HAPPY NEW YEAR! 
 HAPPY NEW CENTURY!! 
 HAPPY NEW MILLENNIUM!!! 

The NEW MILLENIUM is here. I'm here. My computer is still here. The server which holds this page you are reading is still functioning fine. Your computer had not one wobble, either. Yes, I must admit, when the new year was only minutes old, I did take a file I was working on, added one space to it, and saved it. I looked at Explorer. 01/01/00, it said. Not good enough! I clicked on 'properties', and was reassured when the Modified info said "Saturday, January 01, 2000 12:14:00 AM". I KNEW it would. I really did. Still I did feel so much better knowing.

There's that ancient thing in the library, whose sole use is scanning, and absolute desperation when the other two are occupied. It used to sail the web. But its 14K modem and Netscape 2.0 render it almost useless now. Still it's better than nothing. I'm curious if old Windows 3.1 is "Y2K compliant". I must go check . . .

. . . Back again . . . I'm not so sure about that computer. The properties of the modified file gave it a date of 01/01/:0 - what's this COLON ZERO all about? Still, it's not rendered useless. We, the users will know a file of COLON ZERO is newer. The programs that work on that computer still work. All those fears some people had proved to be just panic, as nearly always.

And what of my own little computer crisis? I removed ten pictures from the art gallery painlessly. They weren't that good anyhow. While I was busy excising them, and Laura was off somewhere with Serena, Julia started in on me. She proudly told me how she's got the condensed essense of herself down to two files, here and here. "Nobody will read all those pages of yours," she informed me. No, I didn't really think someone was going to slog their way all the way from October 31, 1996 to the present. I KNOW there's a glut of information on the web and no one can pay attention to all of it. Still, she just doesn't understand the mind of a journaller. Yes, we are an obsessive lot, with our need to chronicle the minutia of our lives. I have often read from the beginning to the end. That's enough. That I like perserving those pages safely is enough. BUT, yes, there are those SPACE problems . . .

. . . No sooner than Julia had finished lecturing me, Laura was back from bringing Serena home, and SHE begin lecturing me. Ah, yes, the joys of polyamory! Not that they don't make some good points. We've been going through Shayna's things the past few weeks. Gads, was she a saver. She saved EVERYTHING, from what to us is useless garbage, to a few really fine items. I found a lovely calcite piece of perfect crystalline structure and iridescence, among a pile of broken glass bits. YES, some discrimination is necessary. Another person we know obessively makes copies of all his writings in quadruplicate. He really thinks after he's dead, someone is going to sort through all that. It's too much. It will all end up in black bags, and hauled away to the landfill.

So, how to balance it all out? I can't, like Rachel of Blakdog, just start slashing mercilessly away on my archives until hardly nothing remains. Yet, I don't want to save the written equivalent of broken glass, either. So I've started in on the past year of Weighty Matters. GONE, the tedious daily diet log! I don't give a damn what I ate one year ago, unless it was one really fine repast. If I don't give a damn about it, I can be sure you dear readers won't, either. I'm not sure just how much I'll slash and burn. Julia was saying she'd save all the old archives at the free servers, and house only the current stuff on AZ and CG, "Nobody reads the old pages" Laura said she'd write the current stuff and never let anyone see it until she could sift the junk out that one only sees with hindsight. Neither of those solutions sound that good to me. Both new and old are important to me. I need the informal heat of the expression of the moment. I want it sent up as soon as the last <P> and <Q> is written. But I also need the carefully selected memorabilia of the past as well.

I'll find that balance.

January 2, 2000

"No Such Thing"

There's something new at ATTWT. The last entry was on October 29th, and it was beginning to look like that book had ended. But, happily, no such thing. Laura took pictures of me in a sexy nightgown yesterday, and one wants a place there. A small poem accompanies it.

January 3, 2000

"A Long, Drawn Out Story"

When one affixes one's real name to a public record which can be read by anyone, there's usually a certain amount of editing done. The real gore of one's life isn't put on display. I've held back a few details myself, although there's a surprising amount of candor here. I've got nude, albeit hazy pictures of Julia and Laura, and even, as you've just seen, some of my own bonafid real cleavage up here for anyone to see. Oh, yes, I'm losing the bashfulness to which I had been so carefully raised.

Still, there's one rule I've (to the best of my knowledge, anyway) never broken online. I've never come right out and said something nasty about someone. I learned that lesson long ago. Well, I'm about to break that rule.

Yes, folks, some of this isn't going to be pretty. You've been warned. Besides, this could end up being evidence.

And it's not like the subject of this will ever see it, anyhow. He does own a speedy enough computer, with a modem and all. But he couldn't be bothered to learn about the web. He'd have to go outside his carefully constructed fantasy world, and he's not about to do that. He just uses his computer to play Daggerfall, a role playing game. No, I'm not criticising him for that, although he does play the game in a bizarre way. He doesn't create his characters to be as strong as possible and then go out and solve quests, raising their level of experience and becoming stronger in the process. (Oh, by the way, my non cheat game of Might and Magic VII is going well. They're all twenty fourth level now. The Druid is now a Greater Druid, and the Paladin has become a Crusader. But let's not get distracted, here. ) No, this person creates his characters to be as weak as the game will allow, and gives them disgusting names like "Jennifer Pussykins" and "Susy Wimplet". Then all he does with them is go into the shops and buy things. He plays dress-up games with them!!! Yes, this individual has one sick view of womanhood and femininity.

We didn't know that nearly four years ago when we first met him. We thought he was a transgendered person seeking to go through the transformation from 'male' to 'female'. We learned later that wasn't so. Oh, he went and changed his name to a feminine name, he did. But, of course, it takes more than a name.

Four years ago, Julia was running the "Crossgender" SIG (special interest group) of Mensa. VDP had sent us several strange letters and some articles he wanted printed in the "Crossgender" newsletter. Those letters, which rambled on and on for pages and pages, gave me worry alone. Those many pictures of the body of his dead mother in the casket kind of spooked me out as well. I had misgivings even then about him. But Laura tried to assure me that he was just desperately trying to communicate.

Because of my gallbladder surgery in March of 1996, VDP sent a check for $333, and we all were impressed with his generosity. He visited us in late April that year. He wanted to join with us. After the death of his mother, he had plans to leave his hometown and join with people who could help him with his transgenderal yearnings. He had a whole list of people he wanted to visit. But he crossed them off his list once he met us. He wanted to merge with us. Laura was certain we could be of mutual benefit, and in May 1996, we bought a double wide mobile home with him in Casa Grande. He put all of his money into it, while the money from the sale of our previous home went into helping Laura's son Anton buy a home. He didn't care then about the investment. In fact, Laura had to persuade him to even put his name on the title.

What incredible generosity, we thought. The first year went smoothly enough. He's mentioned often in the early pages of my journal. But then, certain things gave us consternation.

We tried our best to give him good advice on dressing as a woman. If you're fifty years old, you don't try to look like a teenager. You try to make the best fifty year old woman you can be. So we got him not to use the awful fright wigs and mini skirts. But there were other things he was stubborn about. For his everyday wear, he adopted a peculiar habit of wearing pastel sweat pants and polo tops. That in and of itself is fairly ordinary feminine dress. But not with the crack of one's butt showing and a very prominent bulge in the front of one's pants.

His repulsive appearence would make my sewing customers stare should they catch sight of him. We told him he should at least go where he couldn't be seen when customers came by. But this offended him grieviously. He thought he should be able to dress however he wanted. "In a perfect world, yes," we told him. But this is not a perfect world.

VDP also has a peculiar way he smokes cigarettes. I've never seen another smoker do this. He smokes several cigarettes, rapidly in a row, sucking the smoke compulsively into his system. Ín another half hour, he does the same thing. It's something like a three or four pack a day habit. To say he sometimes reeks would be an understatement.

We had to cut off his part of the house from the heating and cooling systems, for the smoke would come over into our section. Finally, he agreed to smoke outside. But his ways were just too different from ours. Perhaps someone else might not have a problem with those ways. When a young woman called us one night, in desperate agony over some boyfriend, Laura thought Shayna and him could get along. She introduced them and they hit it off. At first the relationship seemed perfect. In a month's time, VDP, aka 'Helina', had already bought a new place, and they were living together in it.

For a few months, all was blissful. Then Helina told us of the horrible fights they'd have. Shayna wasn't happy, either. Her nightly desperate calls to her Mother were getting to be a bit much. We thought it was just her extremely emotional ways. But, no, there were serious troubles brewing there. Julia and Laura both tried to counsel them. At this time, Helina thought things would be easier if Shayna could drive herself everywhere she needed to go. Shayna was a shopper who loved it in marathon fashion. Helina didn't want all this shopping to interrupt his writing time. He has created an elaborate fantasy world called Idyllia, on which he spends much of his hours. But Helina had no luck teaching Shayna.

Laura stepped in, and began giving Shayna driving lessons. She had better luck, and by December of 1999, Shayna proudly showed us her driver's license. During this time, Laura got to know her better. Helina's reports were now cast in a new light.

On many of her visits, Shayna revealed to us just how unhappy she'd been. Why, even the igloo shaped dog house looked a more welcoming shelter than the one she had to return to. Clearly, something had to be done. But what of all her cats? It was then that she came up with the idea of the "cateau", or outdoor cat enclosure. She and Laura worked hard on the enclosure, and the cats were soon safely here.

Things went along fine until August 3, 1999. Helina called in a drunken rage, screaming at us, YOU'RE HARBORING MY MORTAL ENEMY!!! AS LONG AS SHAYNÁ'S IN THAT HOUSE, I WON'T SET FOOT THERE! THIS IS WAR!!!

So we all sat down and agreed we'd try to humor Helina. We didn't want him threatening to take the house away from us. Shayna achieved a level of acting skill no actress before has ever achieved. She was just as sweet to him as sugar. Things seemed to have settled down.

And then came that fateful night when Shayna's car met with the utility pole. Helina called, demanding to know when the showing was, and mad at us that we hadn't called her earlier. Truth to tell, Shayna wouldn't have wanted Helina kissing her cold, dead corpse. But, for peace, we took Helina with us to the viewing. I gave him a print out of my journal entries, and we thought he was satisfied that he at last had 'closure'.

No, he wanted to read HER journals, her PRIVATE journals, as well. Serena, her mother, told him he had no business doing this, for he was no longer in a relationship with her. And besides, Shayna would have really revolted from the beyond, if she knew he was peeking into her private thoughts.

This pissed Helina off something fierce. He called us, and screamed that Laura had STOLEN Shayna away from him. Such a switch, this, from August 3rd, when he was furious at us for harboring his mortal enemy. Apparently her death made her value go up. He forgot ALL ABOUT his earlier hatred for Shayna. He then told us we were going to have to start paying for the house. Laura quietly made plans to meet with an attorney, to learn just what our rights are. We were to meet with Helina on January 8th.

He didn't wait until then. Sunday, January 2nd, he called us, demanding half of the cost of the house.He deserved two thirds, but he'd take half. He was fuming. Likely he'd been drinking again. He is always worse when fueled by alcohol. Laura told him she was seeing a lawyer on the 5th. He ended the phone call abruptly. He called back again within three or four minutes, and told Julia he took us off his will. Julia took it calmly, told him that was no problem.

End of story? Not yet, dear patient readers! About two hours later, a cab showed up at our house. I knew who it might be. Only Helina would pay a cab to take him four blocks. I wondered what to do, as I was all alone. I tried to call Glen next door, but the line was busy. He or Mother must have been on the web.

Just then, Laura and Julia came back with Serena, and found him near the laundry room. I heard much screaming and went out on the porch to see what was happening. Serena was back on the porch, while Laura and Julia came closer to where he was. He had definitely hit a few bottles. He was screaming threats like an insane man, much of it incomphrensible. Those who were nearer said he was so drunk, his lips were blue, and he was foaming at the mouth.

Laura just told him as calmly as possible that our lawyer would contact his lawyer. The dialogue ended after that. We learned why the cab was still waiting. It wasn't just sheer laziness. He was taking the concrete statues he'd brought with him from Tulsa, and loading that cab up with them. Never mind the rain that was pouring down. I can imagine how upset the driver was, at having his car made muddy.

We wondered if he'd be back for more of the statues, but I imagine he might have had trouble finding a willing cab driver, after that.

For the rest of the story, YOU don't know any more than we do. Hopefully we can work out an agreement on the house. We'd like to remain here. I have my sewing business established here. If it's at all possible, we will get a loan, and put the house in our names alone. If not, we'll be moving.

Stay tuned . . .