Friends @ MindSay

My mind is awash with worries, little and big ones, here to there...

I miss DI!
I heard from my good old best friend, Di, a week or so ago and it provoked this love-fest-o-rama in email between her and my pal, Jason.  The three of us haven't all talked like that in nearly ten years.  So much has happened since the last time we all gathered at that yellow house on Division Street.  Times have changed.  We're all kinda grown up now.  I miss the times when Di and I would stay up all night long doing Tarot and watching bad movies.  Sing it with me: "Memories!"  But the stream of conversation via email dried up a week ago.  Like just stopped.  Like our lives only paused for a moment to make room for a few laughs and then *poof!*

WTF is up with Labor Day Weekend?
Many months ago, I made plans with my pals Jenn and Damien to spend Labor Day weekend with them as part of welcoming their new baby and celebrating their one year wedding anniversary.  However, due to a lot of reasons, I'm afraid I may not be able to take a trip to Milwaukee this Labor Day weekend.  First off, I've had way too many invites to parties and get-togethers to the point where, when and if I choose one to attend, I won't be able to please all of my friends.  Second, the gas prices are shitty.  Third, I'm more nervous than ever before about taking the Greyhound bus to Milwaukee.  After the news report about the young man who was decapitated after he fell asleep on a bus, I've thought about all the times I've rode the bus with many a creepy character.  There is no security system for riding the bus.  No baggage checks.  No metal detectors.  Nothing.  Some idiot could be sitting next to you with a gun for Pete's sake!  I've been attacked twice on buses.  For some reason it attracts dirtiest of dirt bag people.  I think it's safer right now to board a plane than a bus.  Crazy.  Fourth reason to make any kind of travel difficult for me, my brother was perfectly willing to drive me down to Milwaukee, but now he has a torn muscle in his knee that may require surgery ASAP.  That means he can't drive.  Damn.  And I was going to pay for gas, too.  And speaking of money...  I'm a bit short this month which means next month is going to be tighter than I expected.  Ugh!

Ideally, I'd love to take a big ass road trip so I can visit all my friends, but unfortunately everyone's all off work only during Labor Day weekend.  Go figure!  Even my gal pal, Di, invited me out to Chicago for the weekend.  I just wish I could indulge every invitation I get.  *sigh*

Everyone's in the Back of my Mind, so it's a bit crowded in Here
I'm concerned about Jenn.  I have this feeling that her delivery is going to be difficult, more so than how things went with Dexter.  I'm hoping she will contact me or write a blog somehow to let me know how she's dealing.  I'm still concerned about msdania  and wishing I could send her the biggest care package I can put together.  I'll have to check her blog after posting here to see how she's holding up.  Meanwhile I'm looking up information on how I can send a donation to the families who survived the propane explosion.  When I get that info, I'll repost it here. 

I've also started to wonder about the situation with all my friends, past and present.  I can be a sore ass worry wort, so I'm trying not to be one, but I can't help it.  All weekend I've had nightmares about the people I love.  I dreamed that Jason's stitches didn't come all the way out and I saw him picking them out, one by one, fighting with a few that had "come to life" like out of some kind of horror movie.  All the while he was telling me it didn't hurt anymore, but that his situation is, in a word, pesky.  I also dreamt of Miya in the white mourning robes of a widow.  Her breasts were bleeding.  She said it was Drew's fault for not giving her energy back.  "It was a loan I should've never given him," she said.  The other nightmare involved my mother and brother.  I saw my brother in a wheel chair and he was bitching at me while we were grocery shopping.  My mother was more mobile, shifting around in a very fast scooter, and I lost her in a winter storm.  While I was trying to find her, I was attacked by a very large black panther.  The panther held me down and had sex with me.  After he was done, a group of men laid me out on a table and proceeded to "lick me all over" -- all in all it was pleasant, but afterwards I was ashamed to discover that the experience had been videotaped and broadcast on the news!  I spent the rest of the dream trying to find my mother so I could apologize and explain to her that it happened against my will.  Talk about crazy stuff going on in my mind!

I'm glad I got all that off my mind now.

Dear friends.....I've been working many extra hours this week, so I haven't had a chance to spend as much time with you as I would like, reading, replying, and blogging. But all of you are on my mind, in my heart and in my prayers. I just want to tell everyone to have a great Friday, and to reach out today and do ONE thing nice for someone else, no matter how small or how big. You can make a difference.

 

Hooray!!! The weekend is almost here!!!!

 

Much love and Hugzzzz.........Joseph (BDS)

On the way to work today I was thinking about Mindsay. I read through some of the negative stuff that's going around, replies and so forth from different members. It's not a good thing for certain, but then I thought of all the good I have found here. All the people I consider friends even though I've never seen them in person. How if I ever had the chance to meet any of those I've gotten to really know, I'd throw my arms around them, and maybe a tear or two might trail down my cheek from sheer joy of being able to see them face to face.

 

See, I've tried Myspace, Facebook, and quite a few other blog sites, and NONE of them match up to Mindsay as far as people value. Now don't take me wrong, I'm not putting any of those other sites down, I know quite a few people who use these and other sites and feel the same as I, and I respect their choice. But for me, Mindsay is the place to be. Almost like a second home. A place I hang with friends after a hard day's work.

 

I feel a sense of community here, a sense of freedom to say what I want, a freedom to agree and disagree with others yet still have them on my friends list, the chance to learn about others lives from all over, opportunities to make lasting friendships that make a difference in my life, and hopefully mine in theirs.

 

Example: Over the last few days we've lost Bernie Mac, a celebrity, and I found out when I logged onto MS. And for the most part, the homepage news alerts are about famous people, odd news stories, political views, touching stories, all kinds of different things. Then I log on yesterday and see where the Mindsay staff, or whomever is responsible for the homepage news, has posted a story about a Mindsay member who's home exploded, and asked us all to reach out. If that isn't caring I don't know what is. I don't even know the person and yet I was able, because of this story, to reach out with condolences and prayers.

 

This site has people on it who's lives run the gamut. All kinds of believers of different faiths, some who don't believe in anything, people who share stories of drug use, sexuality, relationships, heartbreak, family troubles, devotional entries, political entries, and sometimes just simple entries about someone's day in their life.

 

Negativity? Sure there is. We're human. Every site is going to have those few who choose to use such a forum for the wrong reasons.

 

But I choose to believe the Mindsay community as a whole is a great gathering of diverse peoples, and this is where I belong.

 

I'll be blogging on Mindsay until I can no longer type.

 

Much love to everyone......Joseph

My dearest MindSayers,

I cannot begin to express my deepest things for the outpouring of love, hope and sheer amazingness from all of you. I want to thank you on behalf of myself and my family. I read the comments to my Mom and Dad, and they both teared up. They both know how much a part of MindSay I am, and they were touched. Thank you again.

Here is an update as to what has been going on. We met with an insurance adjuster today, and well, he was able to get into the house and said that the damage was bad. There are broken windows everywhere, there is glass everywhere. I have 5 sliding doors in my house, and 3 of the 5 were shattered and blown into my house. There are glasses and mugs shattered all over my kitchen floor, there are pictures frames of my photography shattered, there are art/picture frames on the wall shattered. Our clothes are ruined. They have dust and the threat of asbestos on them. Our life has been turned upside down. We have no home to go home to.

When we heard the first explosion (since there were several), it was one of the most scariest and terrifying moments of my life. From the sound of the glass shattering because of the giant amounts pressure from the propane, I thought that it was from out house getting struck by thunder or that someone was trying to break into our house. Within seconds, I ran upstairs (since my room is in the basement) to find my parents and Krystyna (my 8 year old sister). My Dad was screaming at the top of his lungs "WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE. THE PLACE IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE." I was terrified. I tried to take in the sights of see a glass sliding door INSIDE of my house, my drinking glasses and mugs and walls and ceiling caving in. My Mom and Dad were screaming at me to get dressed and get out as soon as possible. That was just what I did. I ran from the main floor, to the basement, and when I was in my room, I have to literally explain to myself internally what to do. I said " I need pants. What pants do I wear? I can't find my jeans, I just have to wear my pj pants. I need socks. Where are socks? I need a bra. I am not wearing one" And all of these thoughts were running throughout my mind is milliseconds. All I was able to grab was my cell phone. I do not even have my engagement ring. It's still in my house. I have no ID, no debit card, no driver's liscense, no passport, no birth certificate NOTHING. I had the clothes on my back, and my cell phone. When I ran back up the stairs, I had to be careful as to where I was stepping because there was glass everywhere and I was barefoot. I ran out into my garage, as my front door was blown in and was unable to get out of. I saw draywall and insulation in millions of pieces in my garage, and ran out from the side of my garage into the car that was already pulled out into the road out of the driveway. My Mom was screaming at me "GET OUT AND INTO THE CAR". Once I got out of the garage, I did not even have enough time to put on my socks or shoes, and I was barefoot until I got to Genio's house. I checked the time that I called Genio's house, and it was 3:54am on early Sunday morning. I told her "Gina (that's his mom's name) there has been an explosion, and our house is destroyed, we are coming to your house." I hung up the phone, and my Dad was driving so fast. While driving, we saw our neighbours RUNNING for their lives. Both were in their pj's, which looked like next to nothing, one had shoes on and one did not. We told them to get into the car, and they did. They had their dog in their hands. The dog was terrified. It was not until we were too far away that we remembered about our cat. It was too late to turn around, and when it clicked in that we did not get her... all of us began to cry. We did not want to leave her behind, but we had to. The propane fire was so hot. The first initial blast blew out the windows and doors and such, the second blast happened when we were rushing to get out of the house and the third one happened when we were in the car trying to get away. There were several blasts, however, we were outside during the third one, all I do remember seeing was orange, scorching heat and tons and tons of fire everywhere. The entire sky was lit with orange. Well, if you checked out the videos, then you would have seen the blasts and bursts and explosions. It was and probably will be one of the most single and tragic things that has ever happened to me and my family. We were out of the house in about 6 minutes and we were lucky we got out when we did. We were one of the first peoples to get out. When we got to Genio's house, we all began to cry. It was starting to, semi- settle in what had happened. I think we were all still in panic mode and nothing really sunk in. The one thing we were most worried about was Kictha, our cat. We wanted to so go back and get her, but it was totally unsafe and could have led to injuries and such. So, we stayed up pretty much all day, watching the news. We were glued to the tv for pretty much all of the day. There were so many things running through our minds. Will our house be safe? Has our house burned down? We will even have a house to go home to? What happens to all of our stuff? When can we go back? What will happen to us?

(edited) I FOR GOT TO SAY--that we got our cat out. She is safe.

So, skip forward to right now. It's been a busy Monday, as predicted. We went back to the area in which we live in, to try and see when we would be able to go in. As of right now, the perimeter around my pocket of land has not been lifted and continues to be sectioned off. We are unaware as to when and what time we will be allowed to go into the house and get the valuables. We will not be allowed to take any clothes, they all need to be be bought. We can only take the essentials. However, I need my computer, my camera, my makeup, my design work, my iPod, my DS... my engagement ring. Things like that. Other than that, everything needs to stay in the house to have everything professionally packed up and sent to a storage facility until we are able to sort through it and see what to keep and see what needs to be fixed etc. It's all in the hands of the insurance adjuster, the structural engineer, the contractor and my parents.

It's so difficult to think about what lies ahead for my family and I. Yes, my house is destroyed, yes we cannot live in it, yes we need to go find alternative place to live, but we are all unharmed, safe and together.

As for right now, we just have to wait until tomorrow morning to get into the house. And we are still not 100% sure that we will be allowed into our home tomorrow. We do have good news. Our house is not one of the 6 that was listed as unsafe to enter and from the initial viewing from the adjuster, he said that the house is fixable. We, however do not understand what is meant by "fixable". When I get a chance to update you all again, I will.

Please continue to send your well wishes. They are much appreciated.
We love you, thank you, and remember you all here at MindSay have a special place in my heart.

Thank you for the comments on the last entry. When I get a chance, I will respond, however I thought that it would be best to write an entry telling you all about what happened.

I love you with all of my heart.
Always.