it has been five years since these online journals began... sometime in 1997 I stumbled online with this very laptop upon which I type these very words that you see on your very screen at this very moment... verily, even... I sporatically explored the online world in 1995 and 1996 on a borrowed laptop and account, but I didn't have a permanent account or website or anything... a few of you may remember (dream sequence reserved for another time... of course there were those BBS experiences on the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga back in the 80s, but those are too geeky to mention so we won't... what ATARI 400?)...

over the years, again and again, I railed against a/s/l and the superficial... I will attempt to be civil and not rail much here, but if my age, sex, or location are the basis of your judgment of who I am or whether I am worth your time to talk to on the internet where physicality does not really matter, then I want you to reject me because you are way too superficial... in other words, read on but don't reach out (then again, of course, if you fit my prejudicial libido fantasies {like if you actually taste like milk chocolate or can sing like... ok, enough fantasizing, that's not what this entry is about in spite of what you might have come here for... yeah, so do you come here often?... sheesh, uh-huh, and what's your sign?}, you can reach out for a quicky {see parentheses and prior tangential meanderings in this paragraph and gargle regularly} and we shall see where it goes from there, but let us be lead into temptatin {and why the heck not?... oh, sorry}, I mean, let us not get side tracked here by the irreverence of hypothetic parenthetic ramblings as there's a serious point to be made here and you know what you came here for... we might even get to it {whatever it might be... what's it to you?} so read on anyway, at your own risk, naturally)...

where were we?... ah yes, I found some friends online who understood this (see paragraph 2... oh no, you better not as I wandered off the subject there... if you are starting to get confused, start again... not as in start again to be confused, but start again at the point before you became confused... sometimes you can catch confusion before it starts if you find that point where you lost your way... sometimes... it helps if you ignore parentheses {but that's where all the fun is!, shouts the peanut gallery [actually, they are assorted nuts] that doubles as the chorus for musical numbers}, but then, you will definitely miss a lot so I wouldn't advise it unless you are totally lost and don't like where you are... just to be kind {and for smaller minds} I'll start again now)...

yes, I often found friends online who understood why I railed against a/s/l and the judgmental superficiality of a mindset that makes such statistics so vital when all we share are words from a zillion miles away... like are you going to ask some three foot two inch purple rock-shaped life form that lives forever on another planet their a/s/l before you will be friendly or accept them as worth your time or brush them off as some lower life form based on their a/s/l?... what if the rock had the answers to the questions closest to your heart?... what if the rock was actually that elusive God you pray to?... could be a test of your faith... or what if the rock had a body image problem?... or what if the rock-thing was just alive and cried real tears at the slightest rejection because it was infinitely more sensitive and in touch with itself than you choose to be?...

sadly, too many would just ask a/s/l? anyway and move on if the answer didn't come fast enough... but what if a/s/l really stood for anima, soul/spirit, love and you answered 16/f/Kansas... do you even know what anima means?... have you a soul or spirit?... do you know the difference between sex and love?...

so yeah, sometimes I do find friends who understand that asl really stands for a stupid line as in pick-up lines used in meat markets by horny guys who only want instant gratification because they think with their penis instead of their brains... am I railing?... alas, more often, over the years and still today, I found and find the rejection I did not and do not particularly enjoy, but definitely wanted (from the superficial penises... and I do not just mean men... there are plenty of superficial penises among women these days or superficial vaginas... as if libidos or sex organs have minds of their own and the decisions made from within the pants can be trusted to guide us through a happy, healthy, rewarding, meaningful life... um, railing again?... ok, start again)...

the bottom line is that anyone reading me enough to be my friend would get a good sense of my a/s/l... and anyone else, what's the point?...

and then there's the pic deal (oh yeah, that's what this is about, isn't it?)... do you have a pic? seems to be the second most asked question online after a/s/l? (I'll try not to rail... naaaaa, I actually won't try too hard)... if you want to judge me based on the frozen moment a camera stops time to catch an expression or body part that probably does not represent anything about me (may not even look like I usually look as frozen expressions change and often are reactions to external stimuli much more than reflections of internal identity (home is where the heart is... everything else is a motel), then go see Libbo and be judged...

now back to the message in this entry and more seriously... you may have read some of this paragraph before (but it would behoove you to pay attention and explore more this time if you really want to try to know me at all)... in my experience most people say things they don't mean when they are trying to be friendly with strangers (or when they are trying to find good quick sex)... in introductions, rarely are we truly ourselves... that is why I have written so many intros trying to express who I am in words (and have many not edited for online consumption yet) and many are planted in rhymes and rambles and rarely, if ever, brief (but there's always hope I may find the words to express myself to my satisfaction in less than a paragraph or few, so I keep trying to write letters of introduction to friends and strangers as I reach out to groups and individuals both near and far, known and unknown, and random as I try to combine and summarize my hopes and dreams and primary influences that rage and soothe and touch upon my fantasies and obsessions and visceral strings (are we all not puppets to our emotions and deeper consciousnesses?) and so I write (and read) journals and diaries (especially most recently) and someday there is always hope (I hope) that I might write the perfect personal that introduces me as I truly am, so still more shall be written, eventually, and much more has, but if you just want to read about a/s/l, then by all means skip all the pertinent and meaningful information in the multitude of links slipped into this paragraph (sneaky bugger, huh?) and throughout this entry at your own risk and loss and go ahead and proceed with the easy answer... yeah, that's telling 'em, erp...

primarily due my lack of equipment (for many other reasons you will have to ask about or read about elsewhere) I have not had a digital pic of myself to put online... I mean, I've never actually owned the equiptment to produce a digital image... in 1997 I was living on the streets struggling to survive, so a digital camera or friends who had one were the last thing on my mind... in 1998 and 1999 I was struggling to survive, killing myself for someone who was just taking me for all she could get and I was too romantically blind (and too much of a child in my heart, committed to other children and promises I will never break, but could not keep... oh bitch and moan and get over it already won'tcha) to believe I had to let go to survive... by 2000 I was numb and running away from anything serious or meaningful except my rambling choruses and muses here in these written gardens and I sure didn't want to look myself in the eye nor anyone else (or any camera, for that matter)... it's really crap being down, ya know?... and the last two years I worked to climb back into a financially sane life, pay off bills, get the new car, and as usual, give away more money than I should... some wandering aimlessly as well, even some wallowing... the digital camera is still on the list after the new computer and a few others things...

most of what I left out of the last paragraph (and so much was left out, in spite of the dozens of links) can be found in my various diaries and journals, from incessant daily rambling to sleep writing to maybe awakening to almost philosophizing to sorta life to but some (yes, the deepest of all) still awaits the one who is supposed to be here to do what only she can do (and editing is only the beginning of that project)... but again, that is another story and like everything else so far, not the subject of this particular entry...

still, reading everything linked to everything linked above would only scratch the surface of getting to know me at my lowest in this life (and I will now be down forever, so get it while you can) and so if you really think you really want to know me, you know where to begin... remember, there is more irreverence in my serious than you may ever care to find, but more seriousness in my irreverence than even Roger Rabbit could make up a song about... if you think you can understand (or more to the point, be a part of) a limitless conversation between Robin Williams, Groucho Marx, Albert Einstein, Dr. Seuss, Bob Dylan, Charlie Chaplin, Janeane Garofalo, Karl Marx, George Carlin, Stephen Hawking, Lenny Bruce, Mohammed, Jen Chapin, Beethovan, Steve Martin, Plato, a few Bachs, Madonna, the Animaniacs, Mozart, Bill Cosby, Friedrich Neitsche, Tracy Ullman, Aristotle, Eddie Murphy, James Redfield, Melissa Etheridge, Bugs Bunny, Jesus and his mom and dad and their parents too, all the Shakespeares, a few other gods and super heroes, Steven Spielberg, Elizabeth I, Anna Paquin, Copernicus, Elvis, Jean Paul Satre, Sandra Bullock, Moses and Abraham, several multi-billionnaires, James Watson, Bhudda, Al Franken, Beavis, Butthead, Bart, Homer, Lisa, and the South Park kids, Jackson Browne, Stephen King, Brittany Murphy and Spears, Joan of Arc, Emo Phillips, Leonardo Da Vinci, a Lava Lamp, Stanley Kowalski, Milla Jovovich, Samuel Beckett, Meg Ryan, Socrates, Whoopi Goldberg, Melanie Safka, Richard Bach, John Lennon and the rest of the Beatles, Caesar, a couple of cave people, Hitler, Cleopatra and King Tut and some Greek guys, Tori Amos, Issac Newton, Gumby, Harry Chapin, and seventeen surprise guests from anywhere and anytime, most of whom female (and a few children interjecting whatever comes to mind at any given moment), along with several members of Monty Python, Firesign Theatre, SNL, and maybe Cheech and Chong (did you know that the German Peace Corps sends people who sign up to New York City to help eldery Holocaust survivors like meals-on-wheels?) and various other sundries, then you may be and should, but only if you want to more than anything else, and then, only with infinite care... but that isn't the subject of this entry either, come to think of it...

maybe I am just testing to see just how patient and persistent you can be (and how sincere you truly are in your desire to know me) to see how much your being here is idle curiosity and how much is superficial titilation and how much is genuine desire to know more about the writer of the words you read... gosh, what a wonderful surprise it would be if you picked up the phone and turned out to be deep and caring and a true friend... you may say that I'm a dreamer...

the subject is the many requests for pictures I receive from people I never met or spoke to... and the requests for a pic I receive in response to simply saying hello to someone online... even out of the blue... or even farther...

and the way most people who do not get a pic do not respond even if they are the ones who initiated contact... reaching out for a friend, or reaching out for a pic?... obviously, most people, even if they don't realize it, are visually judgemental and do not want to proceed with any frther getting to know each other without a face (and more if available) to put the words to... to this end, this journal entry was born... part of it was written while watching The Bourne Identity, but that may just be yet another tangent that somehow slipped by the parentheses police... often, life is like that...

well ok, all kidding aside (for as long as I can stand it... thank goodness for parentheses, for this is where giggles live), a single visual image freezes time and a momentary expression that almost never accurately represents the person (soul, spirit, heart, mind, anima, whatever we choose to call all that identifies an individual as an individual being) and much much less often will it give a comprehensive 'picture' of the depth and girth and totality of an individual... and then, naturally, there's the fact that we are constantly changing, learning, growing, and becoming... still life is for fruit, and even then, it's a frozen moment of visual data in an ever changing sensory image... real life is rarely visable in a photograph (which is why I love photography and photographers who can do it, but that's another subject only loosely related to the one at hand)...

I mean, if you are not in a good mood, who wants to remember what pain or a bad mood looks like?... do you want your unpleasantness or anger captured on a piece of paper (or digital screen shot) for all time?... of course this paragraph could be all about vanity... but it could also be about good vibs, emotional and pyschological health, and wanting to be at ones best when one is remembered because one genuinely wants to be at ones best regardless of who sees...