Current mood:	sad
Current music:	"Finale from Firebird" by Stravinski

What a morning...(LONG)
My brain seems to be on vacation this past week.

As I'm trying to get everything ready for the launch of the new format of my website, I seem to have just leaked all of my knowledge of webdesign and setup. This scares me.

During my freshman year of high school, I found out that I have 2 learning disabilities. I'm dyslexic, but I think I have that pretty much under control. Every so often, it'll show in my stellar spelling, but it's not life-altering. Unlike my other disability. I have a little-known LD called Memory Recall. I don't know exactly how it works, but my brain isn't properly connected in some ways. I have trouble recalling non-vital information, probably because it wasn't registered as important. For example, I could study for a test for weeks. Then, when it's time to take the test, my mind goes blank, and I cannot recall a thing I've studied. I barly passed high school, but I have an IQ of 135. It doesn't mean I'm stupid, but it makes me feel so foolish when I can't recall how to do the most simple of tasks. There is no 'cure' for MR. The only thing that helps is repetition.

Anyway, I thought I was over my MR, until Nancy had me get things ready for her hosting services. It has taken me over a week to simply set up an email account. I should know how to do this shit, because I enjoy it immensly. However, my MR must've kicked in. I feel foolish, fustrated, totally embarrassed and I know I'm probably driving poor Nancy out of her skin. I look like an idiot, and it en-fucking-rages me.

So Nancy, if you're reading this, I'm really sorry I've been such a flake. Trust me, you're not the only one who's fustrated.

This next part is long. You have been warned.

This morning on the train, I had a blast from the past, and it was nice, albiet sad. I ran into Brian, whom I met at a party a few years back. Brian is a wonderful guy, and he is blind. This party we met at was with a group of friends that included my dearly departed Roxanne. Brian and I have only met twice, at this pool party, and at Roxy's funeral. A lot of the conversation revolved around Roxy, and how much we both missed her. Roxy died from complications brought on by cancer. Her funeral was held on what would have been her 25th birthday.

As we're talking about folks we knew from back then, the subject came around to Jennifer, and angry feelings that I thought I've forgiven and buried came boiling up to the surface again.

Jennifer was my best friend for years. Well, she was my best friend anyway. She claimed that I was her best friend. I had moved to North Carolina in 1999, and I had little intention of moving back. I was going through a bad time, and it seemed that all of my friends, Jen included, disappeared from the face of the earth. So I moved in with my parents, and started my life over with a clean slate. After awhile, Jen started calling me just to chat, then telling me that she missed me, then she was pretty much begging me to come back. Later, she informed me about a tumor that was discovered on the base of Roxy's skull. When I found out that Roxy was sick, I started to make tenative plans to move back. Besides, I missed Jen, too. (It's pretty amazing what you're willing to forget just to have the friendship of a manipulative person; one who would NEVER manipulate YOU </sarcasm>). So spring of 2000, I moved back. I lived with Jen, and I got a job in Downtown Chicago, and all was well (so I though.)

Jen kept an online journal. I thought journals were private, so I never bothered to read it. A few months go by, and one day, totally out of the blue, Jen said, "Oh, BTW, don't worry about what my journal says." That was it. So, because Jen spoke in double meanings all of the time, I took it as a demand to read her journal. What I read was nothing short of slander. Just about EVERYTHING that she had ever told me was told differently in her journal. Pretty much, she was lying to my face every time she spoke to me.

Jen was telling me about how hard it was to get started at a new job and get all of your finances settled, so she would lend me money for gas. In the journal, she said that I was totally leeching off of her, and that I was like "a child that would never grow up." She complained in her journal that I spent way too much money on a bed that I "had to have" when in reality I had purchased the cheapest ($99) bed that I could find. Before I got the bed, she said that I could use the cushion off of an old couch to sleep on because I had no bed. In the journal, she said that I was "destroying an antique sofa". I mentioned that on Father's Day, which was also my Father's birthday that year, that "I miss my Daddy". She went into a RAGE in her journal, saying I "had no respect for her feelings" because she had a terrible relationship with her father. (I guess I was supposed to feel guilty because I had a wonderful relationship with my parents.) It went on and on.

So, feeling totally betrayed by the one person I trusted more than any other non-relative, I smartened up. I was cooly casual to her, and I pretty much shut out all of my feelings to her. I can understand letting off steam in a journal, but LYING TO MY FACE was unacceptable. Then, one day in August, it ended.

We were supposed to meet at a listening party at the Rainforest Cafe in Schaumberg for the new Sister Soleil release. As stupid of an excuse it may sound, I got stuck in traffic. Anyone whom has ever driven down I80-94 between Indiana and Illinois knows of the evil there during construction. I left our apartment at 1 to get to the 3 pm party. At 3 pm, I had just crossed the state line (a grand total of 21 miles.) I got to Schaumberg at 5pm, when the party was over. I was seeing a guy named Darren who lived in Schaumberg at the time. I get to Darren's to pick him up, and he met me in the parking lot of his apartments. He said that he went to the Rainforest Cafe looking for the party but didn't find it (he didn't know anyone there, so he wasn't sure who he was looking for anyway.) I called Colleen's (the party hostess) cell phone and left a message on her voice mail. I called Jen's cell phone and got a fast busy signal (no voice mail or anything.) So I ended up staying the weekend at Darren's like I usually did.

That Monday, Jen wouldn't talk to me at all on the way to Chicago. The only time that she made any sort of comment in my direction during the whole commute to work (we commuted with her then-boyfriend, Joe) was when the newsradio made the announcement that Sir Alec Guiness had died. "OH, my GOD! He's DEAD? WOW!" She only did that to piss me, the uber Star Wars geek, off. It was working, but I kept in mind where the comments were comming from, so I was like "whatever". When we got to the parking garage, she got out and started walking away in the "I'm not talking to you" stick-up-the-ass fast walk. I asked Joe, "What's her problem?" He said (in a REALLY patronizing way), "She's upset because SOMEBODY ditched her this weekend to hang out with their boyfriend." WTF? I was livid, and I screamed in her direction, "Well, if she was a REAL friend, she would have asked me what happened instead of assuming shit!" She kept walking away. And I did something I never did before: I LET HER KEEP WALKING. I didn't chase her down, claiming all responsibility that everything was my fault and could I please receive her holy forgiveness. I let her walk. I think that the following 2 weeks, we spoke 2 sentences to each other. While I was away that weekend, she moved all of her shit out of my apartment.

After Jennifer left, life suddenly became LESS COMPLICATED. I got a new job (the same one I have now), moved in with the Velasquezes (more fun than living with the beetle infestation at my old apartment), met Christopher, and became a happier person. I didn't have to walk on eggshells anymore. I could take what people said to me at face value. There was no more Jen interfering with my relationships. I no longer lived just to please a thankless bitch. Life was, and still is good.

To this day, Jennifer says that I screwed HER over. Gosh, I hope that's true. I'm still totally slandered in her journals, and I did manage to print most of it up (for future legal reasons if I feel like a vindictive bitch) before she put a password protection on it (hmmm, I wonder who she was trying to keep out?) I actually ran into her latest version of her diary totally by accident, but I just don't bother with reading it. Why should I? Every time I think of her, I get angry, but it gets less and less all of the time. I'm at the "who cares?" point now. I've forgiven her for all of the shit she pulled, but it doesn't mean I don't get angry about it. The worst part of it all was the Roxy situation.

When Roxy was sick, I wanted to visit her in the hospital. However, Jen was there all of the time. At that time, I was still ready to rip Jen's throat out if I saw her, so I made it a point to not upset Roxy with my behavior. I called Roxy multiple times, but I hardly ever spoke to her because of bad timing (chemo, sickness, testing, ect.) She called me on my birthday in 2001 just to wish me a happy birthday and catch up on stuff. We chatted for about 15 minutes. Before we said goodbye, I told her that I loved her. She said, "I love you too!" That was the last time I ever heard her voice.

In hindsight, I wish I would've taken some Valium and just went to visit her, Jen or no Jen. Today, talking with Brian brought everything that you've just read above into sharp focus. According to Brian, that group kind of fell apart when Roxy died. A lot of them started drinking heavily, including Jen, Roxy's widower Randy (whom later married Jen, why, I'll never know), Angel (Roxy's best friend) and others that I can barely remember. I have a great fear in my heart for Roxy & Randy's little girl, Magdeline, now legally Jen's daughter. I'm sure that Jen is going to force Mags to live out her failed dreams, and instill all of her own insecurities into that poor child. I'm sure she'll teach her a thing or two about manipulation, or as Jen likes to call it, semantics.

God, I hope I'm wrong.

At Roxy's funeral, Jen and I were totally civil to each other. We even traded work phone numbers. Neither of us ever used them. The week before my wedding, I got an email from her. She worded it like she was asking, but after reading between the lines like I always had to do with her, she actually never ASKED. She wanted to come to my wedding ceremony! NO FUCKING WAY. I ignored it. She didn't show up. And that was the last I've ever heard from her. The End.

I walked Brian to his building, which was only a block away from my building. I didn't realize that while we were talking about Roxy, I was crying. I just thought it was the misty rain that had greeted us when we got to Chicago. After I said goodbye to him, I felt so lonely. It hasn't really hit me very hard about how much I miss Roxy. We were the 4 Horsewomen: Me, Jen, Roxy, and Janel (who got married and moved to Michigan around 5 years ago.) Our group slowly disbanded, but we all still cared about each other. Roxy married Randy and had Mags, Janel married her Christopher whom she met in college, and Jen and I remained. I still loved Roxy as a sister, even when we grew farther and farther apart.

I miss her.