Number of Visitors comment and other stuff

OK, I know readership has undergone this huge transformation and believe me, I am ever so grateful, its beyond my mere words how emotional I am about all of you coming here and reading over and over again.  What I find utterly fascinating is that somehow, someway we have had 660 more readers this month so far than the entire month of December, which was record numbers!  That blows my mind.  I think personally, it is the combination of what I am doing that makes all of you come back.  The stories of interest, the breaking news, the photographs I find of fashion, fashion models and of course you my readers have proven you love the near naked guys.  I mean who doesn't love prime gorgeous men especially when they are near naked to naked.  I know, I know pandering to the lowest common denominator, but you have proven that there is REAL interest especially in regard to fashion.

I am going to be speaking with a gal about adding some advertising to the site, where we all benefit and maybe in return their maybe some pay to what I say.  Now I do not want you all getting the wrong idea.  I LOVE writing this blog, it keeps me motivated, it keeps me reading and it keeps you all coming back.  I would continue writing forever for free; but when she said I could get paid for what I am doing here, why the hell not.  The money would come in handy for school you know, because kids IT IS EXPENSIVE!!  Even with the grant I get which covers some, college is way pricey.  Besides I just continue from what I understand  to do what I do best---write and you all well you just keep coming back.  Nothing but some ads would be the change.  If this is not the case then I am not going that route and will continue blogging for nothing.  Will let you all know how it progresses and if I decide to do it.

In the mean time, OY VEY and dear g-d these long farkakt (screwed-up) days at Kent (Main campus) are just BRUTAL.  First class at 10:45 and I am there till 8:30 at night.  Thank g-d for my 4 hour break but honestly it has been very rough getting use to.  I am learning so much and so far my first assignment got me an A!!!  Yeah me, right?!  Hopefully it gets better and I get use to my two long days.  In the mean time thank you for visiting, please come back often, feel free to comment and of course finally........ I am so glad we had this time together.

Well school officially starts for me tomorrow at noon with my first class, which is College Writing 2 and which lasts an hour. We meet Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the Stark Campus and then I am at the Kent Campus Tuesdays and Thursdays for Sewing 1 and Fashion Visualization.

I am realy looking forward to the semester since I was sick for the summer one and had to drop out. I am really looking forward to the writing class if I have to be honest. Maybe I will find more of my voice. I will I know feel like I am back on track making my dream of a college education happen.

Today was rather quite as I have felt just a tad under the weather, I don't think it is anything serious I just feel more tired out than usual, hopefully I can get a good nights sleep. Well I didn't get all the doll work done like I wanted to which has me somewhat depressed but I know I will in time. I do have a dress started that is nice and will be part of a possible trunk show I amthinking of doing around my birthday if I can pull it off. Maybe 4-5 designs on top of the two from previous outfits that I did for charity. Will keep you posted.

Not much else here, looking forward to the Awards show tonight, I think the Emmy's if I remember right and I will probably do a post about my favorite outfits from it.

Until then I am so glad we had this time together.

Madame Zelda is in......

Is there a chance I said to much in the last two posts I have done?  Someone pointed out it seemed very private and my response was, "Maybe someone can learn from mistakes?  Maybe people will see me as more "approachable" if you will--more like someone they can honestly talk with.  Someone they can trust with their secrets.

Someone also pointed out I dwell to much on the past.  Honestly kids, until last year it is all I had and I was comfortable living in it.  It was a safe, secure, for the most part happy place and like I said I thought it was all I had.  Some where I knew the outcome of the past, things I felt I could control because I was the one that remembered them.  It was also a very lonely place because 95% of the people in my life now were not in my life then.

This person also pointed out I should dwell more on the future, what I honestly want and especially out of my life.  Yesterday Paula Deen was on Oprah and the topic seemed to be "Jobs before they were famous" and Paula was a bank clerk, when she was not in her home in terror because of her agoraphobia.  She said " All you need is a dream and the ambition to make it happen.  What is the shame is people who have the dream and never do anything about it ever".  I could have sat and cried because it felt like I have sat on a dream for nearly twenty years.

So with that said Madame Zelda "psychic par excellence" is in ( me in a fantasy roll for this post to tell the future) Welcome dahlink to my parlor Madam Zelda expected voi. I vee that voi are troubled by vhat vee future holds for voi dahlink. Hold moi hands and let us gaze into vee crystal ball.

• Madame Zelda sees: A bright and illustrious career for you in Fashion design in the very near future.  You will be, dahlink, one of the very best there is.  Demand for you will be overwhelming at times but you will love every second of it.  I can not tell if it will be Broadway, movies or Haute Couture that you will be doing but I see a large work space with a fair sized staff who will love you beyond words.
• Madame Zelda sees: You living in New York City the best are for part of your year and the other part of the year will be split between Paris and Rome possibly for shows, exhibits or even clients. Possibly hosted by friends and clients so you have some down time from your very busy schedule.
• Madame Zelda sees: You living a long and full life despite the fact that you have been so ill for so long.  The planets will align for you dahlink and health wise it could not be any better.

I know all rather silly post but they wanted to see what I dream of, that's it plain and simple put more simply...

• To graduate from Kent State University with Honors with a degree in Fashion and possibly a minor in writing.
• To have the funds to do my semester in either NYC, Paris, Florence, Hong Kong, or Turkey that KSU offers their fashion students.
• To have my internship with some major design firm where I can learn and grow the most.
• I would if I have to be honest love living in New York City, which is for the most part nearly written in stone as how else does one do fashion seriously and not live in New York?
• I would love to work in either Haute Couture, Movies, or Broadway Theatre.  I would also love to somehow incorporate my fashion into doing something again on an AIDS platform, sort of like Jack Mackenroth.
• I would love to have a celebrity clients and call them my "friends/mentors".  Their are a few I would kill to have in that list including Liza, George Clooney, Sophia Loren, Kristin Chenowith, Nathan Lane and of course my all time fave Tim Gunn.

There are simple things I would like to do as well..

get my sewing machine serviced
Buy a serger
Buy a professional dress from
Have a trunk show
Be in another fashion show
Visit New York City again
Not waste or feel like I am wasting so much time

Well I hope this fills the "thinking about the future" that this friend was looking for.  It all seems so simple really. Well until next time I am so glad we had this time together.

19 years later.............

Sorry for not posting yesterday but it was what I call my Fibro crash day where all I wanted to do and did was sleep.  Not so good for keeping my boysih figure, that I am deperately trying to regain but hey I guess if you need to sleep, you need to sleep.  The way I view myself since the hospital has been a really huge issue for me, and frankly I am not crazy about everything I see in the mirror.

Well as of tomorrow at 9:45 a.m.I will be celebrating 19 years living with AIDS.  In my minds eye, quite the milestone, somehow.  So much has changed in those long years, so many more medications, so much more acceptance and understanding of the disease, much longer life spans to name just a few.

With pneumonia just almost two weeks ago, I guess I am in a place where I have been giving a lot of thought to what the last nineteen years have been. Where I am trying to go now and what things are like this very moment.  There is some sadness to this thinking. I think one of the biggest was that while on my way home from the doctors office for my post-hospital follow up. I noticed that the only North East Ohio AIDS Hospice was closed and the building is for sale. I was one of the early volunteers, one of the original donators to help get it moving and now it is all over.  Where now does someone with no where to go, go?  Those memories are still alive and very real but the place is gone.

My health is recovering and I am left wondering exactly what am I going to be able to accomplish, even finishing school with a degree?  Somehow it doesn't seem like a possible goal, somehow I can not see that far ahead, somehow I don't see is it going to make huge changes in my life.  I know depressing but it is the truth.  Do I want to stay in school of course I do, do I want a degree, more than life itself.  Do I want to be more than what I am now, well yeah I do it is why I am in school in the first place.  But is it really going to happen?

I don't want anything in my way, including me.  I just want to somehow secure a future that is in all reality is mine and that in itself is the biggerst change in nineteen years.  Plain and simple, HOPE!  All those years ago the only hope was two years at the most and here I am with the real hope of twenty more years.  I have never had that kind of hope, but with hope comes planning.  Or at least for me it does, how am I going to live and on what?  Where does that what come from?  I actually opened a savings account to try to plan more for the future.  Thrive, and do I want to do what I am doing right now?  The answer to that is mixed. Some of what I am doing now yes, some absolutely not!

Nineteen years later and I am still trying to find out who I really am, what I really want, where do I really want to be and is any of who I was all those years ago still relevant?  Well until next time I am glad we had this time together.

Back to school

First day to school since Spring break and for Ohio we have nothing but gorgeous weather four days running now, all near the 80's and one day that was 83.  It was hard sitting in class with weather like that so I can only imagine what it will be like sitting in a class this summer--oh well.  I do have to say it was nice not having to wear a spring coat today!

I got my Race paper from my College Writing 1 class and got an A- and my History of Civilization homework scored a 9.5 out of 10.  The upcoming paper is basically on gender topics so I picked pornography.  It is to be a Rhetoric Paper all sides and state the "heart of the matter" for all sides-- I have mywork cut out for me I think.

For those who come here wanting to read about my Oz finds I am sorry but there have not been any in awhile as any sapre money is going to into a fund to help pay for the summer semester.  Hopefully you will keep reading just to stay abreast with me, what I am writing and what I have to say.  Well until next time I am so glad we had this time together.