Well I'm over at my friend Rand's right now. That's why I was able to post my entry from last week...blah. It's long, but it's what happens when I can't get on at just any time to write in small bits. Another thing I was able to get done is the Chris Tampa Adventure week in review. (weeee!) Go check out the images, they're great. :)

Let's see...update since the the other day when I wrote the last entry...
Austyn: how far downhill have things gotten since you lost net?
arg. well....today the car payment is due - I had to borrow money for it (and I don't know how I'll make the $70 additional due by the 30th)
Power bill was due two days ago - they're scheduled to turn it off. We're trying to borrow more money to prevent that.
Lost the phone - the cell is our only phone - but made a partial payment so it's back on for another week or so.
Obviously the cable and net (we get zero channels now)
And my storage unit will forclose and make me lose everything I own at the end of the month. (it hasn't already because my mom pawned jewerly to pay $150 of the past due)
Austyn: Any leads on employment?
Only ONE job interview and they didn't even call me back AND I've not gotten a single unemployment check yet despite filing in April. and calling them four times I've got seven weeks backlogged claims and they're still trying to decide if I can have the money or not. (gee thanks guys, not like I needed the money or anything)

That's the sum.

I've been in such a funk... (as you can tell) It's like I try to be optimistic and I try to think that good things will come, but damn it's hard. And then my Love's Grandfather is in the hospital again - Wednesday he went into the ER and almost died - and it's really hard on the whole family. Everyone's known he was going, but now it's really real and looks like it won't be much longer. My Love is really torn up about it - his grandfather is like an idol; a role model for him - and his mother is on the verge of losing it. What's got them even more upset is that he requested a DNR (Do Not Resistate) meaning if he flatlines, they will not revive him; just make him comfortable. So it's kinda the end of the line. To be honest, I don't blame him. I wouldn't want to prolong being in pain either. It's just a lot harder for the family to understand that then it is for him to. He can see it from a point of view they can't. And they hurt because they just don't want to be without him. It's so weird from where I stand. I can see all their sides at once and yet I am also very removed from it. I guess I have to say I don't really understand death. I mean I know what it is and I have my ideas on what comes after and such, but I've never really had it in my life. It both scares me (for others, not so much for myself) and facinates me all in one. Being mediumistic about it most likely confuses matters more.

The point is though that everyone's really upset and it's just another thing that sucks. I hate to see my Love and his family in pain like that.

Hrm. Well, I need to get going. Still have things to do before I leave and I'm running low on time. More probably next week sometime (though not sure when since my friend will be traveling for business next week and therefore won't be here for me to use his pc).

Be well all and thank you for the kind thoughts sent my way...

~ flowers bloom near Memory and Dream at 6/21/2002 03:31:42 PM ~ ~

Offline Recap
Monday June 17, 2002 @ 3:45pm
Blah. What a lovely day (feel the sarcasm here). Got up today to find the cell phone is turned off due to non-payment (our only phone) and the Time Warner guy came out today to hassle me for the equipment (cable box and modem) as well as $161 in past due bill. I gave him neither. (saves me having to pay for another installation whenever it is we get around to paying them and reinstating our service) He noted my refusal to hand over the items and then turned the last remaining bit of my basic cable off. (until now, we had lost our digital services, our roadrunner internet, and the movie channels and onscreen guides - all of which they are able to turn off from their office - but had still the basic cable channels which require a physical disconnect at the box on the apartment.) So I am now left without phone, tv, or net today and since we are down to one functioning (though illegal to dive) car and my Love has that at his work, I can not leave the apartment either. Makes for a very depressing and suffocatingly empty mood.

I just feel so very isolated. Like I’m all alone in the world and that I have no way to reach anyone else. I have no idea how I’m going to get through today let alone tomorrow, or the week, or whatever, without anything to fill the empty, silent hours. Without so much as the television’s mindless entertainment - we get zero channels without cable - there isn’t anything for me to do except sleep and I am already doing that far too much of late. Today alone I slept almost ten hours just because I did not want to get up and face the day. I don’t even want to write this, let alone recap the last week of events because I’m just so lost inside… But I lack anything else to do and I’ve been wanting to write up my week, so I might as well do it now.


Offline Recap
I can’t remember the last time I wrote - I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday of last week. *shrugs* Suffice to say, nothing interesting went on during the week. I had the one afternoon on Rand’s computer which gave me the time to post and publish the previous entries but not much more. I didn’t get to do anything with Chris during the week - despite intentions otherwise - because of the difficulty in the driving logistics. His hotel was over an hour drive one way away and with my Love requiring the car during the day to get to and from work and not getting home until 5:30pm or so and Chris not having transportation and me being monkey in the middle, it just never quite resolved. On Friday however, we got it straightened out and I went and got him after his class got out.

Friday June 14, 2002
My Love comes home on lunch so I can get the car from him. I take him back to his work, come home, shower and head out to pick up Chris. Get to his hotel by about 3:30-4pm. Traffic is already a nightmare with rush hour looming and people bailing out early on a Friday as we head back to my apartment. We had the idea to hang out a bit at my place as a group and then from there, go out and head down once again to Ybor. On the way home, I stop at the mall because the day before, Jef and I had gone there in search of a shirt for me to wear out - I had a remaining gift certificate for $25 left over from my birthday I had not yet used - and I had spotted the cutest Hello Kitty shirt. I couldn’t pick it up on Thursday as I did not have the money for it and my Love did not get paid until Friday. So, on the way home we stopped there to go and get it. The nice clerk had put it on hold for me until Friday. (thanks!) Chris insisted on buying it for me as a thank you sorta gift for driving him around and such. After much protesting, the cashier took his money and that was that. (thank you again, Chris, it’s so damned cute). It’s Hello Kitty Goth Style complete with little bats flying around her. I’m not a goth but this was just so damned cute - a little black baby doll tee - that I had to have it. I actually wore it out that night to Ybor.

We also stopped for some food for dinner and met up with my Love and our friend Kali back at the apartment. Rand came over as well. We played some Magic: The Gathering, ate some food and spent hours trying to figure out what we were doing, how we were coordinating the driving, and where we were going. It had started to rain - hard - and we were all a bit leery about walking around the open-air streets of Ybor to find a club. We ended up deciding to do to GameWorks in Ybor and play some games - being inside, it wouldn’t matter if it was raining over there or not. Rand decided to come with us as well and we all piled in Kali’s Explorer and headed out.

We played a bunch of games including the really fun Indy 500 game where up to six people can play against each other at once. The first time we played, I came in like last place because someone knocked me into the pit at the last second and I couldn’t get out of it. (arg!) The second time at the end of the night though, I came in first at the last second. It was awesome. *hee hee* Kali of course played DDR (she’s psycho at it!) and we all milled about, ate some chicken strips and the guys drank a bunch of beers. Of course, it wasn’t even remotely raining there and we could have easily walked around. (doh! Welcome to Florida weather!) The music they were playing was lame though and made me regret a bit we hadn’t gone out to an actual club to dance and such. We closed the place at 2am and headed on back home. Chris’ flight was scheduled for Saturday at 2pm (meaning a 12noon check in time). He ended up crashing at our place with the intent of my Love taking him back to his room in the morning. (by the time we got home it was already like almost 4am and no one wanted to drive over an hour one-way back to his hotel from there). Turns out, he had to stay an extra day anyway and he bumped his flight to Sunday at 2pm. Which brings us to….

Saturday, June 15, 2002
My Love and Chris head back to his hotel in the morning to get his stuff and facilitate his check-out. I sleep in. Rand calls us and asks if we’re still going to do a movie. They get back, Rand comes over and we all go see a late afternoon showing of The Bourne Identity. I liked it. Matt Damon was pretty cool and his “Black Ops” abilities were awesome - some really cool fight scenes and car chase and such.

After that, it was back to the apartment for some dinner. Kali came over again and my Love made his famous red beans and rice. After that, we decided to go ahead and try Ybor again - this time for a club. Chris was interested in the club scene down here since he’s a DJ in Philly. Rand bailed and so the four of us headed out. (by the way, we drove literally hundreds of miles this week with these hour-plus, one-way treks. It was crazy.)

Walked up and down the strip, trying to find a club to go to. Most were playing booty music and none of us wanted that. Blah. The rest seemed to be playing assorted hip-hop - another no-go. We liked the look of one club but they didn’t allow jeans (Kali was wearing jeans) so we headed out to another instead. Talked to one of the guys outside and found out about the VIP room. Cover was $10 normal, or $15 VIP. But, the VIP line was like two people long and the regular was way out into the street. It also have us access to the second floor…pretty cool. So we ended up there. Club was called Twilight and was really awesome inside. The second floor was so cool - it looked down over the main dance floor but also had these neat curving glass walls, chairs, booths, and such. It also had access to the outside balcony.

We got some drinks - ok, they got some drinks, I got a Sprite - and milled about upstairs for a bit. We then descended to the first floor and hung out next to the dance floor for awhile. The sound was so forceful that the bass actually was vibrating our clothes. lol The lights were really, really cool and very expensive. The club was really top-notch and even Chris was impressed. The DJ was a special guy in from Orlando and - much again to Chris’ awe - spun nothing but vinyl. All I know is that he did it really well. Apparently what he spun was mostly “break beat” (not that I know one form of techno-ish music form another but so says the expert lol) and it really rocked. After some more drinks and watching the dancing for a bit, we went back upstairs and ended up checking out the balcony.

This is where the fun really began. Started off simply enough - the four of us heckling and mocking the people on the street. Laughing to each other about the horrible, horrible, clothes they were wearing to pointing out the staggering drunks (of which there were many!) to cracking jokes about their looks or actions. All-in-all, just having fun. Then we saw the first fight - four black guys in all. Three guys beating up on one. As they’re all pounding on the one guy, someone drops a gunonto the pavement. I wish I had my camera ready because by the time my shock wore off enough to think to get it, one of the guys hurriedly grabbed it off the street and hid it back in his pants. The cops arrived right then and broke up the fight. One of the guys got arrested. We thought that was pretty crazy but there turned out to be two more fights that night that we saw from the balcony as well. No other guns, but defiantly entertaining nonetheless.

By this time it was about 2:30am and the club was closing at 3am. I suggested we all go inside and actually dance a bit before it closed since that was the whole point of coming. Grudgingly, Kali and Chris agreed and we headed downstairs for the final time. We got up on the dance floor (which was raised in various connected platforms off the main floor) and danced a bit. My Love and I bumped-and-grinded and Chris and Kali sorta swayed a bit to the beat. (neither was very comfortable doing it, but at least they did it). They started to bring the lights up and then played the last song, we all cheered and then they announced the club was closed and we headed out.

Went back to the car, I fulfilled my designated driver role and got everyone home. Got back to the apartment after getting Kali home at like 5am and all crashed. Mmm….sleep was SO nice at that point.

Sunday, June 16, 2002
Woke up at about 10:30am and got ready to take Chris to the airport. *sniffle* It was a sad thing. We all thought he fit in great with our weird little group and even my Love thought he was a cool guy. We were all sad to see him leave. *sniffle* Got him to the airport and bid him farewell and then headed home. Went back to sleep for a few hours before we needed to go to my Love’s parents for Father’s Day dinner.

Had a nice BBQ there and showed off the wonders of a digital camera (took a bunch of pics for them and promised to send them copies) and finally got out of there like 8pm. My Love and I got home and crashed.

My stomach started to hurt and I didn’t go to bed with him because of it. I ended up not sleeping until about 3am. Then I just slept and slept and slept. Woke up like 10:30am but did not want to get out of bed so I laid back down and didn’t actually force myself out of bed until like 12:30pm.

Today, June 17th
So today then, today, I just milled about a bit and watched some tv until the damned guy came and turned it off when I came in here to write my catch-up entry instead. Blah. Now that I’ve done that I really have nothing else to do. I did manage to kill about an hour or so typing this out and I’m feeling really hungry (not that there’s much in the way of food here). I suppose I could work on gathering my photos of Chris’ trip into some galleries (most of the images I’ve already formatted for the web) but…eh…kinda depressing to do when you can’t actually publish them. Also hard because then it’s a game of remember-what-you-need-to-take-with-you-to-publish. Arg. Which is another challenge since I can’t burn things anymore, I need to get them on floppies. (*sigh*)

Locally, it’s a rainy on-again, off-again kinda day. The air is actually cooler then normal (a nice change) but the sky has been dark all day. I’ve had to put lights on throughout the day since it’s been that dark out. Doesn’t help my mood. Although it makes the trees look so weirdly, vibrantly 3-D from the dark color of the sky. Maybe that’s just me though. (lol)

I guess since I’m at the point of just rambling aimlessly, I should close. You know I always say that and then just sorta keep babbling on for another paragraph or so before I finally actually give up and stop typing. I think it’s like as a kid being told to go to bed and you stall for a couple minutes longer. Old habits die hard I guess. =D

~ flowers bloom near Memory and Dream at 6/21/2002 01:53:22 PM ~ ~