Who is skybluefusion? Where the hell did she come from? Level 4 and I’ve never seen them before!? How is this possible?

Skybluefusion…

Well let’s start with explaining what this means.

skybluefusion~My given name is derived from Jennifer which derives from Guinevere which derives from gwen which means white, fair and hwyfar, which means smooth. Blue has become my name as a converging person. sky blue is a mixture of blue and white. Fusion comes from confusion, for I have spent much of my life in a state of confusion. It has a double meaning though, the other being fusion of selves into a functional being.

I actually had a really nice person, a noder of course, tell me today, “I admit, bluebird_is_sad was my choice of worst user name ever. LOL” True. It was bad. I admit it. I never said it was good. It was a complaint really. I didn’t get the name I’d wanted originally. He also said, “skybluefusion, now that is an awesome name, two thumbs up” Thank you.

I am working toward many changes in my life, and getting away from _is_sad is an important step for me. I hope I have not caused any confusion for anyone. I am grateful to everyone who has supported me as bluebird_is_sad and beyond. I am extremely grateful to those who helped make this change happen.

E2 Article in News for Noders inspired me to write the following section. It is a modified version of what I sent her.


I recently had a conversation about why I spend so much time on everything2.com. E2 is so many things. I know it sounds silly, but I think everything2 can be given at least partial credit for me even being alive.

How can a website be responsible for someone’s life? Well, it’s not so much the site itself as the people who populate it, and the opportunities it provides. I have struggled with mental illness my whole life. Online, especially through my writings on e2, I have been able to open up about who I really am in ways I’ve never been able to do elsewhere. What I’ve received in return for my writing is amazing. Friendship, compassion, understanding, gentle criticism, love. Things that give life meaning.

Everything2 has worked for me on many levels. I use it as a study tool, by letting me node my homework,and by letting me quickly search for information on anything and everything. It provides me with a sense of accomplishment. Every time I node something I feel like I’ve accomplished something, I’ve shared my knowledge. It has provided me with a sense of helping others. I actively seek out “newbies” and offer my assistance and several have taken me up on the offer. It brings me great joy to help others. Most importantly however, is the friendships this website has helped me find. I have several friends, true friends, who are fellow noders. None of which I would have found if not for this site. Some of these people I have spoken to on the phone. Others only through a keyboard. E2 is filled with wonderful, caring, intelligent people. I have shared things in my writings on e2 and in my conversations with the friends this site has brought me that I have never told anyone face to face. Writing about such things has allowed me to learn much about myself, and to grow. Everything2 really is a community. It is a very supportive one at that.

Recently, someone I know online, but not an everythingian, attempted to kill herself. She came in the chatroom we are both regulars in to say goodbye. We knew what she had done, and did not want to lose her, and if she had truly wanted to die she would not have let us know what she had done. Of the few people in the chatroom at the time, no one except myself and the person in trouble was within the United States. I did not have access to a phone. The wonderful noders came through. The catbox became a frenzy and my /msgs poured in. This friend was retrieved by an ambulance after a lovely noder called emergency services.

Although many people say I spend way too much time on e2, I am content. I am learning. I am entertained. I don’t care what people think.

I truly believe everything2.com is a godsend to me.



2004.04.20 at 06:42 ac_hyper says I love the new username! It's lovely!
2004.04.20 at 07:06 bewilderbeast says re April 20, 2004: This was beautiful. e2 really is a community, isn't it.
2004.04.20 at 08:38 maiessa says re April 20, 2004: I'm so glad you've finally changed it. This is an inspiring entry. :)
2004.04.20 at 15:45 Stavr0 says re April 20, 2004: it's all here... http://ascorbic.net/catbox/
2004.04.20 at 15:51 Servo5678 says re April 20, 2004: E2 truly is a wonderous place. Congrats on the name change :-)
2004.04.20 at 15:57 69lovesongs says That's a beautiful name =)
2004.04.20 at 20:38 Berek says Good luck in your new incarnation! :o)
2004.04.20 at 21:37 Wntrmute says I guess this is kinda an honourary C! seeing as I don't actually have the power! Your daylog today very neatly captured a lot of my feelings about the support online environments like E2 can offer, and the sense of satisfaction that comes from trying to help others.
2004.04.20 at 23:45 JudyT says re April 20, 2004: Good name! Excellent name! :-)
2004.4.20@6:07 PM loquacious says re April 20, 2004: Gorgeous. Congrats.
2004.4.20@6:12 PM JohnnyGoodyear says Very lovely with extra blue bits of niceness. Well done.
2004.4.20@6:39 PM dutchess says re April 20, 2004: Good for you! And, me too! I don't spend as much time here as I used to, but I really think E2 can help keep a person sane. I'm with ya, sister! ; )By me too, I meant yeah, I share your feelings.

I just finished posting an update on a node I wrote back in January, 2004. At that time Cypress Gardens in central Florida was the object of an $11 million rescue deal voted on by the Florida Cabinet.

The park, a delightful collection of botanical gardens and a lake which had been the scene of water shows featuring movie stars such as Esther Williams back in the 1940's, had shut down in 2003 for financial reasons. Many Florida residents thought of the park as a historical and cultural icon and wanted it reopened as it had been.

Cypress Gardens now has a new owner who will turn half of it into an amusement - excuse me - adventure park. The theme of gardens and water will be retained - at least for now - in the other half.

At first I was upset by the "deal" implications. Then I thought, "Well, the park is going to have to earn its way, hence the carnival rides, etc." But I think it also says something else about the way we are as a people today.

Cypress Gardens was conceived in the mid-1930's, well before television was found in every home. For those who visited the Gardens' cool pathways, had their picture taken with a hostess in an antebellum gown, or marveled at its more than 8,000 varieties of tropical plants, a trip to Cypress Gardens was an exotic adventure. I think it is much more difficult for us to experience "exotic" today.

A few years ago I went on an African "no shooting" safari in Botswana and Zimbawbe. I had spent many years in West Africa but I had never visited the "big game" areas of that continent. I was very excited about my trip.

My guide was a family friend, an ex-Rodesian employed as a school teacher in Oprapa, a closed community at the edge of the Kalahari Desert. Many of Botswana's diamonds are mined in Oprapa, an isolated village surrounded by its own game park. Keith spends every weekend in the bush and is a very knowledgeable guide. I'm sure he showed me everything there was to see.

But there was something about the whole experience I could not quite put my finger on. It finally came to me one sunny afternoon when we were in the Chobe River National Park, watching the elephant migration. There I was, on a barge in the center of the river, watching the herds arriving at the start of the dry season. Hundreds of elephants, splashing triumphantly into the water after their journey. And the thought came to me,

This is just like television!

I have become so accustomed to seeing exotic scenes in television documentaries that I had a sense of déjà vu, "been there, done that".

And that, I think, is what has happened to places like Cypress Gardens. We are no longer impressed with what was formerly an enchanted spot. We have become jaded.

I finally broke down and bought a GBA SP. I could go into a big spiel about my reasons for avoiding it until now, and for getting it now, but I'll spare you that. At any rate, I realize I'm about a year and a half behind the curve, but here are my first impressions - keeping in mind that the most recent console I've played is the Sega CD, and the most recent portable the Game Gear:

Pros:

- The LCD is pretty amazing. By which I mean that I never would have thought they could make something so small that's capable of rendering in 32,000 colors. I'm not exactly sure how many bits per pixel that comes out to, and I don't feel like figuring it out right now, so bleah. (At first, I got a little concerned at what appeared to be the screen shaking. However, this was apparently part of the opening to Donkey Kong Country.)
- It is pretty damned compact. I remember having the original Game Boy - it was about the size of your average mass-market paperback. The Game Gear was almost the size of one of those portable DVD player (and ate six AA batteries approximately every four hours). When this thing's folded up, it's less wide than my wallet and only a little thicker and longer. (Okay, that sounded really bad. Moving on...)
- It uses a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that lasts 10 to 15 hours per charge, which is nice. Saves money on batteries... at least in the relatively short run.
- It plays games from the original Game Boy and Game Boy Color. Now, if only I could find the old Game Boy games we had... maybe we sold 'em.
- It's relatively simple to use; e.g., you don't have to remove the battery to change games (Nokia, I'm looking at you).

Cons:

- The way it's made (with the folding and everything) probably makes it easier to break than the older versions.
- There's no goddamn headphone jack. Penny Arcade did a joke about this a while back, but for some reason I thought they just meant that it used one of the less popular audio connectors for some reason. Nope. There's *nowhere* to put the headphones. Oh, I'm sure there's an adaptor you can buy to hook it up to the extension port, but that means if you wanted to use the port for anything else - say, multiplayer - you're screwed.
- Volume slides suck. Give me a volume dial or give me death!
- Recharging takes three hours. I realize that's not really Nintendo's fault, but it still sucks.
- You apparently can't use the AC Adaptor to power the GBA while playing, only to recharge it. Never mind, I'm an idiot. If I had actually read the manual instead of briefly skimming it, I'd have known this was incorrect.
- This isn't really an issue with the system itself, but it kinda irks me that games don't come with cases. Just another way to bilk money from you, I suppose.

Overall, the pros do tend to outweigh the cons, which are mostly annoyances rather than real problems (well, except for the thing about it being easier to break).

I played a little of Donkey Kong Country. It's kinda fun, but I find it infuriating that there's no kind of life bar or anything, just one-hit deaths. Even Sonic had his rings. Although it is reminscent of the early Mario Brothers games (which I also disliked partially for this reason)....
I also picked up Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Metroid Fusion. I think I'll try out the former once I'm done writing this.


OTHER THINGS!

- My parents found out last week about my brother's sexual predilictions. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but it turned out that they were mostly upset about him being out way past midnight on a couple occasions. Which is good, because I've seen some of the porn Dad has on his computer, and I don't like hypocrites much.
- I'd been trying to read T.H. White's The Once and Future King, but it had taken me two or three weeks just to get through the first two books. I've put it to the side in favor of a collection of short stories by Poul Anderson. I'll try to go back to it after that. If I still can't get into it, then I think I'll continue my quest to read every Hugo-winning novel.
- Good News: Bad Religion is coming here on June 30th. Bad News: It's at Warped Tour. Besides costing about fifty bucks, there are no other bands there I really like, only a couple I like *anything* by, and several I actively hate (e.g. IMA Robot and New Found Glory). On the other hand, I really want to see Bad Religion.
- Remind me never to buy Astronomy magazine again. Besides half the pages being advertisements, the mag is really more about amateur telescopy than actual astronomy. Feh.

After weeks of reports on how President Bush has misrepresented, deceived, and outright lied about everything from the war in Iraq to who stole the cookie from the cookie jar, today I read that the most recent polls show him still neck-and-neck with John Kerry, presumptive Democratic nominee. And I think, as I cruise through the halls of this corporate campus in that most liberal of Midwestern cities, why bother caring? Are my fellow Americans truly so oblivious? Are they blinded by false patriotism and moralism? Has the Republican marketing machine done such a thorough job that no amount of information can dispel the myths and show G.W. for the sociopathic baby-killer he is?

Or, most terrifying of all, am I the one living in a fantasy world?

At a baseball game, I miss the feeling of her hand in my own. At a movie, I pine for her head against my shoulder. At night, when I fall asleep, I ache to feel her body next to mine.

Yet I have never done these things, with her or anyone else.

I've seen her skin, but never run a hand over it; I've heard her voice, but never felt her breath. So how can I crave these things?

Is it possible to miss something you have never experienced? Yes, but I can't understand how it can be so painful.


Hopefully I can avoid deletion this time...oh, and if you're too lazy to count, the above is a nonfiction drabble.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.