Saturday
1 January 2000
Yay, it's the new year.  It was pretty much like I thought.  No big riots and the world didn't blow up.  It was actually somewhat calmer than past new years.

10:30 pm
We blew some bill money and bought a snake today at Petco.  It is my late Christmas present, but it is our snake.
click here 
 Don't ask me how that works, in this house, it just does.  I made sure to buy a couple of books about him (a ball or royal python), a kit and tank and we got a 10% discount.  We had promised the kids that when we move into a house (as opposed to an apartment) then they would all get their own pets.  Lorelei and Kyle both want chameleons, Tabi wants a bird or cat and Ana wants a cat or dog (even though she's afraid of them).  Reading up on the snake, I am realizing they are much more complicated to deal with than I thought, although the books say that ball pythons are very good pets.  I am learning that the idea of keeping chameleons in a bird cage is not as preposterous an idea as I thought.  They need a well ventilated cage.  Wire mesh cages are recommended over glass tanks.  They are however, somewhat delicate and complicated to care for.  They also do not deal well when put in a cage together unless they are a breeding pair.

Sunday
2 January 2000
12:14 am
Catching up on a bunch of things today, or trying to.  Laundry day as usual.  Filling out paperwork for the DA. Catching up on here, too, for the past week of entries.  Been trying to clean the house for the past week.  Seems every time I clear a section of the house that's where someone decides to dump more stuff.
     My typing is atrocious, and I'm going to have to spend the next hour or less going over these last few entries and fixing the spelling and capitalization.  Stressed today, too.  The anxiety attacks are back.  I just keep feeling like I should be doing something and it's important and I'm not getting it done.  Well, I'm doing the best I can.  Hopefully it's just bill worry again.

Monday
3 January 2000
    In Praise of the Male Body
    I think that I should never see
    A body beautiful quite like thee
    Thy trunk, thy breadth, they steady voice
    You take my will and give me choice
    A rush of heat I feel throughout
    Despite your whine, of a child without.

I love the male body.  It isn't much artistically (a woman's body is much easier to draw), a man's body is hard to draw adequately.  It just never looks the same on paper as it does in person.
     I don't know what it is about them, a woman's body is more interesting to look at, but a man's is more interesting to touch, to smell, to experience.  Maybe it's just a matter of hormones, I'm sure plenty of men would disagree with this opinion.  Short, tall, stout, thin they just fascinate me.  There is no easy way to explain it.

7:18 pm
Things are going very quickly today. It was the first day back to school after the holidays.  I'm sure by the end of the week I'll be ok, but right now, it's confusing.

Tuesday
4 January 2000
I remember talking to a girl whose mother had just died of cancer.  I was explaining my theory on how everything is connected and everything happens for a reason.  I used her situation.  She was taking a religion and theory class and was finding new and interesting ideas.  I told her to take that as an example:  what and how did she do things differently than if her mother were still alive.  She and her mother were close and her mother was a confidant to others as well.  What might others do differently because this person in their life died the way she did.  Life is a forcing ground and nature abhors a vacuum.  You do not just live, you are forced to live and make decisions every moment of every day of your life.  Even death is a choice, even when not considered to be a viable one.

Wednesday
5 January 2000
We were all looking at my webpage today at the UP.  Roxy said she couldn't get it to come up at home.  I told them that I mentioned them in the Footnotes.  They all picked coded names for me to use in here.  Roxy is the Administrative Counselor Assistant.  She is incredibly nice, and the one I bug the most when I don't know how to do something.  Kitty has been going home sick the past couple of days, poor thing, she has the flu bad and still has to come in for a little bit at least.  They are doing audits this week.  Yuck!  Meme started having contractions last night so she didn't come in today, but she didn't have the baby yet.  She is due tomorrow.
     Work really is getting easier.  I can work without looking at my notes constantly, though I still keep them by me.  I had given myself until the end of the week, and it only took me a couple days.  The big boss has been at work all day for the audit thing and we kept getting calls from the Sac campus.  I was never introduced to these people, so when someone asked for them, I just said "She doesn't work here, she works in the Sac campus" then they would calmly explain (as you would to any idiot) that they knew that, that is where they were calling from and the person they are asking for is visiting.  They would also tell me which office the person was probably in.  Another problem is that the employees here come and go sometimes by the back door; I never know if they are even there at any given time.  The big boss looked at RPlant's office, with the neon beads and Bob Marley music and said the place looked like a brothel.  She smiled when she said it though, she was kidding.  Still, how does she know what a brothel looks like?  Not that I'm suggesting anything, I just don't think a real brothel would have neon plastic hippie bead curtains.
Dado - the guy who hired me, he will soon be going to the Sac campus
RPlant - the Academic Counselor, will be taking over from Dado
Roxy - the Academic Counselors Assistant, very nice, who I run too when I don't know something
Anais - Traveling Enrollment Counselor.  she actively recruits students.
RKay - the head Enrollment Counselor, nice enough to correct me right when I'm wrong, instead of waiting until I get in trouble
Maynerd - Enrollment Counselor.  One of those near extinct animals, a genuinely nice guy
Aladdin - Enrollment Counselor, picked his name himself
Candy - just a little bitty dynamo, Enrollment Counselor
Kelinator - Financial Aid, also picked her name herself
Kitty - Customer Service Representative, she is the one training me how to do the job
Meme - also CSR, I'm filling in for her while she is on maternity leave.
Justine - 'the other new girl', she works the bookstore, she has a profile on aol for a personal ad, we tease her all the time.

Thursday
6 January 2000
Not much going today, I'm getting very good at the job.  I may lose most of the day tomorrow because of an appointment in San Andreas.

Friday
7 January 2000
Got my check, it wasn't very big, so it went to miscellaneous items we needed instead of bills again.  I didn't even make it to work today.  I had told them I would be in late, but then Kitty told me that our hours on Fridays are 8-5 instead of my usual hours of 12-9.  I didn't know this until she told me yesterday.  I had to go to San Andreas to see the DA about a matter with my ex.  It went ok.
Visited Petco and Petsmart to check out prices on stuff we may want to get in the future (we also had to get a mouse, got two). Sid has decided he didn't want to eat today.  Lorelei has changed her mind, she wants a mouse instead of a chameleon when she gets her pet.  We spent the evening teaching the kids the difference between feeder mice and pet mice.  I want to stress the difference so that they don't get attached to the mice we feed Sid, and they don't think I will feed a mouse that we got for a pet to the snake.  I would still like to get a chameleon maybe, and definitely a bearded dragon.  When we finally get into a house it will be filled up with pets of all description.

Saturday
8 January 2000
Talked to Lu last night, and she told me that Jake's birthday party was today.  I had planned on taking the girls out clothes shopping today after we did a field trip to the Serpentarium. Mommy said she couldn't possibly go anywhere today; I called up Gwen and she said we could go tomorrow after church.
     We went to the Serpentarium and it was cool!  Not hard to find at all, and every age of reptile.  They had a bunch of different species, though not as wide a range of different kinds as I had hoped.  The kids were awed and scared and very impressed.  Kyle decided that in addition to a chameleon he wanted an iguana and a bearded dragon.  Ana wants a turtle and frogs, Tabi still wants a bird though.  I had to explain why there were rabbits in a cage in the corner (some of the snakes were 12-20 feet long!).  We took Sid so that they could check her over.  They asked if I wanted to know the sex, I said yes please of course.  They looked for lipstick, high heels and other obvious signs ()  and then pronounced her a girl.  So if we ever decide that we might like to breed her, we know what we need.
     I don't know if I will want to breed any of our animals other than the mice (need to, for cheap food, easy done).  What I've been reading about breeding reptiles and amphibians sounds very complicated.  Temperatures, environments, age, food or lack of, preparations for young (environment, number, temp etc.) all of this sounds very tricky and something I will want to research a bunch more before we do anything.  Wayne has finished our snake page, it looks good and will document our pets as we get them.
     There is a bunch of different animals I want to get, dwarf rabbits, rats, parrot, lovebirds, bearded dragons, frogs and aquatic turtles, anoles and golden geckos, a few more snakes and an iguana.  Maybe more than that, but those first.  One thing I've found by buying Sid on impulse, I will research an animal first if I am not familiar with it's habits.  I know next to nothing about any particular reptile, yet I want a bunch of different kinds.  I think I will keep a particular eye on eating habits and environment before I get a pet.  You can't just bring it home and wing it, hoping that what you can provide is good enough.
     Looking on the net for links for my webpages, I am reminded by a rhyme I came up with when I was younger.  Then, I was talking about my favorite playplace (the area behind my grandmothers shed), I called it my "house of no substance" because it had no walls, but was a sharply defined space.  I realize that is exactly what my webpages are: houses of no substance.
           Shadow walls, walls of aer
           Never will you find me there.
           Unless, of course, you should, in doubt
           Go in the house with walls without.
                         Aerin Phoenix -- House of No Substance

Sunday
9 January 2000
Laundry day!  Except that once again we got a late start.  I had to take Lorelei and Tabi to the Thrift store to get clothes.  Gwen called this morning sick, so Wayne took us after all.  I spent $20 and still didn't get all we needed.  Got a few beautiful dresses though.  Love Thrift stores!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Ny (my ex)'s wife Dw called to say she was sick and we would have to bring Lorelei home.  This is ridiculous.  We spent the first three years doing all the driving, sick or not, and even now that we've got the driving situation almost down, they try to get out of it whenever they can, for whatever reason.  I have to go along with it because if I don't then I don't get to see Lorelei.
     Also reading Rachel's Daily Diary.  Almost through summer 1999.  She was commenting on another girls journal, and says "She is quite beautiful and lives her life by several webcams, which I would consider...No, probably not.  This is about words, not images"  I consider this comment to be somewhat ironic since she is a film major.
     Other quotes: "Work like you don't need the money,
                          Love like you've never been hurt,
                           Dance like nobody's watching"
I like this, and I agree with it.  Life was meant to be lived to the fullest, and it's hard to do that when inhibitions are slowing you down.
"We usually only think of technology when it ceases to function properly"  For more on this thought, read (Sorry, got to look up the title and author)
Love Horoscope link:  according to this, I'm immensely compatible with every major male friend and interest I've ever had!
     I should go check my e-mail, but I'm too tired, it's 1:48 am. Good night.

Monday
10 January 2000
Nothing much to day, except work going very fast.  Reading Killobyte by Piers Anthony.  It is very cool, I like all of his books, though he really seems to have the central theme of "the game" in all of his books.  Interesting thing: 

Tuesday
11 January 2000
Went back through here looking for previous mistakes.  I found the birthday counter that I wanted on here and on Lorelei's page.  I just have to have Wayne put it on here.
     Joined the Breasts of Doom collaboration, I guess they will send me an email when the next one is due.

7:36 pm
I was once a different girl, an innocent who was innocent of her innocence.  Not naive, never that; but when they talked of wide-eyed innocence, there was a picture of me.  I don't know whether to mourn the loss of that girl or celebrate the next stage that I have burst upon in my quiet way.  I have become a mother, a woman, a girlfriend, a wife.  I have known the fascination of a man's attention, and felt it for him.  I have known the pain and sheer satisfaction of pregnancy, labor, motherhood.  At 7, I knew how not to be a victim, at 16 I was too concerned by life to remember.  However, "Being a victim is an event, not a lifestyle".  At 25, I feel I have lived a lifetime, but I'm not ready for it to end.

Wednesday
12 January 2000
1:40 pm
I saw a billboard this morning that made me laugh.
     Stop taking my name in vain,
                       (Or I'll make rush hour longer)
                                      --God
I think not only is message funny, the fact that someone went through all the trouble to rent the billboard is funny.  This is what we need, more messages, less advertisements.

11:27 pm
I usually get to go on the internet and look around about 7-8 pm, when the classes at work are in session and things are slow.  I've started to find more online diary links through Rachel's pages (which I'm almost all the way through!).

12:20 pm
I never was very good at journalizing of the paper kind.  I would really have to set aside the time and I never thought my life was important or interesting enough.  Now, though, I have a reason to write.  It's not just myself that I will be disappointing (I can always hope)  These pages have the potential to make someone happy or at least interested.  And I have always been one to be caught like a fly of thought on the web on possibility.
     Now the possibility of sleep (more on that subject later)

Thursday
13 January 2000
Now I know what a hamster feels like.  We went to McDonald's after Wayne picked me up from work.  Ana hadn't eaten much for dinner and I was hungry so we went to catch a couple cheeseburgers.  McDonald's has the huge playarea and Ana wanted to play.  There was no one else there and she didn't want to go by herself, so I climbed up too.  The whole thing is one huge habitrail!
     I may have a job opportunity coming up within the next few weeks.  It would be nice to have a permanent job.  The job promises to be very stressful.  That's ok, I was thinking about it and if I come up with a solid structure to the work maybe I could handle it.  The only problem is, I don't know the job!  Maynerd says that's ok, they will train to a large extent.  I think it might be fun, but then I'm scared that I don't know it.  I hate going into situations where I don't know what I'm doing.
     The anxiety attacks are back and each time they get worse.  I'm thinking about going to the doc and asking if I should be concerned.  I can't take the time off work though.

Friday
14 January 2000
Frankie's Birthday!  My nephew Frankie is 17 years old today.  My parents are taking him to the Outback.  Very good Aussie restaurant.
We fed Sid the remaining mouse after cleaning all the tanks out.  Since getting her the new heat lamp she seems a lot more active.  I'm glad we got it, and I'm very glad it wasn't that expensive.

Saturday
15 January 2000
10:00 am
Been looking for logic puzzles on the net.  Or maybe they aren't called logic puzzles.  That search sure hasn't gotten me anywhere.  I have only two major ones I can remember: 
                                 1.  There are 53 bicycles in a room. There is also
                                 a table and a man lying dead on the floor.
                                 What happened?
                                 2.  There's a cabin on the side of a mountain, inside two men are dead, what happened.
With each question, the person being asked asks yes/no questions of the questioner until they can figure out the puzzle.  I think these are very cool and if anyone out there in reader land know where I can find these puzzles, please drop me an e-mail.
     Went to Petco today, we gave Sid the last mouse last night and she pounced on it like she was starved and then she looked around for more.  The new heating light is really good.  We got four more mice today, maybe we will have a litter.  At least then we wouldn't have to buy any more.

Sunday
16 January 2000
Found a site with the logic puzzles I was looking for, but there is no way (I can see) to get at the answers, and there aren't that many there.  When I first heard about these puzzles, it was from someone talking about them in a book that they got.  Wish I knew the name of the book now.
     Joined the Bared webring, another ring for online journalists.  Very cool
     Found a picture that Wayne had done of me on his Photo FX2 program.

Finished my kithkin page, my page of who's who in this journal.  Reading through my sites I've marked from the internet.  Not much going on today, other than laundry this afternoon, as usual.

Monday
17 January 2000
3:30 pm
Getting caught up on my pages.  I stayed up until 3:00 am last night, but it's ok because today is the observation of Martin Luther King Jr. day, a work holiday.  Very rainy and drippy today, have to keep the light on all day.  I don't like sunlight very much -- well, at all -- but that's when I am out in it.  I do like a bright sunlit house.  My eyes are rather sensitive and I can't stand strong sunlight.  I would rather live in Seattle or Spokane, except with sharing Lorelei with her father, I can't move far out of range.  He already has moved without regard to how far we have to travel.  Maybe now that they have to share the travel duties, they won't move even further.  Also with Kyle and Tabi we can't move too far away.  I hate to think we are stuck in this town for the rest of our lives, Hopefully we can find a place in Lockeford or maybe Lathrop if I get a permanent position there.

12:00 am
I was raised Christian Baptist, but from an early age I acknowledged the Mother's presence.  I feel I am being unfaithful or disloyal to one or both by acknowledging the other, but I can't with any certainty refuse either.  I feel disloyal, but how far must loyalty go?  Wouldn't any true deity understand that there exists doubts or questions?  As thinking beings we are raised to respect empirical evidence, proof beyond question, yet as spiritual beings, we are expected to have faith beyond question.  Which, by the way I do, even knowing how strange it is.  I also have faith in trusting to instinct and the knowledge that I can't possibly prove everything.  I have yet to have it proved to me without a doubt the existence of air, that there are organisms that I can't see that can do me an immeasurable amount of harm.  Why not a huge organism that I can't see that caused me to become a thinking, creative being.  As strange as a knowing, unprovable God might be, I would think it stranger that the whole of creation is one big coincidence.  The way nature fits together and all the failsafes built into creation can not be the work of coincidence.  I do believe in evolution, man and nature did not spring full formed from the universal womb, it took time.  God created evolution.  But what self-respecting intelligent creature doesn't acknowledge the sheer force of time.  So, I talk to the Mother, pray to God for His understanding, and muddle through the best I can.  And hope for forgiveness if it ends up I need it.
     God's presence used to be very strong in my church, and I don't know if He left or I changed.  I don't feel the same presence there any more. I no longer sneak in during the day hours to rest my hands on the pews and drink in the feeling.  The cross in the front no longer shines with faith, just good lighting.  People are still the people they always were, they still claim whatever strength in their faith they always claimed, but now their smiles seem to carry a false veneer.  Was that presence the innocence of youth?  Even my little grandma, visiting for the first (and I believe only) time commented on the unusually strong presence in our church.  But that was years ago before the soap opera that became my life started.
     When I was nine I acknowledged the Goddess for the first time.  I was depressed about life in general, I hit puberty running about that time, and life was (I believed at the time) unnecessarily hard.  I cried to the Mother "Why does it have to be so hard?  Is it really worth it?"  No, no voice from the heavens, no magical talking animals.  Just a whisper from deep within me, hard is better, it makes you try.  It is worth it if you try hard enough.  I have since wondered if I am trying hard enough.  My life is still hard.  I still have to cry sometimes to her, ask if it ever gets any easier.  I know that easy is the way to spoilage.  Spoilage turns your brains to mush and your life to shit.  Maybe your life will be shit anyway, but there will certainly be no escape possible if you don't try.  To sound like a famous quote:  Life is a journey, not a destination.
     I will have to sort this out by the time I die.  Well, maybe it will take until I die to sort it out.

Tuesday
18 January 2000
10:18 am
This is a rant and may, in some spots, not actually reflect the beliefs of the management on a good day.
I used to have innocence and happiness - he seduced it away from me, made me bitter
I used to have dreams of what my life would be - he claimed those dreams as his own and destroyed them.
I had a picture of my first born, a daughter - he made her truth and stole her away.
I knew who I was and where I was going - he spun me around, suffocated my dreams, created confusion and doubt.  He took everything and left me and made it my fault.

4:30 pm
I have no books to read.  This usually causes major anxiety attacks, but today I am determined to write and keep busy so I am not left with free time that I might have read in.  I read so fast that it is hard to keep me in books.  I have had a taste for Romance books from the library lately, too.  I will go in and stuff an entire backpack full of books, usually finishing them before the due date.  I can read 4-5 Romance books in a day if I have nothing else to do.  My backpack can hold 40-45 books depending on how full I stuff it.  I usually take no less than two books with me whenever I go, 3 if I'm more than halfway through the first, only 1 if it's a large book.

12:19 am
The thing that sucks the most about the hours I am working is that I don't get to see Buffy.  I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer!  I like watching Angel too, but if I could only watch either or it would be Buffy.  I also watch (on tape, cause I miss it too!) Charmed on Thursdays.  These three shows are really the only major shows I watch.  Yes I go for the whole gothic thing.

Wednesday
19 January 2000
12:34 am
Not much going on today, except staying very busy at work.  It's kind of difficult lately, the financial aid counselor quit and we didn't want to start a panic so we didn't tell the students, just referred them up to Sac.  It seems she had been sitting on several Pel Grant checks for a while.  She was supposed to have students sign them when they came in, but she didn't.  I don't really blame her for quitting, some of the students are really obnoxious.  Like she has nothing better to do than drop everything so that she can tend to that one student.  We get several people every single night demanding that they have to se her - now, now, now.  We actually had one guy say that she couldn't be doing anything more important than talking to him, after al it was his money!  Can you believe the sheer gall?  They were making noises about giving me a chance at the job, but I don't think so.  I've been in jobs where I didn't know what I was doing.  They will probably promote one of the CSRs to the job, and then I can try for that position!  I like that idea!
I've been reading other online journals and the more I see, the more I want to do on here.
Came across the perfect quote for me, and by one of my favorite authoresses --
                         She is too fond of books, and that has turned her brain.
                                            ---Louisa May Alcott

Thursday
20 January 2000
Watched Orange Road last night.  I lost one of the tapes in the divorce.  No, actually lost it, I don't know where it is.  It's the first tape too.  Trying now to see if I can get a retape somewhere.  It should be free, it was when I first got it, but that was ten years ago.  I looked for it and they are selling tapes (two episodes each) for 23-35 bucks each.  What a rip off.  It would be worth it, except I know I can get it for free.

There ya go, Ayukawa fans!
And now for the other favorite website:
oooo look at the honey! heheh.  TV is good, TV is our friend.
And I love the Buffy quotes!!  All very funny!
Gonna go play on the net some more, TTFN ta ta for now.

Friday
21 January 2000
Hard to go pick up Lorelei on Fridays, because of how late I get out of work.  I asked Dw if she could bring her but she started having a hissy fit about how much she does already and how put out she is about what she has to do for her anyway.  She gives me clothes when the kids outgrow them and she actually held that up as how much she does.  Of course she brought up the glasses too.  Ana broke Lorelei's glasses a couple weeks ago and Dw has to get them replaced.  They have to buy them, they say, because MediCal doesn't pay for them.  It pays for them down here, I don't know why they don't up there.  Anyway, I should have asked her if Lorelei is such a burden to them then why didn't they just let her live here with me.  I don't mind having to get things for my daughter, obviously they (or at least Dw) do.
     I need to find some more backgrounds, Valentine's day is coming soon, and Ana's birthday. 

Saturday
22 January 2000
Cleaned the house major today.  From front to back, like a prairie fire.  I put everything away and dusted the shelves and vacuumed everywhere.  All the dirty socks are now out from under the computer desk.  Why is it men hoard socks like a mouse hoarding food in the winter time?  I swear, every time he asks "Do I have any socks?" I ask him if he's looked under the desk lately.  hehe.
     We bought a rat, a young one, last night after picking up all the kids.  We thought that maybe Sid was ready for a larger size animal.  We get it home and immediately realize that there is no way Sid is going to get that rat down.  So now we have another pet.  We had to run back to the pet store and spend a little bit more for a cheapy cage for it.  Thank goodness we already have food and pine shavings.  The two female mice that we have left (we bought two females and two males, Sid has eaten the males) are doing well.  I think we are going to keep them for breeding, Sid can eat the young and what she doesn't eat we can sell back to the pet store for credit.  At least one of the females is pregnant, if I couldn't tell by the massive amount of nesting she is doing, the bulging tummy is a big clue.
     Now I have to help Lorelei with her webpage.
1:42 am
Wayne did a survey about whether he should cut his hair or not.  We called all friends and family and ICQed everyone we talk to from the webcam, the vote was 16 to 11 for.  He couldn't style his hair and he has sores on his head, so he shaved it.

These are the before, during, and after pictures.  I have told him I'm not going to look at him until his hair grows back.  I think I will call him Mr. Clean until then.

Sunday
23 January 2000
morning
The kids woke up this morning and Ana was the first to notice Wayne's hair.  She looks at him with a puzzled expression and points to him "Hair, daddy?"  He of course must play it to the hilt.  "What did you do with my hair?  Where's my hair?" It was very funny.  We dropped off the kids at their mom's and Wayne stayed at M&D's while I did laundry and caught up on my Buffy.  I like the work hours I do now, but it does mean I only get to watch Buffy on tape.
11:55pm
Looking up sites on the net.  I need to get permission before i post it here, but that should be forthcoming.

Monday
24 January 2000
10:15 am
Am i crazy for having my name on the internet?  I have changed my email so it's harder for any given psycho to track me down, but what's to stop a really determined psycho or worse a hacker psycho from finding out where I am.  I am tempted to tell all my secrets here, but there is a point where I have to protect my family.  I have to wonder how many people I know are reading this.  How many people are reading this and don't know it's me.  There could be people in my apartment complex reading this right now and they don't even know I live here or that this is me.
4:45 pm
If I am hired here, I have my schooling paid for if I want to get a degree.  I was thinking of getting a BS in Humanities, but what would/could I do with it?  I think I'll email my family and get more input.
     RPlant asked me last week (in the course of conversation) why I was with Wayne.  Now, most of you know my position on love as an excuse. But without that explanation, what did I have.  No answer.  So I've been thinking long and hard and all I can still come up with is we suit.  He understands my need for pets of various descriptions, tattoos, Harleys and other wildness. We are friends and we annoy each other and hate each other occasionally, the way friends will.  We love each other, but I don't feel much support is available from him beyond what he feels he is forced to do.  Our tastes in music and culture and academia are radically different.  He is occasionally violent with a quick temper.  He puts me down and makes me feel more of a failure in life than even my father sometimes can, but he also worships me as his own personal goddess.  I understand him, and he isn't used to it.  No one seems to accept him and encourage him like I do.  I think that's so sad.  He has so much in him if he'd only put some effort into it.  He has been put down and told he is stupid and too violent to make it in the world by his parents, family, teachers, friends, and others.  He believes me now.  He sees some potential in himself now.  Now is only to get him to reach out for it.  Maybe that's it.  He still needs me, I'm a sucker for being needed.

Wednesday
26 January 2000
2:15 am
Thinking on the date I owe to D.  When we were gong together oh, so many moons ago, we promised to schedule a date with each other.  No matter what happened, no matter who we were with or what we became.  "Ten years from now," we promised "we will get together for a date, even coffee in some out of the way shop."  Well, ten years came and went.  I let myself forget, though I lost my nerve and called him a few weeks after the day.  He claimed also to have forgotten.  Did you forget like me?  Or was it just not a priority in your life.  Wayne didn't want me to go.  He was terrified in his own "I don't give a shit, but don't expect me to be here when you get back from screwing your exboyfriend" kind of way.  In truth, I don't know that I wanted the complication.  We still see the people we were and we react the way we've become.  I was poor at the time (when am I not?) and I didn't want to deal with the conotation of him paying for me.  He didn't think anything of it, I'm sure, but he's never been poor like me.  He's never had nothing to pull from.  Paying for me would imply a relationship further than what was left after all this time.
    Don't think I haven't thought about a relationship with him, in my own fanciful thoughts.  It wouldn't work.  Even if Wayne died tomorrow, leaving me free to seek another and even if I went straight to D and told him "I want you.  Always have, always will.  Why did you leave me (yes, it still stings)".  He is still a guy.  No, I don't mean that in a "I hate guys" lesbian way. I mean he still does not understand why I need to have babies.  The need is as strong now, after my 3rd with a house of 4, as it was at 16 when I was fighting with myself not to be just like my sisters (a fate worse than death!)  He does not want children who are not his own (he told me) and I do not believe he would want me that way anymore. He has said that he loves me, as a friend.  I love him too.  If you love someone like we did, it never really goes away.
      Gets me to thinking of other loves.  Raymond, my lion (yes, before I found out he was a Leo).  He was my best friend.  He told me when he lost his virginity.  I was the first (other than the girl) to know.  He was my first kiss.  Very sweet.  I love him, would do almost anything for him.  He stirs my lust just by standing there, (oops, did I say that?) but I wouldn't want a relationship with him.  He's too complicated.  He's away in the Navy right now and I miss him horribly.
     Wayne I've always wanted to keep.  Even when I couldn't place my heart with him when he wanted me to (thou fool!), I never wanted to do anything to hurt him.  He hurts me plenty, but I can tell it for a defense mechanism.  As much as I feel sometimes that I want him to just die and get it over with, let me free, there is no effort I would make to free myself.
     These three were my cornerstones in life.  They loved me when I hated myself.  I present myself--ugly, undesirable, weak and foolish.  They see a woman--beautiful, sexy, strong and wise.  They are the ones to bring out the Goddess within.  They are the tripod on which my faith in myself is perched.  May She touch them and bless them all of their lives.

Thursday
27 January 2000
10:41 pm
Looking back at my entry yesterday.  Not that I want Wayne to die, I just know it's coming soon.  He knows it too and it hangs over our heads like s particularly stinky cheese.  His heart is bad, he takes medicine though it doen't really do more than reassure him that the doctor is taking notice.  His back and knees are so screwed up that he can barely walk from our parking space in the parking lot to the house.  He is in pain all the time.  I actually had someone ask me if he can still have sex.  Hello, we have a child together, and she's not that old.  Sometimes I just think that it would be easier on him and me if his body would just give up.  Not better, just easier.

Friday
28 January 2000
1:00 am
I love quotes, have a book I started in 1988, and it's not even a fraction of a way done yet.  Maybe when I am old and dying I can look back on this book and say I enjoyed and learned much.  So I am doing a quotes page.  I love my webpages!
   We are going to get rid of te rat we got.  We had gotten a rat to feed to Sid about a week ago.  We got home and immediately realized she was too big.  The mice we are feeding Sid are too small but the small rats from Petco are too big.  What we need are some three week old rats.  So, we decided to keep the rat for a pet.  She is white with a long rat tail, so we named her Possum.  She has turned out to be a total psycho rat.  She spends all night banging her head on the top of the cage, and she actually managed to losen one side of the top of the cage.  During the day she does a pretty convincing imitation of a dead possum.  I have problems losing the cage top when I clean the cage, and this psycho rat does it in a few minutes.  Of, course I didn't use my head.  She also does this head weave thing like I do to look through the bars.  Wayne says that creeps him out.

Saturday
29 January 2000
Went around to pet stores again today.  We have to medicate Sid for mites.  The Serpentarium says it is ok to use Hartz two-in-one flea powder.  We have to ask how long to keep it on for though.  We put it in there last night.  Went by the Serpentarium and actually got to look at it myself this time.  Took Lorelei in with me and just us two looked.  Asked the guy (Tim?) a few questions, and got to see the mouse/rat room.  I think we will get our mice from there from now on.  There are more sizes to choose from for one thing. The ones from Petco were all always the same size, about a month old.  Sid needs something larger than that, but smaller than a month old rat.  Serpentarium has bunches of cool stuff.  Animals, food, branches, all in a museum like setting.  Very cool.  We got a new branch for Sid; we are going to get two of all her cage furniture so that we can rotate it as we have to clean.  We need to spend more money on bills, we have spent too much on pets this month.  Backlash for not having a job for so long.
11:23 pm
I have decided that I will take up meditation.  The problem is, I always end up sleepy afterwards.  A line of a poem goes through my head and I can't place it.  ". . .time passes, and I am alone"

Sunday
30 January 2000
Dado called today while I was at M & D's doing laundry.  It is with a feeling of dread that I contimplate his reason for calling.  It could be nothing more than changing my hours yet again (though he did say I was set from now on).  Did I do something?  Wanda, the new temp keeps threatenig to not come back and when I asked Justine if she knew why, she just gave me an odd stare and said I'd have to ask her myself.  Of course, Justine has been acting kind of odd to me lately anyway.

Monday
31 January 2000
Dado called back this morning and said they would no longer be needing me thiere.  I called back after a few minutes and asked if there was a reason.  He said the main reasons were improper use of the internet and I turned away students who had a class Friday.  The internet I was told about and I stopped going on except at lunch as I was told.  The class on Friday I had brought to someone's attention (I believe it was Roxy, but I don't really remember) because I thought it was strange when I saw it.  We never have classes on Fridays.  I was told that they were going to do it, but it had been  canceled.  I only talked to one guy to tell him it was canceled.  The whole thing was badly planned if they had decided to ahead with it.  We all leave at 5 pm, if there was a class at 6, shouldn't there be someone to let them in?  The only ones left were me, Justine, and Kitty and none of us knew about the class (well, I knew, but again I thought it had been canceled).
     Dado said that he didn't decide, the folks in Sac did.  Bullpucky.  He also said there were other reasons, but didn't produce them.  Just kept it all very vague.  I worked my butt off for them and I think I did a good job considering I tool over a 3-person job.  I was subbing for Meme, who was on maternity leave, and I took over Kitty's duties as she was taking over the financial office.  They all said that there was supposed to be a third person, but Dado siad that they were phasing that position out because the receptionist can take on some duties.  Wanda was working morning as receptionist and I was coming in at 12 and trying to get things done before 5 when the students started showing up and Wanda left.  I had to run attendance rosters, get materials together, set up rooms, enter applications, care for the whole CLEP/Dantes sutuation, enter attendance, take over the front desk or bookstore when somebody7 went on break or lunch, tuition statements and then in addition anything somebody whanted me to do for them "real quick".  When I sit at the front desk I'm limited to what I can do.  Yes, I used that opportunity to enter stuff to the computer but there was phones and people wanting an immediate answer to their questions.  If I didn't know the answer their response was usually "It figures, no one seems to know shit around here."  All the students felt mistreated and there was a bad communication problem going around there.
     Mostly I just feel hurt.  Up till now, all Dado could say to me was how wonderful a job I'm doing and how much Ihe realizes and is grateful for me busting my butt around there and blah blah.  Makes me feel like he was trying to kiss my ass for no reason now.  If there was problems he needed to tell me ahead of time so I can fix them, not wait until I get fired for them.
     We also did some errands today, took Possum back to the pet store for a full refund and got two more baby rats from a friend of Wayne's.  I love them!