Monday, August 31, 1998
10:47 PM
Yes, it's finally happened. I've gotten fed up with all of geocities' hoops that I have to leap through in order to keep my journal in proper working order. The last straw was the fact that they have changed the layout of the geoguide manager, so that the on and off radio buttons are no longer side by side; now I have to scroll slowly down through the entire list and look at each page's box to make sure they're all turned on, instead of scrolling down and just checking the ones that are out of line.
It's not just that... I've been having troubles uploading stuff now since I got back from Minnesota, and Jev pointed out to me that he was getting Javascript errors on every page; it took me a little while to figure out why: He's using my welcome.to address, and that and the geojumpers (also known as watermarks) aren't getting along very well.
So, I'm gearing up for a move. I'll leave this site here for a while, but sooner or later, geocities will probably decide it's worthless clutter and delete it. Heck, I may even be censored just for saying what I have about not liking their current policies. Either way, I'm slowly setting up and organizing space on another free provider, and if things go according to plan, I'll debut the journal's new home on my birthday, this Friday.
Speaking of birthdays, I got my first card of the year today, from Julie. It's cute, one of those tri-fold ones that opens up long-ways, with a 13-layer cake on it. She also sent me $50, though I'm not sure yet what I'm going to spend that on. I lost one of the sapphire studs that she gave me last year, just yesterday, so maybe I will replace those. I was drying off from a bath when I realized that one of my ears was lacking a ring (I have just one piercing in each ear), and I'd already drained the water. I checked my bed, and found the back, but no stud. I had been feeling so nice and refreshed and cheerful after my bath, but that kinda spoiled the mood.
Also in the birthday department, I was supposed to be flying out to Seattle for Julie's birthday at the end of the month, but I've screwed around, and now the airlines are no longer offering the $198 fare I saw a couple weeks ago. I may have to bite the bullet and get the $356 fare, but that would almost definitely cancel out my plans to go up to Vancouver for my friends' wedding. *sigh* That's what I get for putting it off... I'll keep an eye out for a sale; maybe I'll get lucky.
I'm sorry this is sort of a jumpy entry, it's been a couple days, and I just want to catch up on current events.
The other day when Jev was having his crisis, I had a bit of a crisis of my own, which, when put with his, made mine a doubly rotten day. While I was up in Minnesota, Mom told me I got a letter from social services saying I had to come in for an update to see if I still qualified for medical aid. I filled out the papers and took them in, and the next day I got a letter in the mail saying I had too much income. Yeah, right! I don't think so... but anyway, I could get a sort of 'step down' aid, if I had over $114 in medical bills in any given month, but I would also have to reapply for it every three months. Thank you, no; I'm entirely sick of jumping through hoops.
Anyway, since I no longer have to keep my 'resources' under a thousand dollars (do you believe that? I couldn't really save anything because if I did, I'd lose my coverage!), I've been toying with the thought of trying to find some sort of work. I can earn about $8,000 or so before I start losing any of my benefits. But the question is, what can I do, and would I even be able to do that, once the weather turns sour. My best bet would be to find some sort of employment online, but I'll be the first to admit, I'm not all that fantastic at web design. Sure, I can write semi-decent HTML, but when it comes to Java and cgi scripts, I'm hopeless.
Just something to think about, I suppose. I wish I could make a living as a cross stitcher... I've been really good at that lately. Actually, as far as that is concerned, I was thinking more along the lines of designing, but then I'm no great artist, either.
Ramble, ramble, ramble. Oh, Jev and I started toying with NetMeeting this past weekend; I'd bought a set of headphones with a boom mike at wally world, and so we played with that and found that it worked reasonably well. Well, depending on network traffic and some other unfathomable variables, it works well at times. Sometimes (like this afternoon) it's just downright frustrating. Today, I could hear Jev just fine, but I was breaking up so bad I had to type to him instead of talk. Still, it worked better this evening, and gave us a chance to talk before he went to sleep, saving us the phone bill.
The first night we used it, he was being silly and said "read me a story..." so I rummaged through my books, trying to find The Princess Bride but it was hiding too well, so I settled for The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and I've been reading a chapter or two to him a night. He'd never read or heard it before, whereas I grew up reading the entire Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, and can almost tell the story without looking at the book. We're somewhere in the middle of Chapter Five now, but he was drifting off to sleep, so I stopped and let him go. His headphones can reach up to his loft, so he climbs up there to listen to me read, then just takes off his headphones after we say goodnight. One of the conveniences of being on the school network, he doesn't have to worry about hopping offline.
It's nice to read to him, and it makes me feel like we're closer together, but one of these days, I've told him, I'm going to ask him to read to me instead. It wouldn't work very well now as far as reading me to sleep, since my headphones won't reach the bed at all, but maybe sometime, when we're together again.
Let's see... I haven't mentioned Sasha yet, and I do think she deserves a mention. Last Friday, I think, I got an e-mail from my address on my other web page (the one that I show to the people who know me), asking me when I was going to update, because she's in a long distance relationship too, and was dying to know how things had turned out between Jev and I. I hadn't updated that page in about nine months, and I really didn't feel like updating it, so I sent her the URL to my journal here.
For a day or so, I didn't hear anything. Then, this morning, I got another message from her, saying she'd spent the weekend reading all my entries (what a job!) and that she was intrigued and felt like she could understand some of what I'd been through. She included her URL, so as I was answering her message, I hopped over and took a look around; she has some really wonderful watercolor paintings, well worth a look if you are so inclined. I signed her guestbook, then went on to visit her boyfriend's page, but I got dragged off by mom before I got to look around much. He's a comic book inker, and quite talented as well. This evening, I got another message back from her, explaining a bit about what she wrote in my guestbook and just about various things (geo annoyances, et al). I always enjoy interacting with readers.
I jokingly tell Jevim I'm answering fan-mail when I'm writing back to someone, and I have to smile and laugh. I can remember reading Ophelia's journal so long ago, and being just a bit envious of the friends she had made through her online journal. I never imagined it would happen to me. It's amazing how many truly wonderful people there are out there, once you get a chance to know them. I've made some very nice friendships this way, and I would say that 98% of the feedback I've gotten on my site has been positive and encouraging, not just to keep up the journal itself, but to keep going in life, too.
Anyway, the rest of my day was fairly ho-hum. Mom wanted to go to lunch at the senior center in Steakville, and then on our way back home, I asked her to stop at wally world so I could pick up the remainder of the floss I needed for the cross stitch project I started this weekend. Yep, I was bad and started another, but it's quite small, and I'm about halfway done already. It's a Christmas ornament, and I plan to give it away, but I'm not quite sure yet who's going to get it. Decisions, decisions... Other than that, I've spent most of the day stitching and surfing, and talking to Delina a bit on AIM and ICQ. I suppose that's all to tell for now; I have a couple back entries that I'm going to toss up when I upload this, and then I'll stitch a bit longer and chat with friends if they're around, or just hit the sack. G'night...
-- Lis
