bar but you get faboulous patio in the back. I don't know, I just want to say I really like it....

Now on a more important note, me and (e:mk) were obsessed with trying to find out what song Billy Gilman (like 12 year old boy circa 1999ish one hit wonder) sang. Luckily as we walked through Delaware Park we ran into the embodiment of Billy Gilman in WNY, and he had sang the song in highschool for a talent show and was able to sing us a little of it. Though we were still lacking in remembering the rest of the song even though I feel like at one point all my friends probably knew all the words to it. Anyone else remember the song? LIke i think it was about a school shooting or something like that.

So this Thursday at the Square was super fun in the old school last year kind of way. Hung out with (e:amanda), (e:terry), (e:lilho), and (e:paul) at the squrae and then went to McMonkeez with (e:amanda) and andre afterwards. Three for one drinks you can't go wrong except the cover charge went up from 2 dollars to 3 dollars. ANywho, I had had enough to drink but I still had two drinks so we started talking to this guy next to us and gave them to him. Needless to say a few minutes later we see him being forced to the ground and dragged out by security and police officers arresting him. Oops....that was our cue to slip out. HJopeucflly it wasn't our drink that [pusehd him over the edge to insanity.

Headed over to skybar where I hadn't been since last year. ALways a good time......I think this might be a good summer after all...

Have you guys read about the like 13 year old girl or something who got her parents to get her a passport saying she was going to Canada but secretly fled to Palestine to meet the guy she met on the internet? Who does that? Ok it is kinda cool but a lot of crazy. Like I think Palestine is probably the last place I would run away too alone without telling anyone if I was a 13 year old girl. There is soo much wrong with this situation. Luckily the parents caught her when she landed in Beirut (maybe the second last place I would run away to alone as a 13 year old girl). My question is, how do you punish a daughter who did this? Or namely how do you punish yourself for letting your preteen trick her way over to Palestine?

Reading (e:chico)'s writing about where to get an apartment got me thinking about Buffalo and Main Street. Main Street definetley is sketchy but also I don't think it needs to be aovided like the plague. I do a limitied amount of things on Main Street, the bank, Hyatt's, hmm i guess that is probably about it. But Main Street really is a world away from (e:strip) even though it is so close. Even though numerous people here that live on Linwood, it is a whole different world. Linwood is/is becoming a haven for people with lots of expendalbe income, wanting an old, mansion for a low price. Getting in on the cusp of revitalization, though it is quite revitalized already (as compared to 1980's for instance).

How many of us have ever looked at an apartment on the other side of Main Street or Main Street itself? Probably very few. How many of us have ever even walked on Main Street really? Sure we can all talk about destigmatizing it but I don't know that a new person moving in should really try and tackle that by moving in there when noone here seems to want to.

For what you pay in rent in an elmwood apt you could buy a house a few blocks away and what you pay for a house around Elmwood/Linwood you could probably buy an entire block across Main Street. That is crazy.

This all became very rambly and maybe made no sense, maybe I wlil edit it later. I don't know, I just think everyone always talks aobut the stigma and trying to change it but it actually is within all of our power to do that but not one of us does, myself included. I don't know, that's all for now....

Then I also think about like gentrification. So what, do we want everywhere to be like elmwood/linwood? Once people with money move into those areas, then the people who live there now can't afford it and just have to move on. Is that really better? Does it really help the people there? I don't know, its all very confusing, and not really sure what I wanted out of this post.

So my family is entering the 21st century and we now have Verizon DSL. This is my first time using speedy internet and (e:strip) at my house. I think it will probably make me check out estrip and other things more often because I won't have to wait to sign on and then wait 10 minutes for it to load and the such. I am so excited! My parents finally agreeed to get it when we offered to get it for them for my mom's birthday or was it christmas? I don't remember, we have a tendency of postponing holidays/gifts in my family. IF my mom ever cashes in al lthe things I owe her (like dinners and things made and jewelery we have said we would get her over the years but she has to help pick out) I will go bankrupt. WEll everyone, I'm glad to be reading you in highspeed. See ya more soon and often....