Everything2 without ads running on top for quite some time now. I must say, I like it.

I like it a lot.

In fact, I had not thought of it until now, but I would probably pay for an e2 that was free of ads, or, at the very least, make regular donations (a la Pay Pal). I know it's probably not possible to get this information, but I can't help but think that the money e2 makes from the banner ads does not add up to very much at the end of the day. With the growing member base here on e2, why not ditch the ads for a while, put a little link at the bottom of every page (text link, of course!) to the various donation sites? I would be happy to throw a few coins into the bin every now and again. I'm sure many of the other users would as well.

I can just hear the sounds of people crying about the evils of Pay Pal, or other online payment systems. Fine, don't contribute. No one would force you.

I really, really like the lack of ads. In fact, I have noded more tonight than I have in weeks. It seems foreign not to have ads on the page - it's been too long! This brings me back to the days when there were no hideous banner ads on every page, coupled with the notorious pop-ups seen recently. I miss the days when the Internet was "pure" in the sense that there were no obtrusive and distracting ads.

So, if this is intentional, KEEP IT UP. I LIKE IT. We like it. No banners forever!

Not once was it ever actually linked to a specific person. No IP addresses ever matched. But they were either posting from Australia or using an Australian proxy.

Jeff is far from our only Aussie member, and from my experience from other message boards I have found that often times the famous "fake" accounts often belong to little known members with low post counts who do most of their participation through a persona.

At one messageboard I was at there were these two girls who were roommates who both posted there. They each had 5000+ posts going over a period of YEARS, and often chatted on instant messager with other members and emailed them.

Both posters turned out to be fabrications of a 3rd poster, who had a mere 200 posts on his REAL account.

BLOODY HELL!

Spring is here in Melbourne. It is a gorgeous day, the sun shines, the air is warm, the trees' leaves are bursting forth, people are getting around in short sleeve tops, Ahhhhhhh.....

.. and my bloody stupid mobile phone got smashed, so I have missed 4 bee swarm calls, grrrrrrr....

Anyhow, ASIDE from this small and non-consequential dysfunctional phone (can we all say, 'breath calmly and deeply, it's o.k.!' ) things are going great for me! - I went to the Bathurst 1000 last weekend in NSW, and am heading down to the Philip island motorcycle grand prix this weekend. My love life is swimming along, work is only moderately sucky, and I dropped how many nodes I need to level up.. WOW! so much has happened when you don't daylog for a year :)

Yes it's been that long since I last daylogged. I factually noded from lvl 3-4 without one! A years worth of work. It was fun to recently re-read some of these, and look at how 'seasonal' my feeling were - so in an effort to think for future prosperity I am going to now make a serious daylog attempt from now on. I so pledge. i think...


Since writing this node i have changed my voice mail message leaving other numbers to contact me on ... this has resulted in 2 calls comming directly to my desk. I am NOW off to get these swarms, and start this years backyard bee industry again :)

I am a bad friend and know that I should change, but I just can’t.

This past weekend, I skipped my high school and college best friend’s wedding shower. It was a surprise shower given by one of our other friends from school. I didn’t even RSVP. I knew I was going to do this and felt bad about it the whole time, but for lots of reasons I couldn’t change the way I dealt with it.

My reasons? It should have been me giving her the shower, but I cringe at such displays. I hate wedding showers and baby showers and anything where people get together to celebrate things that I think are personal events. Maybe I am broken. There’s other stuff too. There are reasons why at 29 years old, I referred to this person as my former best friend. Reasons like time and space and geography and lifestyle and tons of other things. The slow death of such a close friendship is ugly. Sometimes I wish she hated me for any reason. Any reason at all. I wish she never called. I wish she didn’t send me Christmas cards.

The slow death of such a close friendship is like breaking up with your high school boyfriend without ever discussing it. Just slowly fading from each other’s view, like dropping them at the deep end of the pool. You can still see them, but you can’t reach them. In some ways, we were each other’s first love, really. Not in a sexual way, but in the way teenage girls love each other. It was about learning to love ourselves, really. It was an amazing friendship, but there was no falling out, no huge yelling, just a slow drifting away.

Thinking of her makes me miss platonic love. Makes me miss who we used to be. Makes me miss being so young. And being just another woman at another silly wedding shower would have reminded me even more of what I have lost.

Someday I’ll feel bad about this. Someday I will want her to share my joys and she won’t be there because of what I have done.

As I rode the train to work this morning I went back over my life to try and find the exact moment that I realized I was a bondage freak. I went back to my early teens when I read Danielle Steele novels and watched Santa Barbara and One Life to Live, and went over my boring, basic, suburban life history trying very hard to find the point where I decided that men being mean to me, calling me names, pulling my hair, spanking me, treating me like a dog...was sexy.

And I think it was when I turned thirteen or fourteen. I remember watching a show called The Equalizer, and Adam Ant was a guest star, and he was running a white slavery ring. He kidnapped girls off the street and kept them chained up in this warehouse. And they showed one of the girls, in a white cotton nightgown, mascara streaks on her cheeks from crying, her hair a mess, looking so frail...and her slim, little girl ankle was shackled to the wall. And I remember thinking: she looks so pretty like that.

But as I grew older, in my late teens, my fantasies of bondage and kidnapping turned much much much darker...and became more violent, more cruel. I began to have rape fantasies, and in college, away from my hometown and the pressure of my family, I acted in a stupid and dangerous manner with dangerous people trying to bring those fantasies to fruition. Teasing people, flirting, seducing and then backing away. I pushed guys to the edge and then tried to get them angry.

I think part of it, and the theory I've stuck to for many years, is that I'm filled with self loathing. I have a terrible self esteem (I'm told), and I'm also told, via therapy that I obviously respond quicker and better to abuse than to positive reinforcement. I treat myself worse than I would ever treat any other human being. (I'm the perfect sub!) All I want out of life, all I've ever wanted, is to feel beautiful, and desired. So in my twisted little brain, having someone kidnap me and hold me hostage means that I'm so desirable that they need to imprison me lest I disappear forever.

And then I realized this morning, as I went over all of this is that part of the reason I have kidnap, bondage and rape fantasies while at the same time being monogamously married to a wonderful, gentle, caring man for eight years was probably because I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian who was not raised with the idea that sex is dirty or bad, but with the idea that you should have it with ONE person, and ONE person only for the rest of your life. And yet, I'm also a human being, an animal, in a sense, and I have lusts and desires and 'wild oats' to sow.

So being held captive, tied up and FORCED...AGAINST MY WILL to be an adulteress with a crazed, out of control movie star isn't a sin, right? If I was rescued from a fire and gang banged by a group of seven firefighters, that wouldn't be cheating on my husband, because, really, I have no choice in the matter. If I'm sold into white slavery to an eccentric Master in Berlin, there's nothing to be done. I have to preserve my life, and be a good little slut, right? I think these are pretty good rationalizations.

My mother said that my attraction to evil would be the death of me. I hope she isn't right.

Well today is my mother's birthday! She is a amazing 51 today, we got her the sound track & DVD to Shrek. So tonight it'll be a mini-party.

My fortune cookie today told me: 'You never hesitate to tackle the most difficult problems.'

I guess my reason for noding was kinda a vent and a HELP I need some sort of wisdomly advice!

Here's the problem:

I've been, I guess, dating this guy for a little over a month, we basically have been really hanging out, going to parties together and went to put-in-bay together for a weekend. Well just being that I just got out of a LONG engagement (and i'm only 21) I've been very wary about relationships.

A perfect guy for me since I was born has always been someone Hungarian, since I'm Hungarian it is suitting - well nocte and I on Sept. 1st went to a Hungarian event here in Cleveland and we both kinda I guess met a guys. I kept in touch with the guy I met and Nocte kinda did but I see/hear from him more than her. So well my first dilemma when I met the guy that he's 30 - a nine year age difference! Ok so overlooked - then later on there is word that he's been previously married - ok well kinda hesitant but overlooked. I guess I really over looked these cause I was trying to think of him as the person he is now and not who he was.

Ok now here's the dilemma...

Yesterday was going perfect...Norbi picked me up from class I went with him to where he was painting a house did homework chatted back and forth - had a nice casual time. After there I felt like a little thing to be shown off - we visited almost EVERYONE he knows from his bosses family to old ladies he visits to help keep them company. Everyone knew of me and said how he talks such great things about us and how happy he finally is since he's come to America (and etc.)

The evening started after being at his apartment (for my first time since we met) cause he wanted to shower from work and then we went to print out some green card lottery papers, and then gifts at Best Buy. Ok backtrack - at the library on the form we were filling out there was something that said - married? and well I looked at him and never got a straight answer if he was officially divorced - he said yes. But there was some odd moment of silence and I looked at him and said 'what' and he mentioned the past ten years of his life have been hell - and i questioned- and he said someday he would have to tell me it's a long ordeal. Well I didn't like the sound of it but I thought, well he's never mentioned it before maybe it's not really bad. Leaving Best Buy it got brought up again but this time he said he was afraid to tell me thinking I would immediately run the other direction - now I was worried, why would someone say that? So next door is a steak house we went there for dinner - got our food still no mention of anything I barely touched my steak and was nibbling on cold chili (argh) when he decided to bring it up.

First it started out slowly. He started saying that this is a not unusual problem in Europe, so I figured hell ok probally same here too. He was talking about things and having me guess various problems and I was wrong and then if left it down to one thing, children...and i was thinking oh God please don't let this guy be a dead beat dad - I looked at him and almost cried the words 'kids' he said yes, I swear my eyes just about fell out, so I said boy or girl... he says 'ishi'. I never heard of that term before so then he got into the details.

He first started at the point when he was 20 - started saying how he was at this party and met a 15 year-old and ended up getting her pregnant on a one-night stand type thing. They were forced to marry and they had a daughter together who is now 11 years old. My opinion was oh ok this had been the wife I heard him mention! - Then he said then he got married again - at this point I lost all my appetite and was speechless- I looked at him and I'm sure had this terrified look of worry - as he continued he said she had two children from another relationship - then he paused - and he said and then we had a son, now 5 years old. ('ishi' word in last paragraph means boy and girl) OMG at this point I was out of my seat on my knees ready to leave and cry. I was speechless - I didn't say anything something that happened in this human's past made me feel terrible inside.

Of course he saw the look on my face and said is that a problem? Wow...I don't know if lied or just haven't convinced my other half the brain. He said he didn't tell me cause he didn't think early in the relationship would of been appropiate, and that he told me now because he was threatened to or someone else would tell me, and he would of rather of me heard it from him.

Still trying to extract the problem? I guess it is the fact that I really like this person, and never would have dated a person knowing this going into a relationship. I don't want to end something that is good but in my heart it's like 'ugh' I feel like I disappointed myself to myself - but I dunno!

I guess this could also be a plea for anyone have some good wholesome advice - I've just been so depressed with it and my friends have all fallen off the planet terms of normality (excluding a few) that it's insane...

I have to give a hug and thank you to Nocte, not only is she an awesome friend in real life but here too, and thank you for being there especially last night when I was ready to lose it and you let me vent and helped me with some good advice.

Tonight has been...interesting.

First there were the drug conversations every time I went outside to smoke with people. Every time but one, but only because Brian blew out the power source on his computer and dragged it outside by the wires to hit it against the wall while smoking.

We named it Bob.

Then I thought my computer died, because Windows didn't come up and since I have a laptop I couldn't turn it off to restart it. Thankfully, my good friends are computer science majors and can save my ass when I prove my lack of knowledge of Windows computers.

Sometimes I miss using my iMac.

And now my roommate is back and on the phone, as always. I realize that, being from Poland, all of her friends and family are far away, but does she always have to be on the goddamned phone? It's not like she hinders me from getting calls, which she really doesn't, since anyone who cares enough to call me calls my cell phone, but if I did get any calls to the room I wouldn't know, since she doesn't pay any attention to the call waiting when it beeps in. It really is annoying to hear her talking all the time, especially when someone calls at 5 am and wakes me up from sleep I desperately need to function in class. I wish she would at least go in the hallway like she used to.

I think next year I'm going to feign insanity to get a single room.

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