and lines and lines and lines and lines and lines and lines… 
revises life story to include 'Fell in Lurve with Rue 
points to Tir’s full pint glass
The story of Angua, an astronomer.
I was born in 1980, in a smallish town, in the beautiful Lancashire (pronounced Lankyshir). Grew up (physically if not mentally), went to school until the age of 18 in Burnley, and then moved out to do my degree.
Did my degree in Natural Sciences, with a specialism in physics, adn am now doing a Ph.D in astronomy.
So, there ya go. Fairly boring, and not much to say. 
I’m not sure I have time right now. Maybe. I have to go to my reasonably sucky-but-pleasant-walking-distance-from-home job very soon. I’ll make it short, rather like me.
Lissla Lissar
I was born 24 years ago in an almost-all-white neighbourhood in Toronto to a Japanese father and an English pioneer-stock mother. I am a girl, hence the feminine name. They were reasonably nice. We had many dogs, none of whom were well trained at all. Actually, I think my parents are gradually getting worse at training dogs. Their current one is just about capable of sitting on command, sometimes. But I digress.
I did very badly all through school, while reading voraciously, and getting in trouble for it. I went to an awful high school, continued to not do my work, but met a bunch of very nice people, one of whom introduced me to Mr. Lissar.
I graduated somehow, and spent a few years avoiding university, selling jewelry and doing sewing for friends, and reading. The reading is important. I’d had a boyfriend in high school, to whom I became engaged, which was a bad idea. I kept in touch with most of my high school friends, and one of them lintroduced me to Mr. Lissar. I broke off the engagement, and a few months later started to date the abovementioned young man. A few years later we went to a classics college together, and got engaged.
We got married in December, and we’re living living in a very small apartment in the Beaches area of Toronto, with a cat, who’s still wearing a surgical collar one month after his surgery. (cat update :D).
I like books, cats, dogs, very old vintage clothes, dancing, fabric shopping, and french fries. I do not like bridal showers, and I probably have to go to several this summer. Bleh.
I am also strongly opposed to pink. I have a Rue sig. Here it is.
story of elfje
6/08/1975: born
1/09/1981: school
30/06/1993: dropped out
1/11/1994: work
18/04/1999: moved to Ireland
present: still here.
much too mucho happened inbetween to write it all down
sorry lads
I was born in January 1954. Yes, I’m older than a certain geezer of a Doper, but I think after I was born, the rest of the babies of that year were what would be labeled “slightly irregular” or “factory seconds” – and that explains swampbear.
Dad was just finishing his enlistment in the Marines and Mom had just turned 20. They were hoping I’d make my appearance before the end of January so I could be born free, and being the cooperative child, I was. Shortly thereafter, we drove from San Diego to Baltimore and took up residence on the 3rd floor of my dad’s childhood home. A year later, my sister was born, and the next year, Mom was pregnant with my brother when my folks bought the house on Amuskai Road in the Towson/Parkville area of Baltimore county. We had another sister join us in '61, and the last one arrived in '65. That’s where I lived until 1973.
I was a goody-goody, fairly studious, and nearly trapped in the 50’s stereotype of what girls should do. I was going to be a teacher, since I wasn’t interested in being a nurse or a secretary. Those were my only options, right? Well, after one year of college, I decided I was tired of being in school, so I dropped out and enlisted in the Navy. I was trained as an avionics technician and sent to North Island – back in San Diego – where I worked on the (then) new S-3A Viking as a comm/nav tech. While in the squadron, I applied for and was accepted into an officer accession program. I went to Purdue and got my degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering and came out as a brand-new Ensign. My first tour of duty was in the Pentagon, and then I was sent to Jacksonville to a P-3 squadron.
We deployed to Sigonella, Sicily shortly after I checked on, and when I returned to Jax 6 months later, I decided to take sailing lessons. After the first day on the water, I went out to a movie with the instructor. Four weeks later we eloped. A year later, we were both civilians again – about that time, I was surprised and delighted to be pregnant. Shortly after our daughter was born, I was hired as a tool design engineer for the Dept of the Navy. I’ve been a civil servant ever since, and counting my military time, I’ve got just shy of 29 years of government service.
Now I’m in the home stretch towards retirement. Our daughter is a high school junior with her sights set on the University of Central Florida. My husband is working in Baltimore and I’m staying in the Jax area until I can get the kid settled in an apartment in Orlando after graduation. Then I’m heading north. I can retire in 2010, and I’m thinking about going back to school to get my teaching certification. We are buying a lot in a quiet, well-treed neighborhood in California, Md, and that’s where we intend to build our retirement home. We’ll be within a few miles of the Chesapeake Bay, and we’ll spend our golden years sailing.
Of course, if I hit the lottery, all bets are off.
So this is my life in a nutshell… nothing exciting, nothing terrible – just, well, my life. And I left a lot out (didn’t mention all the crappy jobs I had, the messy relationships, etc), I just included the bare minimum needed to get a sense of me. So here you are:
I’ve come to the conclusion that I was the result of too much pot and jazz music, judging from the pictures I’ve seen of my parents when they were younger. I was born in 1978 – we lived in a very small cabin in the mountains until I was two. I don’t remember this at all, but this is what I’m told. There are pictures of a baby in cabin to prove it. Maybe it’s me - I really can’t tell. I can’t imagine why they’d be lying to me about it though, so I trust them. Next we built a house, still in the mountains. I lived there until I was 18.
The things I remember from my childhood are strange and scattered. I quit cub scouts right before it turned to boy scouts, because I thought it was stupid. I already lived in the mountains, and I didn’t need patches to learn how to burn stuff or put some sticks together to make a shelter. I spent a lot of time wandering around the hills with a hunting knife looking for mountain lions. I never ran into one, I only found dead deer. Looking back, it’s probably best I didn’t run into one, although the scars would make for one hell of a story. Would the ladies be impressed, or think I was some crazed mountain man? Hmm…
Junior high I remember listening to the Doors and Frank Zappa, hating all the stupid popular kids. I wasn’t very good with the girls back then either. I wrote a lot as well – in fact, I fully intended to become a writer.
High school, well, lets see – I didn’t play any approved All-American High School sports – I was a freestyle skier and I rode bikes. I also hated any music that was popular, instead drowning my young teenage angst in Derek and the Dominos, Hendrix, Zeppelin, etc, while my angst-ridden classmates did the same to Cobain and Green Day. I played guitar incessantly. Three, four hours a night wouldn’t be unusual. I was 110% obsessed, as a matter of fact. I dumped my very first girlfriend because I wanted to spend more time playing. I also remember learning a lot of fun things in the back of my parent’s station wagon. Somehow, by the end of it all, they told me I was valedictorian or something. I was like, that’s cool, you know, but I’m not giving a stupid “this is the first day of the rest of our lives” speech. And I didn’t.
Then came college. I was one of those lucky kids that got into the college I had dreamed about my junior year – my first choice, my dream school. I went to one of those fancy expensive, well known schools on the west coast. I remember being extremely disappointed when I got there, though, because while I could wail out Voodoo Chile or Purple Haze or Hot for Teacher with the best of them, the girls of my generation really just wanted to hear Dave Matthews. I could hardly contain my disgust. And they had the nerve to tell me that they thought he was a really good guitar player. Oh, the humanity!
But it being college, and being surrounded by different points of view, I soon got over myself and stopped caring. I even learned some sappy modern crap just to satisfy the girls. That was the end of my artistic music career – I sold out before I even released an album 
Oh yeah, I also became a college athlete – went to the mountain bike national championships by freshman year. That was fun. It was really the only thing that kept me going the first two years of college. Then I actually made some really good friends, and by my senior year, life was so much better. I think I was happy then. I got a lot of action at any rate, and I had more or less become one of those popular kids I had hated so much when I was younger. I concluded life really was better from the top…
So around the end of my senior year, the economy tanked. I thought, well, I might as well get a master’s degree, since I already go to one of the best schools in the country. Can’t hurt, anyway, right? So I stayed in school another year. I was basically living with the then love of my life and a few of my good friends. Times were good. They were really good. I miss that year.
So when school came to an end, it was time to get a job. I was offered a job on my second interview, and I took it. Why? Because jobs are hard to come by these days, I guess, and I didn’t want to run out of money and have to move back home looking for a job. This job took me to the crappiest town I’ve ever lived in (although compared to the towns mentioned by other people, it’s not half bad). Going from cutting edge Cali – young, hip people everywhere, to boring middle America at 23 years old – not the wisest choice I ever made. This choice also resulted in said love of my life deciding she didn’t like the whole long distance thing after all. And that basically brings us to today. You know the beginning of Fight Club? Well, that’s basically my life, except without the traveling. And I don’t work in insurance. But the rest is pretty accurate.
So now I’m trying to get off my unmotivated ass to find another job somewhere that might actually be fun. After reading some of the other stories here, I think I’m still waiting for my “defining moment.” So far my life has more or less been on rails. I’ve skated through all my major decisions without much thought, and I’ve been pretty lucky. But now I have no direction, no set path, nothing. Now that I am free, have money, and can do whatever I want… my life is mine to choose. So far I’ve chosen video games. I’m not sure how far that will get me towards accomplishing any of my life goals, but it eats away at the boredom for now
Currently an E-4 in the Navy, and, while it may look like I have a low post count, I’m already part of the SDMB family because I’ve been pitted! Woooooooooooo!!!
Oh, and I should add, by bare minimum, I meant way more than anyone really wants to know in way too many words.
Ooh, storytime! (Note: I tend to be verbose. If this offends you, don’t read my post. Thankyouandhaveaniceday!)
The Tale of the Quantum Butterfly
I was born in '82, in Anchorage, Alaska. Yes, Alaska. No, we did not live in an igloo and are not Eskimos. My family is actually plain vanilla Caucasian. I was supposed to be an October baby, but being the eager child I was, I surprised my parents by arriving at the end of August. According to Mom (naturally I don’t remember much) I was surprisingly healthy for a preemie. It took me a while to develop my assorted health issues… but we’ll get to that. After having had me around for a couple years, Mom and Dad decided that I needed company and thus Quantum Sister came along. They only wanted two kids, so Dad is the sole male in the house.
My rather dim memories of Alaska are mostly happy. We had a big house with a big wooded yard where fireweed (pinkish red flower) grew in summer and moose occasionally came to eat Mom’s ornamental plants. There was a dog called Daisy, a Norwegian Elkhound that liked to eat carrot noses off of snowmen. I disliked snow even then. It’s cold, wet, slippery and makes annoying noises when you step on it. When I was about 5, my parents decided that they’d had enough of the Great North and moved to California, where most of our extended family resides. Mom, Dad and I went by car (and truck) down the Alcan Highway, a Big Adventure to a five-year-old! Quantum Sister was still only about 3, so she went by airplane with my grandma.
After a brief stay in LA, we settled in the small but posh community of La Canada, where I went to kindergarten. I liked La Canada; the kindergarten teacher was nice, we had a fun backyard, Mom stayed home with QS and I, and there was a huge apricot tree next door whose owners let us take all the apricots we wanted. However, the cost of living there got to be a bit much for the Quantum Parents, so after about a year we moved on to Moreno Valley.
Before I go too much further, I should explain a few things about myself as a child. I was good natured, liked my sister, and generally obedient. I was also frighteningly intelligent. One of the classic QB-as-a-lil-one stories is the time I walked into Mom’s room asking “What does Parent Effectiveness Training mean?” “Wha- where did you learn that?” “It’s on this book, Mommy.” “Give me that! Dear, you need to ask before you read things that belong to other people.” You see, I was reading at a VERY young age. I cannot remember a time when I couldn’t read. And I understood most of what I read, hence Mom’s alarm at seeing me with her parenting book. However, I also had speech and sensory problems. These mostly went away with therapy, but looking back they were probably a sign that I had (have) a few wiring issues in my brain.
Moreno Valley, quite frankly, was and still is not the most desirable real estate around. It’s one step away from the desert, smoggy, and routinely over a hundred degrees F in summer. However, that is where Dad’s new job was, so to MoVal we went. Mom also found a job, so my grandma (Mom’s mother) who also lived in the area took care of Sis and me after school. It was in MoVal that we acquired our dogs- first Casey the Australian Shepherd, and then Kiki the mutt when Casey kept jumping our eight-foot block wall in search of company. Casey has all the brains with attendant neuroses, Kiki has almost no brains but is always bouncy and happy.
School in MoVal was not my favorite activity. I was bored to tears in the regular neighborhood school, and the teachers didn’t really know what to do with a first grader who was reading Nancy Drew novels. Fortunately there was a science/technology magnet school in town, to which I transferred. I was not as bored there, but the other kids immediately saw the fact that I was Different and therefore Not To Be Accepted. It didn’t really help that I was overweight. I spent a lot of recesses and lunch periods in the library, reading fantasy and science fiction.
Somewhere around fourth or fifth grade, my dad got laid off. He found another job that looked promising, but it was approximately a hundred miles away in Ventura County! The other choices weren’t much better, so he took the job and began two years of working and living in Ventura County six days a week and driving home to see us on his day off. Very stressful on everyone. We couldn’t move up to join him until Mom found a job in the area and the house got sold, which took much longer than expected. The great move finally took place the summer after sixth grade. I was okay with the idea since I didn’t have many friends in MoVal anyway, but it was hard on Quantum Sister.
Our new home was much nicer than MoVal. It’s about ten degrees cooler, minimal smog, and generally is classier. I skipped seventh grade and actually managed to make friends in eighth, a novel experience for me at the time! High school started… and so did the health issues. (Told you they were coming!)
I was diagnosed with epilepsy in my freshmeat year, starting a merry-go-round of powerful drugs. Between the seizures and the drugs I had to drop out of high school as a sophomore, a wrenching blow to the academic overachiever I was (and still am, really.) Tried home schooling, went stir crazy and was terribly bored by the curriculum. Finally my parents took out a loan and sent me to a nearby university part time, which I absolutely loved! I was encountering people who challenged my mind and didn’t punish me if I had to leave class and lie down for a bit!
Unfortunately, said university is not cheap and they don’t give scholarships to part time students. So I had to leave, and have been bouncing around the local community colleges ever since. State Rehab is paying for a computer training course, which isn’t too boring. My neurologist thinks that once my brain calms down from the hormonal onslaught of puberty, my seizures will lessen and maybe even go away. I certainly hope so, as meds have not been terribly effective. Once I can take 12 units without my brain fritzing out on me, I fully intend to go to a university full time and not stop until I have a Ph.D! Then I shall do research, or forensic science, or gemology, or any number of things. I’ll tell you which when I get there.
Born in '47, lower west side of N.Y. Street kid; state considered me a Juvenile Delinquent. Lost my virginity to a heroin junkie at 15. Military took me to SEAsia in '68 & '69. Discharged in Long Beach, Ca. Sold drugs to the middle class of S. Cal. until the end of the 70’s. Moved to the “backwoods” 23 yrs. ago, haven’t returned. Stick my head out about once a year to see if anything has changed. Have very few friends, and they all tell me I have to “lighten up.”
The (boring) Story of StGermain - My parents met and married and proceeded to populate the earth. I was born a month early in August of 1961. My mother had uterine cancer while she was carrying me, so I’m the last of my line. My older sibs total 4 and are 3-6 years older than me. There was a second set of twins in there, but they died. so yeah, my mother had 7 kids in 6 years. I was a tiny child and a tough little kid. When I started school and the school bus driver would pick us up, she’d have to park the bus, and lift me up into it, since I was too small to climb onto the steps. I attended Catholic school, which suited me, combining discipline and the flexibilty to move ahead in some classes when I was capable of doing thte work. I was picked on by the kids at my school because I was so small and an easy target.
I got my first dog of my own when I was 8. She was a cocker spaniel named Sarah. We always had family pets, but it became apparent at a young age that I was more animal-crazy than my siblings. I was owned by a number of dogs and cats, all living long and happy lives. We moved several times, so family and pets were a constant in an ever-changing world.
14 years ago I participated in an AIDS vaccine study run by the NIH. They said they hoped to have a working vaccine in 5-7 years. So much for that. I bought my first horse at that time, with the stipend I got for participating in the study. She was a big mare, a repossessed Trakehner I got for back board bill - $500. I wanted small and dark, preferably black or bay, and definitely not a mare. I ended up with a 16.2 hh white mare. She was a great first horse, and everything I wasn’t looking for. I lost to cancer 6 years later. She was in foal, and I lost them both. My father lent me the money to buy my current horse, a thoroughbred yearling. He used to show pictures of his “grandcolt” around the office.
In the last en years I lost one grandmother to pancreatic cancer and the other from Alzheimers. Five and a half years ago, my non-smoking father was diagnosed with lung cancer. He fought for almost a year and a half, but the cancer finally won. Less than 6 months after my father’s death, my mother remarried one of his oldest friends, who’d also lost a wife to cancer. She told me on my birthday, with the comment “Dogs won’t cut it as companions for me.” I found it difficult to even be in the same room with her for the next year or so. Mother’s had breast cancer and a mastectomy, an aorta replacement, replacement of two valves in her heart and a double bypass in the last ten years. She’s been ill all my life - I certainly didn’t expect her to survive my father.
Nine years ago I bought my house. People all told me I’d be lonely. They were wrong. Seven years ago I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Besides being a favourite show, it led me to the internet, and message boards. Through the Bronze, the old Official BtVS board, I’ve met some of my best friends. The internet has truly changed my life.
Relationship-wise, my life has pretty much been a bust. It truly does seem like all the good guys are either married or gay. I envy those folks to whom it all seemed to so easily. But I keep my eyes open - you never know what’s around the corner.
Who knows what the future will bring? Certainly not me. And I’m glad of that - life is hard enough to deal with the things you go through day to day. I’d hate to have to have other bad things loom and have to worry about those, as well.
StG
I wonder what the record is for most number of words in an SDMB thread is? Hmmm…
Anyway, posting a long history of my life would break my tradition thus far of keeping my posts short. And, probably fall into the trap of my pet theory: The Rue Posting Effect (wherein people who post in a thread that Rue starts have a tendency to write in his style).
So…
Born 1966 in Hemel Hempstead, England. Welsh father, Scottish mother. Moved to Canada in 1974. Much moving, lots of schools and what-not until popping out of high school in 1984. Plunged into the working world, avoiding higher education (which probably would have been wasted on me anyway). Married 1992. Twin sons born 1994.
The Life and Times of MeanOldLady
Born in Los Angeles, CA on April 04 … we’ll get to the rest some other time. (No, I’m not really old.)
Registered for the SDMB in Sept. 2002.
… I think that’s it.
The Oddly Depressing, Yet Inspirational Story of robgruver
By: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Well, no. By robgruver actually, but I like ACD)
This story is not for the squeamish, as it is quite depressing. If you want, move on to the next post down which I am sure has something to do with happy bunnies or flowers or something.
I was born in one of the hottest summers ever in Houston. In the final hour of July 6th, 1976 saw the birth of one robgruver. at a now defunct hospital (FUN FACT: The hospital where I was born was the same hospital that was used in Robocop 2!). My grandmother told me stories of my mother going into labor on July 4th while they were touring the Battleship Texas, and how it took me two days to come out. I was born with Yellow Jaundice and was kept in the hospital for another week afterwards. Thankfully, I am no longer yellow (FUN FACT: The Simpsons are yellow).
My pre-school childhood was uneventful, as I can remember very little of it. My grandmother and mother raised me. My father worked a lot, and my grandfather really had little to do with children as he came from the proverbial old school. I had a pretty quick mind, and was taught to read by the age of three. My grandmother would read to me for hours on end, and to this day I still knock out two or three novels a week.
Flash forward to the end of 1980. My mother was pregnant, not that I understood quite what that was at the time, but I knew that I was going to get a sibling, and soon. On one of the hottest Christmas Eve’s in Houston history (FUN FACT: It was 79 degrees that day) my brother was born. Daniel Joseph Gruver dove into the world that day, and I was promptly ignored.
During the following spring and Summer I spent most of my time in the back yard reading and waiting for school to start. I knew that if I could just get to school I would be ok. Lots of learning and reading and playing with kids that wouldn’t break when you touched them. I dreamt of school, and I couldn’t wait. My brother, when asked what he thought, vomited on my hand. I didn’t spend a lot of time with him after that.
My first day of kindergarten was a rainy, blustery day in September. The Gods were farting on me that day, as I also had a cold. I waited for the bus in front of my house with my mom next to me. She took some pictures of me getting on the bus, and off I went.
I realized that school was not what I thought it was going to be. I was soooo far ahead of everyone else it seemed. During my first year in school we learned the alphabet. I was bored after ‘H’. My ‘grades’ slipped. No one could understand how a smart kid like me could have such bad grades. My parents didn’t like the fact that I had a learning disorder. Didn’t like it so much that when my grades slipped I got a spanking, and when they were good all I got was “That what you are supposed to be doing.” in a snide voice. Do you think your kids can’t read between the lines? Think again. We can, and it does hurt. (FUN FACT: This was the first time I thought my parents were wrong, and it wouldn’t be the last.)
My grades did eventually pick up, and I moved on through elementary school. During the summer of 1984 my mother started working for our school district. While she was training my brother and I were left with my mothers sister during the day (FUN FACT: This aunt is thoughtfully named “Mrs. Lucifer” for her evilness). The Demon had 4 children, the oldest boy being 16 at that time. We will call him Dante.
During this summer Dante began to molest me. At first he played it off as a sort of game. You know, “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.” sort of thing that you expect two 8 year olds to do, but he just happened to be twice as old as I was. It graduated into full-blown sex, both oral and anal. It was as if I was under a spell and couldn’t get away. He threatened me, and my grandma (his grandma too folks) if I were to tell anyone what he did. This went on for four years.
But we need to stay in that summer. By the time school started I had gone into my own mind. I became quiet where before I was boisterous and playful. My books became my second home, but school was no longer a place of learning, it was a safe haven where I wouldn’t be a horny teenagers fuck toy…
sigh
As you can imagine my grades slipped. My fourth grade year was filled with D’s and F’s on my report card. I had chicken pox during that year (and had to spend a day with Dante and his family to give it to them. He molested me that day too with a 101 degree fever). I had all my homework finished, but threw it in the ditch before I got to school. I am not sure why I did all that stuff, perhaps some sort of avoidance or attention getting, but it didn’t work. I got paddled at school, whipped at home, and molested at my baby sitter.
As I said above it went on for four years. I came to accept the molestation as a part of my life, and most likely fell in ‘love’ with Dante during this time. I was so wrapped up in what he wanted that when he left for the Navy when I was twelve I was devastated.
Oh yeah, during that summer my parents got a divorce too. The last time I remember seeing them together as husband and wife I had to pull my father off my mom. He punched her in the face. She kicked him in the nuts and hit him in the head with a 2x4. He needed 17 stitches. (FUN FACT: My mom is 5’0" and 200 pounds).
So here I was, 13 years old with no male role model in my life outside of my grandfather (who had a stroke when I was 10 and was literally half the man he was before) and with a SEVERE identity crisis thanks to Dante and my parent’s divorce.
I did warn you that this was a sad story, right? It gets worse before it gets better. Sorry.
Now, during school I was not a very popular kid. I was tall and lanky. I didn’t talk well, and kept to myself. I tried having friends, but it seemed like they always betrayed me in one way or another.
During my 6th grade school year I had a friend, Ronnie, who I was inseparable with for 3 months. We hung out a lot (as we lived one street apart), and played Nintendo at his house. One day one of Ronnie’s other friends, Robert Archibald, decided he didn’t want me around. Ronnie and Robert then started a campaign of terror against me that lasted for half a year.
They would kick me in the bathroom while I was peeing, getting my own urine on me. Ronnie would stick a ‘used’ condom (FUN FACT: He put mayonnaise in a condom.) in my hair or shove it in my face. They would threaten me, flick my ear, and basically be real shits to me.
It all cumulated one day in the early spring. Ronnie and Robert followed me home to beat me up. My grandfather wouldn’t let Robert on our property, but goaded Ronnie into fighting me alone. It worked, and Ronnie came into my yard. He would leave on a stretcher.
I beat that boy within an inch of his life. He threw the first punch and that was all the offense he got in. I destroyed him. I punched him in the face repeatedly, I squeezed his testicles so hard that I think he passed out; I jumped onto his side over and over again. My next-door neighbors father, pulled me off of Ronnie and called the ambulance. I was feral. I bit a hunk of flesh out of his arm trying to get back to Ronnie…
Many people who hear this story think I enjoyed what I did. Let me just say, that I didn’t. Ronnie spent the next 5 weeks in the hospital. He had a kidney removed, 111 stitches, four broken fingers and a broken leg. It was doubtful if he would ever have children. I spent the night in a juvenile facility, but was released after an investigation proved the torment that Ronnie and Robert put me through. My grandfather was ticketed for “Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor.” (FUN FACT: He never paid the ticket, and died with a warrant against him for it).
At the age of 22 Ronnie killed himself. His note said that his father abused him both physically and sexually for years. I pray that I am forgiven for what I did.
I finished school at home that year, and moved on to high school the next year. I was a new person, I think. I got my first computer that summer, and started making friends on various Bulletin Boards around Houston. I found that I could actually talk pretty well online. With this new burst of confidence I dove into high school with a passion.
Side note: My mother remarried in October of that year to a wonderful man, Gene, who I still have an excellent relationship with.
Early in my second semester I met Mary. Mary was a junior, as cute as a bee’s knee’s (FUN FACT: Bee’s knees are not really cute, but you get the point), and for some strange reason she liked me. She was my first love, and my first lover (as I don’t count what Dante did as losing my virginity). We were inseparable. My fondest memory of her was on the last day of school. She was walking between the busses and saw one of her friends on the bus. She yelled “Seniors rule!” and laughed. Strange that that is the fondest memory, but there was a life and vibrancy that can’t really be described in words.
On July 2nd, 1992 at 1:54am Mary was driving drunk. She wrapped her mom’s mini van around a telephone pole killing herself and her best friend. Her little sister was trapped on top of her body for 3 hours. I found out the next morning. I moved in with my dad that evening.
I left everything I knew and entered what I call “The Black Summer”. I had lived in the same neighborhood my entire life, but I uprooted and went to live with my dad and his second wife, Cindy, in Sugarland, Texas, which is about as far as you could get from my former neighborhood while still being in the Greater Houston area.
The Black Summer was weird for me. During my entire childhood up to this point I had lived in fear and agony. Just when I though there was a shining light to take me out of childhood and into adulthood it was stripped away from me. I introverted more than any other teenager ever. I started smoking pot at this time to keep the demons away. It worked, so I smoked more and more. I moved on to Acid that summer too, and that was even better.
By the time I started school at an upper class high school in Sugarland, I was a complete pothead, but I knew what I was and that was ok. Everyone who tried to get to know me, outside of my neighbor who was a pothead too, got the cold shoulder. I did not want to get close to anyone.
My dad and stepmother were going to have a big Catholic wedding in the church (FUN FACT: They were married by a JP so they wouldn’t live in sin), but my dad had one chore to do. He had to have his and my mothers’ marriage stricken (or some such. I am not sure of the word) so that him and Cindy could get married. He said it was done, but like my father always did he lied. His marriage was not stricken, and when Cindy found out, she kicked my dad and I to the curb. We left on October 2, 1992.
We moved in with his dad during that weekend, and I was enrolled at Northbrook High School. Now the two schools I went to previously was pretty much a majority white, and upper middle class. Northbrook was 79% Hispanic, and I was in a whole new world. I could no longer expect the same things as before. The first day of school there a local reporter interviewed me on TV. Turns out the day before a student was shot dead in a gang related fight. (FUN FACT: I thought I was hot shit for being on TV my first day of school. In hindsight it was very cool.)
Well, it was a new start for me I guess, and I decided to get out of my brooding, Goth-like self. I joined the Drama department, (FUN FACT: I was in the band, and played trumpet. I still play on occasion.) and tried to make new friends. I succeeded pretty well and finished the school year with a high ‘B’ average.
That summer was good for me. I found some friends who played Dungeons and Dragons, and started gaming. I went to gaming conventions and Magic Tournaments. I met many, many people including one who is still a dear friend to me today. (FUN FACT: Gaming is good for kids.).
The next year of school was not good. During the first couple of weeks of school I was targeted by one of the gangs in the school. I apparently offended one of the members, and I became one of many targets they had. I was pushed off a bus, and thrown down the stairs at school. My pleas were not heard by the school administration, or if they were they were ignored. I begged to be transferred to one of the other schools in the district, and I was denied.
During this time I met a girl named Heather. Heather was interesting, but we were just friends. I was invited over to her house and met her family. They were all very nice to me and let us drink and smoke around them. During Christmas break I spent the night at Heathers house, and her mother, Karen, seduced me. We had sex every chance we could get. She would come to my house, or I would ride my bike to hers. Her husband went out of town a lot, so we had lots of time. Karen was 27 years my senior.
Right after Spring Break I went to Karen’s house to get away from my father who by this point had started drinking again. I accidentally took his keys with me to her house, and he came over on my bicycle, drunk off his ass. He told me to come home and get my shit.
I was kicked out. I tried going back to school, but I just couldn’t do it anymore with all the threats and accusations about me. I quit school, and went to work. Karen let me move in as her boyfriend, and she divorced her husband.
I was a 17-year-old dropout, with a much older girlfriend with a daughter who was 8 months younger than I was. I started a string of jobs that led me to working loss prevention at a large department store. Before I move on, let me say that Karen was good for me. She taught me everything about life and women that she could. She put up with my shit, and in return she got my brains and my libido. I don’t know which one she liked more though; probably the libido.
Karen and I spent a little over 3 years together. We broke up amicably just after my 21st birthday. I felt that since she couldn’t have children (FUN FACT: She had a hysterectomy a decade earlier… wait, that’s not fun) and our age gap would preclude us from having a long-term relationship.
As I would do time and time again, I jumped right into a relationship with a girl named Michelle. Michelle was about as far away from Karen as you could get and still be female. She was slim, young and an ex-stripper. Sexy as hell, she would do anything, and I mean anything, in bed. We rocked the covers for three months.
Then she decided to start stripping again. I should have heard the ominous music playing in the background when she told me this, but stupid me said “OK!” I went on her opening night to see her dance and was impressed. She knew what she was doing, and seemed to be enjoying herself.
I left early that night, as I was going to my dad’s house (we had made up at this point) to watch a wrestling Pay Per View. On my way there she called my cell to let me know that she was going to a private party to do a show with one of the other girls, and that it was paying well. Stupid me said “OK!” All I saw were dollar signs.
She didn’t come home that night, or the next night. I was distraught, and depressed. No one had heard from her since that night and the club was calling looking for her. She was supposed to be at work, but didn’t show. On the third day I got a call from a police officer saying that she had been found (FUN FACT: I had filed a missing persons report), but they wanted to talk to me. I found that odd, but set an appointment with them for the next day at my Dad’s house, where I was going to move into the next week due to money problems.
Two detectives came to my Dad’s the next day, and told me about Michelle. She had been raped, tortured, and beaten. She had razor cuts up and down her body. Her left nipple had to be sewed back on. Cigarette burns covered her arms. On top of all of this she had fingered me as the one who did this to her. I was amazed, and speechless. My dad stepped in at that point and said that I was with them watching wrestling the night she was raped. It seemed to get them off my back, but I spent the night in jail while they figured out what really happened. I spent 8 hours in an interrogation room while two of Houston’s finest grilled me about how I had raped and tortured my girlfriend to get back at her…
I almost confessed that night to a crime I did not commit. Those cops were scum. I still have no respect for cops as a whole (FUN FACT: Individual cops who prove to me that they are good people get a free pass. All the rest can go to hell. It sucks to have to think this way, but I know what its like to be pigeonholed and it sucks.)
Michelle, who I now call “The Demon”, ripped me apart at the seams. I thought I was in love with this girl, and she betrayed me in a way that I never thought a person could be betrayed. I hated her, and while I was at it I decided to hate women as well. All of them. They were nothing more than fuck holes that needed to be destroyed. Over the course of the next 20 months I had sex with almost 40 women, and not a single one of them did I even give two shits about. It was an orgy of sex, cocaine, and booze that left me shallow and hateful. I wanted nothing more than to destroy the very thing that I loved.
As with most things though I pulled out of it. Stopped doing cocaine, and straightened out my life a bit. I started my own web design company that did pretty well, and moved through life one day at a time.
While I had my company I met a girl named Becky who started me along a path that would eventually lead me to find Jennifer (FUN FACT: Becky introduced me to Pauline, who introduced me to Jeff, who then introduced me to Jennifer).
Jennifer and I started dating on January 1st, 1999; we were married on March 18th of 2000. Three years later, we are still deeply and truly in love. We have had our ups and downs during that time, including a pretty bad Ecstasy problem and numerous financial difficulties, but overall things are very good.
She is the first person who has heard everything you read above, and now all of you have seen exactly where I have come from. Lots of little stories have been left out, but all the sad stories that are above have all lead me to where I am today. A happy, well-groomed, interesting fellow who has a dark sense of humor.
Please do not feel sorry for what I have gone through. I have done that enough to myself. Just learn from what I have told you, and always worry about your kids.
Notes:
- I have changed some names, and left others the same. You can figure out which ones they are.
- I do not condone the use of drugs, but understand their use.
- Everyone is guilty by virtue of birth. There are no innocents.
Hello. I’m a girl. Francesca really is my name and I was born in 1979.
The things that made me me, in no order:
[ul]
[li]My parents are deaf, I am hearing, and sign language is my first language.[/li][li]I am an only child.[/li][li]I was a gymnast for ten years until they threw me out for misbehaving. I’d still like to go back to gymnastics.[/li][li]I was in a children’s tv show for a while as the hearing counterpart for a deaf character.[/li][li]I have a BA (Hons) in Philosophy from University College London, specialising in metaphysics and epistemology.[/li][li]I’ve been with my partner Alex for a little over four years and think he’s spiffing.[/li][li]I work for the ambulance service planning ambulance routes.[/li][li]My mother spend most of my teenage years in a psychiatric hospital.[/li][li]I’m 4ft10 and a half.[/li][li]I like the Godfather films more than is healthy.[/li][/ul]
Jeez you people have some long life stories. Here, let me sum mine up real quick for you:
Happydepressedhappydepressedbrokejoblesswroteautobiography.
Done.
I was born in 197mumble and I think I’ve blocked out everything that’s happened since.
Hi everyone. I’m a girl, if you didn’t already know that. I was born on Friday, August 13th, 1982 in my small town in Western New York. My mom says she was hanging up clothes to dry when I decided that I wanted to come out. I weighed 6lbs, 1oz, and was 18 inches long. I lost weight instead of gaining so I had to stay in the hospital for a few extra days. At least I didn’t turn yellow.
I don’t remember anything until my second birthday. My parents took me to the zoo, and they said I was afraid of the lions and tigers. I don’t remember that part, but I do remember the giraffe. It looked in the window at me. Maybe that’s where my love of animals started.
When I was 3, my brother was born. I remember that my grandma stayed with me and I at a tunafish sandwich for lunch. He came home from the hospital a few days later. I was allowed to hold him, but he cried.
I spent the rest of my childhood until I started school playing with and annoying my baby brother. I liked to be outside a lot. I collected bugs and kept them for a few days. When I was about 8 my parents gave me an adult insect guide. I remember being shocked and appalled that people actually killed bugs in order to collect them. What was wrong with keeping them in glass jars then letting them go?
When I started kindergarten, it was boring because I already knew how to read and stuff. But I still had fun and wrote lots of stories and illustrated them. The rest of school was pretty much the same. Everything was easy, but not so easy that I got in trouble. I never got in trouble and stayed pretty much invisible all throughout public school. My brother won a computer from Fox 29 during my junior year of high school, and I was introduced to the internet.
Backtracking: When I was around 11, my dad got the (then) weird idea from my uncle to get a few beehives for the backyard. My love of insects was rekindled and I became a beekeeper alongside my dad. I still do this when I am home, thus my SDMB name.
Also during my junior year of H.S.: one day my agriculture teacher asked the class if anyone would be willing to try working with llamas for 4-H. My best friend elbowed me in the ribs, and we raised our hands. I met my best llama bud Starbuck this way, and fell in love with llamas. I now show in the NY State Fair every summer, and help out the 4-H kids before the county fair.
I got my license and my first car between junior and senior year. The car was fine at first, but then turned into a true POS. I loved it anyway, and we went through a lot of adventures before I laid it to rest this spring. It certainly taught me some car repair skills.
My senior year of high school stands out in my mind because I was so busy. I was in several clubs, took 4 AP classes, and worked as a kennel worker (hi Rue!) at the local animal hospital. I graduated with honors in June of 2000, went to lots of great parties, and prepared for college. I had been accepted into my first choice school, a small all-women’s college in the Finger Lakes region.
I started college in August. Everyone told me that an all-women’s college would be full of lesbians and I would get stuck with one as a roommate. I had met my roommate at summer orientation and told everyone at home that there was no way that she was a lesbian. I was wrong. I learned that lesbians weren’t horrible people like everyone back home thought, but I also learned that roommate communication is key if you don’t like to hear hot lesbian sex on the other side of your room every night.
It was during freshman year that I got my first boyfriend, ironically (cause I was at an all-women’s college, remember?). I met him online at the now defunct Sparkmatch. We dated for four months before he decided that he couldn’t handle a long-distance relationship over the summer and we broke up.
College continued, and I was happy to be single and doing well in my pre-veterinary biology classes. I was rooming with my best friend and living next door to my other two good friends. I had a new appreciation for boys now that I never saw any. Then things got even happier. A good friend from back home’s brother got a computer and I started talking to him on AIM frequently. I had met him before briefly and thought he was a scary, perverted guy (mostly because I was such a goody-goody), but after actually talking to him, I realized he was pretty nice. We became friends and about a month later decided to try dating. He came here for the big Leonid meteor shower and we watched it all night long on the field hockey field with my friends. We are still dating now, a year and a half later. He finally corrupted me to the level that a normal 20 year old should be, and now my mind is often firmly in the gutter.
Currently I am in my junior year of college, with an official major in biology and a minor in Spanish. I am starting my applications for vet school (scary!!) with my first choice being good old Cornell U. right down the road. I am taking my GREs this weekend and starting my undergraduate thesis on butterfly movements this summer.
Wow, that took longer than I thought to write out. Back to the studying…
Thylacine was born in next week 1965 in Melbourne to a family that had no standard use for children so made other uses up. If the authorities had discovered this she would have been famous but alas, she lived in obscurity. She worked very hard with a lot of help to finally sort all that shit out. It took a long time and a great many drugs and a lot of sex and then multiple teams of therapists and hospitalisations.
At 38 - one week she no longer even smokes cigarettes and her shrink tells her she is now the sanest person she knows. Not a bad turnaround even if she does say so herself.
She loves a girl a long way away in dubyaland and has lived there herself but is currently dealing with multiple disabilities in her hometown. Her mixed up past is biting her on the bum. She has worked in a number of fields, mostly mental health in which she is told she is a renowned expert in her little corner of the field. She is not currently working but she has an internet empire that keeps her out of trouble.
If she believed in God she would likely have to hate Him and she has hated enough so she is an atheist.
Her proudest acheivement is outliving her mother.
Her ambition is to become the best crazy cat lady she can be.
She chooses to laugh every day.
She is a very bad typist who really should proofread.