LAST Fishook dress on behalf of RFL will be sold this Sunday. This is the LAST one of about 30 in existence.

For people who don’t know about this dress- This was my officially FIRST dress I ever made. After the closing sale of the dress which sold for only 2 weeks at a very high price, it was never sold again- however, I decided to sell ONE MORE due to people often begging for their copy and offering LOTS of cash for it.

So Ladies, if you REALLY mean it-  come for this absolute LAST chance to get this dress. This auction is a continued one and the starting bid  is currently at a disappointing $45 000 L. All proceeds will go to Relay for Life.

Second and third highest bidder will get a FATPACK of Chambre du Chocolat couture, if the bid goes higher then 75 000. Now that’s something! You don’t even have to win!
If you have missed the sale- yet ALWAYS wanted to have Fishook Dress of your own- now is your chance!

While i do understand I have said the dress would never be sold again, I decided to do this due to an important cause. It’s highly personal between cancer and me.

Read on for time and place, to get a LM, come to Chambre du Chocolate store and click on the Fishook Dress Display. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Blumfield/235/179/27

Designers in Seclusion, Relay for Life Team and Metro Models are Extremely Proud to Present to You,

“MEMENTO”

MEMENTO: A Distinctively Unique Combination of Fashion Show Meets Auction.

The Exquisite, Metro Models are generously donating their time and talents to work the runway for what is sure to be an Unforgettable Event.

Highlights you do not want to miss feature Limited Editions, Exceptionally Hard-to-Finds & Original One-of-a-kind creations, all from some of the grid’s finest Designers; Past, Present & New Rising Talents.

All of the items on display will be auctioned during a live auction during the show, with 100% of the proceeds going directly to the American Cancer Society.

In addition to the Tremendous Fashions, Original Artwork will be showcased and also auctioned off during the course of the event. These works of art are donated not only from established creators but also endearingly submitted by a number of Cancer Survivors as well.

We invite you to join us as we Celebrate and Remember along with those who Shape The Face of Fashion in Second Life.

Sunday, July 13th at noon SLT.
To get a LM for this auction Location, Come by Chambre du Chocolat store and click Fishook Dress Display for LM. TP TO CHAMBRE DIRECTLY FROM THIS LINK.

Donations of your own vintage or limited edition items are welcomed! Please contact Tigerlily Koi or Alaska Metropolitan for details.

Firstly, I would like to thank all of you who have offered me support, supported my cause by notifying you representatives as well as all of you who continually post comments with good (and not so good :D) ideas of what I should do in my situation. It is comforting to see how many people care about this.

Secondly, for all Second Life people- if you have any questions or comments about this- PLEASE don’t IM me in world on this topic- many of you do and I appreciate your concern, but all there is to know about this is RIGHT here, and you will save me a lot of typing of the same thing. Thanks endlessly!

Now, updates. Strap in.

Not only that I got revoked the immigration (mind you, I was initially whole heartedly approved!), I also got  accused of being a ‘conspirator against the government for entering a fraudulent marriage for the purpose of evading Immigration laws of USA’. So here’s the new battle. At age 27, in times where general paranoia of terrorism is at its peak, I am being stamped like this? On what basis?  This came from the immigration office where I was not asked a thing about my marriage at the interview, and where I had to literally PUSH pictures of my husband and I for the officer to look at. I got that letter from them shortly after the last post, and I still do not believe that this ‘decision’ is up to someone who never asked anything about me, my husband, my marriage in general….anything personal about us at all. Ultimately, this means that in case of my departure (I will not allow myself to get deported, I will depart voluntarily if need be) if I ever need or want to come back to USA  to visit friends, vacation or maybe for business- I will more then likely be denied access, even on a tourist visa under ‘conspirator’ tag, which…well, what does that sound like to YOU?  :/

If you aren’t sure, here’s a common definition of ‘conspirator, conspiracy’-a plot to carry out some harmful or illegal act (especially a political plot). What’s your first association after the definition?

So, at one point I was a student with a crush on her favorite professor (who hasn’t had a crush on their professor/teacher at some point?) , at another point I was a chick who had enough guts to hook up with the professor because I realized he was way too cool to pass up despite the age difference and the fact my friends did not find him attractive (well, I hope that most people think like this when they choose their partner), then I became (in my husbands’ words)  “…my favorite wife!” (he was married before), and then I got widowed and ‘became a conspirator’.

So, since the last post, I have abandoned all hope that there is sanity on planet Earth and have taken  steps to try and resolve the situation. The steps basically include spitting out more money (non-refundable even if I get denied again), and filling out more forms, and l lastly - ‘better’ proving that my marriage was not fraudulent.  Oh, well.

So you tell me-  is having a joined checking account  more valid proof  that a marriage is genuine then  about a year of back and forth hand written love letters or emails and/or  sworn testimonials of numerous friends of your true relationship? In my case, about 17 people who came to our house and stayed at least a weekend with us. All of them with clean records, some with highest security clearances (one would HOPE USCIS would trust those), several of them served in the Military etc…

I have spoken to a number of professional people who deal with USCIS about this and they keep saying “Well, you have to understand that the marriage fraud is at high rates in USA.”….Well, fine- now someone please tell me why don’t they, just like in the good old days (at least according to what I have heard from people older then me), send a field representative to people’s houses to check on them one afternoon to see whether the couple is really in a household together? There’s your ‘paperwork reduction act’ right there. Not enough people to do that? There is at least one border patrol office in any place that deserves a title ‘town’ in USA, and they sit in offices. Way far from any border, really. I remember Lake Charles Border Patrol office- I lived right next to it for months- their cars were always parked nicely in the driveway. I always wondered what were they patrolling. If any official ever showed up at our house, they would have found exactly what I testified many times- me dancing around the kitchen to some strange Tibetan ambient music and making some wild food or painting in my studio (which, mind you, contained numerous portraits of my husband), and Glenn writing his book at the computer, ocasionally yelling over to me ‘Come tell me what you think about this what I wrote!’, Cat and dog goofing about the living room…you know…ordinary stuff…

Proof of genuine marriage…You know, when two people get married, last thing on their mind is ‘Oh, let’s fabricate some ‘proof’ that we really mean it…

The easiest thing is to open a checking account together, report address together and pay bills at same address. You don’t even have to live with a person to pay their bills these days. You can do that online, and/or you can wire them cash via paypal into that checking account. I really ask myself who assumed those rules that a married couple should have a joined checking account? It might have been a common thing in the past century that as soon as you get married you do that, I don’t know… Is that some kind of expected governmental prescription of how people should deal with their finances? Or what about bills? Why do I have to pay bills to prove that I love a person and that they love me? Hm.. Is ‘I buy food, cook, clean and fuck you- and you pay bills and mow the grass’ that unbelievable of a marriage? I am an artist- I could never balance anything in my life, least a checkbook…

Best part-having this ‘evidence’ is not a *law*. It’s an expectation, apparently. So if you happen to have a married life different from standards of your immigration officer- or you don’t pay an immigration attorney several thousand bucks to shake their finger at the agency to *prove* how serious you are- you might find yourself in my situation.

Speaking of lawyers…I cannot grasp one thing. It is a commonly known fact that you can get ahead by hiring a lawyer to fill your papers out for you and send them to the USCIS office. That costs a few thousand dollars, including hourly pay of some $250+, depending on how expensive of an attorney you get. And all they really are there for is to help you fill out forms and make sure you don’t send out the wrong forms etc. For literate people, that’s really not a difficult thing to do- I filled out all of my forms correctly and sent them in on time. Why would I have to spit out several thousand dollars to an attorney over a normal and legal process that doesn’t by law *require* an attorney involved?

Ok, so I sent in a nice package yesterday. This is where it gets ‘fun’ in some surreal way.

The first time around I kind of found it over the top to present the immigration officer with pictures of my husband and I both nude on the couch. This time I sent it in. I have also enclosed emails my husband and I exchanged over a period of over one year when he would ocasionally travel to teach Martial Arts seminars. Emails that discuss getting a pet, furnishings and house arranging matters, taxes, and all other wonderful stuff any ‘fraudulent’ couple would not actually do. Oh, and I also included emails where my husband talks about certain parts of his anatomy acting in a certain way when he thinks of me while he’s away from home.  One would hope that would authenticate that we have shared something.

It took me some 6 hours of writing a 4 page letter, filing out the form, organizing testimonials, mounting photographs, printing emails, photo copying all of the above ( the stack of paperwork grew up to be over 150 pages of miscellaneous stuff), hopping into a car at 6 PM and hauling to catch the last mail truck for the day in order to get this to them on time. And now- more waiting. (Don’t you HATE when a great drama episode ends with uncertainty?)

Now seriously…I just do what I do. The opening of my latest build in SL is tomorrow. I am very excited about that… I’ll keep making dresses while waiting, I’ll keep feeding and cuddling my Cat and all the other wonders of being a lump of energized meat placed on a rock in the universe.  I’ll keep wishing that I make it to SLCC this year to meet a bunch of SL folk I adore and know will be there…you know…’stuff’.

What else is there to do anyway?

Love,

Eshi

I have learned 2 days ago that my immigration case has been revoked. Many of my friends have talked to me about it, offered their support and kind words. While preparing an appeal- I felt compelled to share this story with you in hope that the unjust treatment of people who share my situation will somehow make impact on the government to revise the law which is destroying many people’s lives.

I have also learned that this has been a practice for the past 37 years, and it is commonly referred to as ‘widow penalty’. Basically- it means the USCIS revokes granted petition for relative or spouse if one of the spouses dies unexpectedly. This law is horribly unjust, because had our spouses lived, this would not have been the case- we would have gotten processed fully. At the same time -people who decide to separate from spouses or even divorce after mere 3 months of marriage do get approved under the law.

If you do research around the internet, you will find cases of immigrant widows of soldiers who dies in Iraq who are also being sent to countries of their origin, and told to leave without their children who are born citizens of USA. These cases such as mine is are very rare, and not something that can be attributed to anything aside from ‘forces of nature’, and the decision of USCIS to manage our cases in this way is unacceptable. Of course, the public is not aware of this practice because in the past, most widows who got shipped back home- if they would chose to try to fight that decision (which is served cold and without right to appeal) or they would get shackled and put into prison, and then force-deported.

Support H.R.6034 to end the widow penalty by clicking here!

Be blessed.

I came to USA as a F1 visa student, was enrolled @ McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Lousiana- from 2000-2004. There I met my husband Glenn, who was my college professor. We were definitely the odd couple, but very much so embraced by our friends. We lived together some 5 months after I graduated and finally got married.
My F1 student visa status expired eventually, but visas are for nothing but entry to a country. They do not define status once you are in the country.

Due to my husband leaving his position at the university we struggled a bit financially and for the some time we did not start the immigration process due to financial reasons- the form fees doubled, and we had to wait for a while to recover financially. (the whole immigration process, in fees and without an attorney costs approximately 3-5 k USD, depending on how lucky you get with the nature of your immigration and how far you live from places you have to go and report yourself to for things like medical and fingerprinting.)

Then hurricanes Rita and Katrina stormed the gulf coast and we lost about 1/3rd of our house, however, Glenn found a great job and was managing the team who was aiding the first responders (firemen, medical personel, police) as stress management, all a part of organization called Volunteers of America. They were some sort of extension of FEMA though I am not sure anymore whether this bit is official. We recovered enough to start the immigration process which basically put me into standard ‘pending applicant’ status. My case was approved, and so was the form I-130 - petition for spouse or relative. The office made a typo in the receipt of that application, which we requested to be corrected. It took them 6 months to print out a new sheet of paper with the correction, which set us back another 6 months. We were scheduled an interview in New Orleans, but they have canceled it and rescheduled it for months later. When dealing with immigration, waiting is a huge part of the process. So we waited. My 60 year old husband worked up to 12 hours a day, on the weekends as well, helping poeple who lost everything but their bare lives in these tragedies. I was a housewife, slowly tapping into my own home based art business, waiting for immigration appointed interview.

My husband did not show any signs of illness- perhaps partly because he was in denial of his own age (60) but he was very much stressed at work. On the morning of April 1st 2006, I found him dead in our bed. He stroked out so hard that he did not even manage to move, call me, or knock something over to wake me up.

I did not know what to do, as I was left with absolutely nothing. I remember he said he was doing some paperwork during the week that would have left me in title of his retirement and checking/savings account if something happened to him, but as he died on Saturday, he did not get a chance to get those filed on Monday. We incidentally did not have joined accounts as I was definitely dependent on him, and to us, there was no need to do formalities.

As my checking was nearly empty, the day he died I have done the worst thing I ever had to do in my life. I pick pocketed my husbands wallet to get the money for his cremation. I will never forget that feeling.

Once they handed out his ashes to me in a canvas tote bag, I was completely on my own. The house we lived in was humble, yet still too much for me to keep up with, so the individual that the house was financed through advised me that I’d just leave, and that once the house would end up in sheriff sale he would re-buy it and for allowing him to do so he said he would give me an x amount of cash to help me out. That did not happen.

I moved in with my friend for a year and helped her take care of her 3 kids. I could not afford an attorney for immigration and I have decided to go to the interview by myself, as any advice I sought from free legal aids or USCIS employees on the USCIS helpline was generally different and confusing.

The affidavit of support that my husband wrote for me was replaced by the affidavit of support written by my husbands friend, officer in the department of Defense of USA. He enclosed a testimonial letter stating that indeed we were married as a couple as he had himself witnessed. I acquired about 10 letters from our friends and my husbands co-workers who knew us and visited our home frequently who said the same. We did live together, we were just about crazy about each other and there was no doubt that the marriage we had was not some kind of a setup. We had plans together, dreams…But that did not make any impact on the immigration officer, as all she was interested in was proof that I have paid bills at the same address as he did.

Since my husband was the head of the household, he paid the bills and the mortgage. I had nothing to do with it, and never would have anything to do with it as long as he was capable of taking care of it. But now, it all somehow boiled down to papers and ‘proof’. How do you prove to someone your marriage was indeed a real one? We were never asked for that kind of ‘proof’ during the paperwork filing so we did not worry about that. Also, the paradox of having to prove genuine marriage with ‘papers’ makes it only more easy for setups to be slipped in as genuine marriages, as opening a checking account with someone does not by any means indicate whether the marriage was indeed genuine or not.

The immigration officer took me into her office in New Orleans and did not ask me anything about the circumstances. I gave her the replacement affidavit of support, showed her some pictures of me and Glenn, showed her the testimonials of our friends and next door neighbors. She was completely not interested in any of it. She said she would talk to her supervisor and they would send me a decision letter in a week. All I could do is wait- as there is no public number to call that office, so waiting was my best shot.

More then a year has gone by, I have grown completely alienated from the world, I had no money to speak of, depression kicked in as my own family showed no interest in helping me. Friends thinned out as there was no longer “Glenn and Irena’s house” to come for dinner or martial arts movies. I have moved in with a friend into a trailer for a couple of months as I could not afford rent with the friend who had 3 kids, and I did not want to be the 4th kid. After a couple of months in a trailer, my roommate decided I should leave, so I spent a month sleeping in a little apartment on my friends love seat with my legs hanging over the arm rest knees down. I managed to somehow scratch enough money doing art projects, but just enough to feed myself and keep the car and phone. Second Life has kept me from hurting myself.

From my friends couch, I borrowed some gas money and loaded the car up, printed google map and came to live with a friends friend in Florida. Here, I was given a room to live in, an internet connection and ‘good luck’. Not knowing what’s happening, I have sought advice from a local lawyer who told me ‘We don’t know, they are sending widows of soldiers who died in Iraq back to their countries- because their husbands died before the interview’. She took $75 cash for that ‘consultation’ and sent me home. Friend bought me dinner that evening and I drove home with $15 in my pocket, which I had to stretch until the next art project came along. I used to gag but I have grown accustomed to canned beans and store brand hot dogs, canned soups and other things most people wouldn’t feed to a dog. I have grown pre-diabetic, malnourished, oveweight, addicted to sugar and even more depressed. I had nothing to do besides work on my computer (which was also given to me by another Second Life resident who saw my work and believed in me), but there was only so much that could be done, as I was at times forced to lay on the floor for a few days in a row due to back pain, or simply my limbs feeling to heavy.
I got scared. I knew this was coming my way, but I did not want to know. I was hoping to find some kind of a job to support myself, but I was too depressed, scared, alone and alienated to be persistent so I worked a couple of cash gigs, helped cut grass (the usual immigrant jobs) and sat in front of my computer most the time. I learned Second Life which became my first, and the only place where my status and depression did not matter.

I got enough courage to crawl out of my room and schedule an appointment with the local USCIS office in West Palm beach to get advice. I was worried that I would send a check in and get denied- since they keep the fee, that was not an option for me. This opened another can of worms, appears so.
The officer told me to come next week to give her time to find my case. I came back, and she said she contacted the officer who interviewed me in New Orleans but has not heard from her. She was just about to tell me to come next week again, but the email from the New Orleans officer had just come in on the screen and she took a moment to read it and then told me that I have a letter in the mail, and that the letter will say “denied” without the right to appeal. Final decision.

While all of this is going on, my succession of my husbands intellectual property rights for the books he had written and some loose pennies in his checking account are still being ‘in process’ by a local Lake Charles attorney, who despite the fact I am the only heir is taking over 2 years now to bring my case to closure, and whose secretary tells me stuff like ‘drop the attitude missy, you aren’t paying us 250 per hour to work for you’ or ‘I can’t snap my fingers and make it happen’ when i call begging them to get my succession processed. I wonder what will happen when I get deported and when it becomes even more difficult for me to get in touch with their office, when even when I lived in Lake Charles I NEVER got a call back from the attorney, nor had he ever responded to any of my emails.
I am tortured beyond words, with the idea that I am being thrown out of this county where I once had a happy home with my husband, where I have graduated from college, where I have always wanted to be. I have very little in common with the country I came from, I never had a happy home there.

I have learned this to be a common practice of the immigration.
there is a podcast on this topic here:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1236

I am not sure I have the energy to fight the USCIS decision through courts, but I will nevertheless try as there’s nothing to lose. I feel like a complete loser, I am angry, and for the most part I feel betrayed. We who try to go through the system in an honest and decent way don’t get justice.

I never took a penny from this country, I never had a bounced check, I was never arrested…my husband was someone who tremendously contributed to the community devoting his last days of life to helping others.

Learn more about class action lawsuit here!

Read stories of Jacqueline Coats and Diana Engstrom (and others) here!

Back to SL(tm, please don’t sue me…lol)-…*cough*, anyway-

This weeks show will be a Audible and Visual Feast!  A simply scrumptious collaboration never been done by two of Second Lifes most amazing Artists. Eshi Otawara, Dress Costumier and Builder and Chouchou Musicians, Sim builders and performance Artists of the Ghostly fantastical Kind, Arabesque Choche from Japan and Juliet Heberle.

Eshi Otawara doesn’t design dresses she designs wearable art, her work is something truely not seen in real life, and so unusual even for Second Life, some of her dresses cannot be worn in mixed company not because they are see thru but because they are soooo huge!

Chouchou have created a buzz that has surpased what any other musical artist has so far done in Second Life not only is their music haunting and fantastic, but the sets and surrounds that they have provided the Second Life community have resulted in many many photographs and visits to their new Chouchou Sim. He is in Japan and she is in the States yet the collaboration between the two reaches accross the globe seamlessly.,

Come see both on Tonight Live this weekend for an experience never seen before on Tonight Live and be part of this incredible event.

This Sunday the 18th May 2008 at the Northpoint Studios
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http://eshiotawara.wordpress.com
http://chouchouholic.blogspot.com/

Broadcast live also on www.slcn.tv.
and then vodcasted for later viewing on www.slcn.tv/tonight-live-paisley-beebe

Free Screen here…follow instuctions to set to land
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* If you wish to watch replays of our show or any other SLCN show just visit our studio for a free TV set

* Join our group “Tonight Live” or visit the studio and join the subscribomatic automatic updates to free your groups

* Tonight Live studio at SLCN: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Northpoint/205/140/32

* If the sim is full we have a live screen set up at:  Sunset Jazz Club http://slurl.com/secondlife/Laurel%20Arts%20Isle/69/164/23

* Tonight Live show replays:
http://www.slcn.tv/tonight-live-paisley-beebe

* Tonight Live blog & pictures at:
http://tonightlive.blogspot.com/

STARVING-DOG-HELP STOP THIS “ART” , originally uploaded by Eshi Otawara.

]]> http://eshiotawara.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/starving-dog-help-stop-this-art/feed/ Eshi http://eshiotawara.wordpress.com/2008/04/23/virtual-africa-second-life-africa-opens/ http://eshiotawara.wordpress.com/2008/04/23/virtual-africa-second-life-africa-opens/#comments Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:02:32 +0000 Eshi Otawara http://eshiotawara.wordpress.com/?p=67

The popular DJ Doubledown will conclude the day at 16:30 SLT with a party for our guests at the new, spectacular African Rain, a club for Virtual Africa, designed partly pro-bono by Eshi Otawara.

High quality framed prints on acid-free paper now available. 10×14 inches.

I will post one print monthly or bi-monthly, so  each one is a timed limited release.

First featured print is called ‘Trance’:

Click on the image to go to print shop.

Remember my recent DONG request from a DJ? (what moron put S and D next to each other on a keyboard?!)…or the ‘I gut huNg’ instead of a hug?….have you ever told someone to TOP you instead of TP you like I have…or complimented someone on their ’shit’ insteadn of their ’shiRt’? Have you ever taken a snapshit?

I love SL typos and bloopers. This one today simply made my day.

For some reason I opened that fashion group notice, and man- did I need this one:

In there, there were 2 advertisements for 2 new releases of the Hell Bop Bar (cool place, btw)- first one being this:

Apparently- meant to be the BOWLING alley dress….I IMmed the designer immidiately to tell her she made my day with this…we both laughed and exchanged a few of our similar past experiences…

Hours later, I still had that notice open on my screen-I scrolled down to see the second advertisemend being called DICKIES..(rofl!!!!) and opened the advert pic of that one as well…just as priceless!!!

Check out the upper right corner…

I had to share this, with the permission of the “dyslexic and tired” designer-of course.

If any of you have similar things to report- send notecards and pics to eshi.otawara@gmail.com

:))

I decided not to delete my previous post, even though it is by far the most ‘pathetic’ one I ever posted. But it was realistic to the situation I was in at the moment. This site is called ‘omniversing’, so I feel like sharing any of my universes. I never was (intentionally!) fake, and I always say things the way they are to the best of my interpretation of perception.

I wish I were here ‘outing’ myself as gay or something. I think that would be easy compared to the ’shame’ of being a ‘depressed person’. So bla. Read on.

It is 7 AM and I just got back from all night partying at the ah so infamous Fisher Island down in Miami. Speaking of turd in a punchbowl. I have never seen so many fake tits in my life. Some on some really unfortunate looking women. I cannot help myself but remember Larry the cable guy and his ‘putting fake tits on an old woman is like hanging a brand new chandelier in a haunted house’. I think I’d get arrested for that one @ Fisher Island. For those who don’t know, Fisher Island is a place in Miami where people like Oprah have that one extra summer home, and where every girl looks like a version of Paris Hilton.

Before we got to the club, my former college roommates and I went to a nice hibachi place. At the hibachi bar, there was another ‘party’ of 4 people. A couple of mid age guys in white crisp shirts, a wound up 35ish year old guy and with them- so obviously- a cheap looking escort girl. Now- my roommates, both of them, are exceptionally hot. One of them was high up in the Miss Mediterranean a couple years back(if not one of the first 3) and works as an international real estate adviser (at age 25!), and the other one has never made it to beauty pageants - not because of lack of looks at all- but because she is finalizing her Doctorate in business and/or finance at age 26. I absolutely adore them both, they are the best roommates I have ever had and despite me being so different from them in so many ways, I wouldn’t want them to be anything else then what they are. I literally baked cookies for both of them and did so with utmost joy.

Now- the 3 birdies + ‘hookah’ sitting at the hibachi bar were my first contact with any people outside my very small friend circle that had access to me during my grief period in the past 2 years. For me, it just so happened to have been laundry day, plus, as I have mentioned- I have not been shopping in nearly 2 years, so I just ‘threw’ my outfit together. Jeans, converse, QUEEN shirt, large tote bag and 2 wrist cuffs since I don’t really wear jewelry. Hair?….let’s just say I had to get it cut off to 2 inches length 3 days ago since I had a ‘do it yourself dye’ accident…Makeup? You know….I can put makeup on girls like my roommates and really enjoy the results, but I never liked having that sticky stuff on my face. As expected, my roomates looked as if one snatched them from a fashion mag right there on the spot and I loved every bit of staring at them just like the guys across from us. They eventually slobbered their way into our conversation and literally went for my roommates without even once looking towards me, as if I were not there. I sat back and listened to the ‘look i am a rich man and you are a young pretty girl’ BS conversation from these guys while on occasion exchanging a few words in our native language with them to comment these morons who were foaming at their mouths to impress them. And then I realized, for the first time in my life, morons like these did not bother me at all anymore. They asked each one of what we do…My roommates said what their jobs were while I stared at the particular moron waiting for his insecure snout to turn towards me and at least acknowledge my existence for the sake of good manners. I caught him hesitating. He was so obviously worried that I would notice his disapproval of my appearance that he could not even look at me. LOL!!

Poor poor man. He did not look at me. I continued staring at him sitting there sweating while chewing on my hibachi steak and oh so laughing on the inside…

The club. Horror I expected. One of those clubs you cannot get into if you ain’t ‘pretty enuff’. I mean, I am pretty, alright, but not like THEY would want me to be. And the laundry day…..anyway-

I stood in line with my roommates, having a blast speaking Croatian and dogging some eager bimbo I could fold up in half and eat for breakfast who stood there in her patent leather pumps waiting for the approval of these beef heads so she’d come inside the club. When they nodded her in, I thought she was going to pee on herself.

The beef heads were scanning me, and my mismatched outfit, wrong hair, dusty converse, bag that was maybe…fashionable…..once……and I could tell by their absent faces there was no way I was going to get ‘okayed’ in had there not been for my roommates friend who happened to have a table reserved for us already. And then once we got in…Let me just sum it up- I had a wonderful time watching quite a number of people being terribly uncomfortable with themselves over having to be in a presence of (and nice to!) a girl they were ‘taught’ to avoid because of all the things about a human being that DO NOT really matter just to they could, perhaps, score it with the roommates. I have never seen so many faces crumble when I walked into a room, and not crumble because there was something truly wrong with me, but crumble because their whole value systems of other humans and themselves are so *fucked* that it makes THEM feel like crap to have to be civil to people that are out of what they think is ‘their standard’. I wish I could help them somehow.

Scary stuff.

…