Registered: Apr 2001
Location:
Posts: 17517

On with my habit of quirky milestone choices this is my infinite 13 milestone.

Rather than talk about how cool all you guys are, and how lucky I am to know some of you, how about we all do a mini auto biography? Lets all be painfully honest about who we are and where we come from, or just do your thing. I know this has been done but we have lots of new members here.

Im about to give some of my biggest fans some flaming fodder.

warning, Im typing this after Ive finished and read the following and it gets a bit bumpy as thoughts start falling over each other...so please excuse me.

My name is Shante’. I am from New Orleans Louisiana. I was born in 1973 to a crazy Cajun lady who did lots of drugs (Im probably retarded and no one will tell me). Drugs were easy to come by in my family because my family were drug smugglers. My grandfather was shot in the chest with a shot gun on our front porch over it and my uncle is still wanted by the FBI for two murders that happened in the swamps (near Pearl River) near our farm (did you know there were farms in the swamp? Fer true) but he is only still on the active list because they haven’t found his body which they are sure is somewhere at the bottom of Lake Tittikaka in Peru. The day those murders happened my mother, my uncle, his partner and I fled to Guatemala where we lived in a little village among the natives for a while.

When my mother and I re-entered the states (with out my uncle or lou) she was arrested for harboring and abetting,. She went to prison for 2 years and I went to live with my aunt. My aunt was very in touch with her/our Choctaw roots and taught me my first lessons in the medicine wheel and animal teachings. She wasnt involved with "the family business". She was a healer and a deeply spiritual person. There was also the old healing craft that had been passed down through our family but both my mother and my aunt contributed to my schooling of that. It colored the way I looked at the world a bit, but in a way that I think was healthy.
My mom got out of prison and for some odd reason came and got me. We lived on Bourbon street where she worked as a stripper in a place called “Big Daddy’s”
If you have ever seen footage of bourbon street during Mardi gras it is the place with the woman’s legs swinging in and out of the window.
She would be gone for a few days at a time and come home and kick the living shit out of me. I remember laying on the ground wishing for death a few times. One day someone noticed my wounds and called child protection. The report said 70% or 75% (seventy something eh) of my body was bruised, lacerated or burned and I was malnourished.

On to Foster care I went.

I don’t remember all the families. I wasn’t there too long in any of them. Some of them were real bastards, others had good intentions and just didn’t know what they were in for. I missed a lot of school, failed one year because they put me in a black foster home and didn’t want to start school because it was just an emergency placement and figured I wouldn’t be there long. I wound up staying there most of the school year. Im glad I lived in that foster family though, and there were some issues, especially when they showed up for church with me and the people wondered aloud to my foster parents why they had a white child there or why they didnt get a black child, which I guess the second question is fair considering, they just had no where else to put me. Im glad I lived there because I got a bit of insight and every experience offers something.

I also started school late because washing clothes in a creek in central America didn’t count as curriculum. One year I was so fucked up in my head that I took my phonics book and stabbed it with my pencil and scribbled curse words in it, they demoted me to the next lowest grade for that; just that episode, it was the beginning of the year in a new foster family. (that kinda bothers me still) I was also an ugly little kid, my eye was fucked up, my teeth were fucked up from being malnourished, my clothes were all out dated, and I was extremely antisocial. I got beat up a lot, a lot because I was one of very few white people in the schools I tended to be in and I represented every white bastard that ever oppressed a black person it would seem. It taught me how to fight though and that came in very handy a few times. I had a hard time eating in front of people and talking to people. I was a weirdo and the other kids didn’t let me forget it. I have about an 8th grade education. I got to skip higher in a few subjects cause I scored really well on my year-end placement exams, but as far as years attending, I got up to about 8, should have been 10 or 11 but I started late, missed a lot and got placed back for emotional issues. I asked to go into a girl’s home at age 14. I couldn’t handle “family” situations anymore. At 16, right before 17 I was faced with dropping out and getting a trade school with marketable skills or staying in school. I had a choice of beauty college, secretary school or car mechanic. I should have gone with car mechanic, there was no way I was going to be a secretary…but in my dimness I chose Beauty College. Needless to say I never worked a day in the beauty industry. Won a monetary bonus for acing my state exam, but I had no interest in it at all.



Most of my adult life (17 on) I’ve been nomadic. Traveling with friends, or sometimes packing my favorite shit up in my car leaving the rest behind and just going. I’ve been a DJ, a bartender, a dancer, a bar manager, a locksmith, a mudder, a female bouncer (not as tough as it may seem, the men bouncers would just get into fights with other men when they tried to break up women fighting so they asked me to come on busy nights…I’m pretty tough for a midget though )… I have also partaken in various other means of income I don’t care to discuss at this moment (no not prostitution you fuckers). I owned my own home inspections business (well technically still do I’m just not doing inspections at the moment because there is a conflict of interest involved with this latest rout I’ve taken which isn’t as fun and I have to dress like a girl. Home inspections are also being written off due to the rabid seller’s market in my area, as they are a contingency giving the buyer’s an out)



My husband introduced me to the Internet. The stile project. I got into a discussion about racism and stayed ever since. The asylum got me through two pregnancies and many a lonely time. I left behind everyone I knew when I got involved with splat. They were all shady and he can’t have that around him due to his work. I didn’t care for them too much anyway and hadn’t known them very long. Trouble followed them everywhere and I was always bailing them out. They were opportunists and would and did shit on me anytime it was convenient, and I made it easy because I was always looking for family, which when mixed with my utter lack of trust, paranoia and bluntness, leaves the impression that I may be a bit schizo. I know a few of them still, mostly by meeting up with them in different circumstances recently, the rest are still doing the same shit they were doing 5 years ago (unless they are dead (2) or in jail (3 I think)), and its all bad. I have made some very very bad mistakes in my life too, dont get me wrong, i mean shit I could never make up for or even accept forgiveness for (and no Im not going to discuss it) so I dont want to stand above anyone as if Im flawless or even better than, Im just making an effort to separate myself from things counter productive to a healthy prosperous life.

I am self educated...if you can call it that. I did what I needed to do to learn what I wanted to learn. In some of the trades I learned I offered to work free for training, I have met some rather cool people in my life and did all I could to repay their kindness, some things are so valuable they cant ever be repaid adequately though.
I did take a course for home inspections, and had to pass some law courses (national and state but just on a specific subject) for what Im doing now. Thats the only formal training Ive put to work for myself. Im a very hard worker and I like helping people out, perhaps for self worth reasons…but you know, I think that’s just the world I want to live in. Having someone appreciate me the way I appreciated those who came to bat for me is pretty good motivation as well. I also have a pretty good sense of humor and keep the people around me laughing and I think that’s what makes people want to be around me...other than the fact that Im dead seksie. Life is good, and I am grateful. And when I get rid of my abundant character flaws (a work in progress) Ill be so totally awesome some one will build a statue of me, a nekkid one, with eagles and serpents and junk...that would rock.


My spelling was very poor when I came online, I mean horrible, I got flamed a lot and wasn’t net savvy at all. Just look at me now! I spell a bit better, can post a jpg and only get flamed half as much.
*looks in the mirror and says* “People like me and I’m a good person.”

So anyway, thats me in all its...err glory.
et vous?

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: NJ
Posts: 2300

I've always wanted to apologize for being a grammar nazi towards you. But, in my defense, your name was "HELLFIRE", and I thought you were a 16 year old goth kid, and I was just getting away from that, myself.
So...I'm sorry.
But I've learned stuff from you, and your life. I look at people differently now, and you played a part in that.
So...thanks. =)

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location:
Posts: 17517

quote:

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Originally posted by Spaceboy
But, in my defense, your name was "HELLFIRE",

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hahahahaha

yeah no shit, nicks in all caps = bad. I was a spaz and deserved it.

Im still a spaz at times, but I have redeeming qualities (just nod)

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Bangor, ME
Posts: 10322

Well I'm a military brat, I've lived in 6 different states and moved 8 times in 16 years. Grew up amoungst other military brats, so we were used to it. Loved Legos and all things technological. Commodore 64, Nintendo, Atari. on the commodore I messed around with BASIC programming, probably cause of the programs 3-2-1 Contact had at the end of their newsletter. Lots of fun. At 16 my dad retired and we left Hawaii, the last place he was stationed, drove across the US from one coast to the other. Ended up at my grandparents camp (Island Falls) cause it was summer then later at their house in Millinocket. Basically small towns suck, and didn't like a short (then) tanned half-breed. We moved to Bangor, ME. population was bigger, kids a mite short of pure ignorance. Bought pants cause in HI there wasn't need of them. Ridicule, blah, blah. Military kids they weren't. No need to hear whinging. I listened to hiphop before it became cool to be a wigger, derision abound. piercing your ears wasn't 'cool' back then. then i was a stoner, made friends with 90% of my class that were fellow stoners.
graduated, became a full time stoner. fucked off and drank a lot. many years later, still drink (cause now i'm an alcoholic) and still see the same small circle of my friends I made in high school. I smoked pot for years, was a lazy bum. I realized I was a drunk, and going back to school. Here I stand, for ridicule.

__________________

[Ignore Sig]

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location:
Posts: 17517

quote:

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Originally posted by Spaceboy
I've always wanted to apologize for being a grammar nazi towards you. But, in my defense, your name was "HELLFIRE", and I thought you were a 16 year old goth kid, and I was just getting away from that, myself.
So...I'm sorry.
But I've learned stuff from you, and your life. I look at people differently now, and you played a part in that.
So...thanks. =)

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Location Location
Posts: 26538

For the record, I always thought you were a really neat person phorbie (still do), even if I bait you sometimes (which I shouldn't do).

I'm not sure I understand what infinite 13 is though.

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Underneath GFY.....
Posts: 397

We work with a lot of foster children in our practice. We just hired a nurse practitioner and started a clinic for the kids in state custody. It is very sad and disturbing to read some of the cases.

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location:
Posts: 17517

quote:

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Originally posted by Paint CHiPs


I'm not sure I understand what infinite 13 is though.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: The Bottom of the Toyem Pole
Posts: 9478

Sorry to hear about your inspector's job going south, phorbs. You didn't mention what you are doing now though. Congrats on the big 13K.

I think you're a neat person, even though I think you are a bit rabid at times. I get more disappointed in you rather than upset when you attack me as you do, but I realize (or at least I rationalize) that it isn't me as much as it is you. I'm glad you're around here and do hope that you know that I don't bait you intentionally (PC is an asshole) and always engage you with honesty and integrity.

As for my autobiography...

Born in Montana, grew up in Idaho. I guess we were poor, but I never knew it. Small unfinished house, shared a room with my brother and sister. Had the best birthday parties in our huge yard. Tree house, rope swing, swimmin in the river, playing in the woods kind of childhood. Had a couple great friends and a bunch of not so great friends. (some of the great friends post here, one introduced me.)

Moved to Minnesota in high school. Had a blast in high school playing trumpet and acting. Made lots of friends. Worked McDonald's. Drove my grandma's old car.

Went to college for engineering, then biology, finally anthropology. Did an average amount of drugs (maybe more than average, but I'm not trying to brag or impress, just explain.) Came to Japan to get language credit for graduation and met my wife. Came back to Japan after getting my Master's degree and got my PhD. Had a daughter last fall. Am an assistant professor at a university in Japan. Mac user, and loving it.

I play bass too. Kind of.

Did I miss anything? I take way too many pictures with my digital camera.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: NJ
Posts: 2300

quote:

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Originally posted by euphorbia
oh yes, and where is your autobiography mr?

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35962

Good that you are here. The world needs more women who appreciate bald men.

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Registered: Oct 2002
Location: The Dark Side
Posts: 2275

Congrats on your 13k

I'm a brit from the north west of England. I was adopted out of Liverpool at about 6 weeks.
My parents got divorced before I knew my father and I hated my mother with a passion, however I owe everything I am today to the woman and for that I also have respect for her, but man she hurt when she punched and when that hurt her the belt took over, in retrospect I probably deserved most of what she dished.

As a kid we never lived anywhere for more than 2 to 3 years, my mother was a cook when posh families having them was fashioable.
My first real memories are of me running away from home when I was about 6 some time after my sister was born... I got to the end of the garden and hid in some bushes, it was a country estate and those bushes for a little one like me was a hell of a long way.
When I was 7 we buggered off to Spain to live. Not much to say about that other than I got my first broken nose when I fell of a swing and sat up, and I stabbed a kid in the leg with part of a roofing slate for pissing me off! Boarding school was fun I was away from my mother. I did one from hom a few times there too, furthest I got was just after my uncle and his family had been out for a visit... I made it to Malaga airport and tried to pretend I was his son and he left me behind by accident, well it seemed like a plan to me and I never figured on adults being a bit brighter than me.

We came back to the UK in 76', now that was fun watching all the poor people suffering in the heat.
It was now time for social service to take over and deal with the kid with behavioural problems, they could find little wrong with me, or our situation and refused to move me from the family home... bastards! They caved in when I was nearly 16 and took me into care in the town I live in now. I was in a older kids halfway section, the idea being to get us ready for life in the big wide world. I had an education of GCSE 7 passes and a fail (French). I did not see or speak to my mother until I sent her an invite to my wedding (I thought it was the right thing to do) She never showed but we did get a card from her a few weeks after.
We did end up meeting and did manage to communicate without trying to kill each other for a while, even when she had a pop at me for taking on a ready made family! (Julie has 2 boys). Soon after it was her 50th birthday, and at about this time I started for the company I work for now. Our first big purchase was a new TV and Video on credit we were in debt up to our eyeballs but I had just started work and it was time for a treat, I think it was somewhere round about £200. My sister and I thought we better take my mother out for a meal for her birthday and I bought her a watch. The meal went well and she loved the watch, until my sister told her the cost of it! They do say blood runs thicker than water. She sent it back with a letter in red ink announcing that if that was all I thought she was worth after all the money she spent on me over the years and yet I can go spend money on a new TV and Video then I could stick it... funny I thought it was the thought that counted. Not seen or spoken to her or my sister since, I hope they are very happy together.

I have had far too many jobs for my own good and hated all bar the one I have now, don't think I ever lasted for more than 12 months in any of them and usualy far less. I have been in the cosmetic trade for 11 years with this small company (4 of us) and with the retirement of the owner in the next 18 months 2 of us hope to buy it.

I can't say I am too popular with anyone I meet and all of my closest friends, except for my wife, started out as fights, I must have lost 66% of them
Those who do call me a friend are real friends and now advise anyone we meet to just give me time, once you get past the defences and see who me is I ain't all that bad, I blame my mother.

Julie and I met in 88' in a bar and i asked her out for a drink, she refused.
Some time later I was homeless and needed a place to crash, she was seeing on of my friends and I asked her if I could crash for a while in her spare room, she agreed. It was near christmas and her mother came to stay so i was demoted to the sofa... I did the door at a club on christmas eve and it all blew up when the place got raided over drugs, I was a mess when I got home and Julie cleaned me up, we got together on New Years day after taking her mother to watch a local band. Her ex, my mate had been babysitting. He was not happy when we got home and told him... another scrap! This one ended by Julies mother after we were prised apart. Her mother had just one thing to say to me before she went home the next day! "Just think If you had got round to it sooner you would not have had to sleep on the sofa now would you" and then she smiled, that kind of sealed it and we were married 8 months later. She is just cool.
The best thing I ever did in my whole shitty life was born the following April.

I have just one wish in life... To live long enough to see her happy and hear her kids call me Grandad!

As to the rest of it... Fuck it!

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Registered: Nov 2003
Location: .
Posts: 8091

I was born the son of a bricklayer into a family of 14 with me being the youngest. Mother said for the first eighteen months of my life I would not stop screaming and that the only way she could silence me was with alcohol and long blow backs from what she had just inhaled from her bong. My father was a hard worker and ran his own building company with a deaf and dumb carpenter and a very large one armed plasterer from Wales called Paddy Flynn.


Life was good until mother ran away with the jailer from the local magistrates court (she was bailing my father out for his umpteenth assault charge. He was also a doorman) and hijacked my arse (out of the whole family she took only me) to go and live in the wilderness that is Woodbury Salterton in Devon. I was 14. Me, my mother and the filth went to live in a small village with just 200 residents and more cows than you can imagine (the smell was awful). The only cool thing about it was that my mother bought/owned the local store and post office.

I don’t think I’ll ever forgive my mother, for I was dragged kicking and screaming from London, away my father, my brothers and sisters and all that I loved, only to be flung into an alien environment full of inbred carrot crunching moronic sheep shagging country folk.

It was at this point I rebelled.

I was sent to Exmouth Community College one of the largest comprehensives in the country. My time there was very short and it was at this place I first heard the word ‘Twat’. Relishing this new found word I just about called everyone I talked to that day a twat. This did not go down with some very well and when I called the deputy head a twat I was dragged in front of the head master and placed on report. I had gained a reputation and everything just about went downhill from there. Eventually I was show the door for continual fighting, general uncouthness and for showing the Devon girls how to use contraception and the great dividends and pleasures to be gained from sex education.

The day I was expelled was the day I made a bolt back to London.

At 16 I went to work with the old man and learnt my building skills.

At 18 I discovered drugs, drum-machines and warehouse parties and until the age of 28 everything that happened in that 10 year period is just a blur. I remember taking my first E. It felt like I had just taken a leap from a very large building and I just kept on falling and falling not knowing when I was going to hit the floor. I did look a sight fleeing the party and running after an ambulance on Cold Harbour Lane in Brixton at three in the morning thinking I was going to suffocate and die. I loved it.

That’ll do for now. I’m not giving you fuckers anymore than that.

And anyway some things are best left unsaid.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35962

Way to make limeys look like shifty lowlife.

And Czeck hasn't even posted yet.

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Registered: Nov 2003
Location: .
Posts: 8091

Lowlife! LOWLIFE!! Don't blame the kid, blame the parents.

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location:
Posts: 17517

Good stories Cockney, SubSonic and Nute. Thanks for sharing those.


Cockney, the first foster family I was in I had 11 foster brothers and sisters. I really liked living in a big family. It was hard when I had to leave and they weren’t even my real ones. I cant imagine what it was like for you,. In my case though the foster family was just a temporary placement though even though I lived there for a year and a half but they had to try and get me adopted before got too old. I think that was the end of my ability to feel like apart of a family. I was also involved in drugs and the club scene. but that’s one of the subjects I’m not going to talk about . You sound like somewhat of a badass.

SubSonic, I also had a problem @ longevity with jobs. I think what you said about your grandchildren is beautiful. Kudos guy.
My wish is also that my children are happy, healthy and productive members of their society. Good luck on your upcoming business endeavor. I enjoyed running my own business.

Nutrimentia You deserve props for what you’ve accomplished. I think the main reasons I get so mad at you is because what you said I either find insulting or looking out on ourselves as in the west I tend to get the feeling that I am watching a friend go back to her abusive drug addict boyfriend over and over, making the same stupid mistakes over and over, you political views remind me of that a lot of the times, some of them are just unreasonable and reek of meritless contempt of the type that tend to proliferate in the “academic” arena.. You also tend to come off as really pompous at times. Which I think someone pointed out to you, that was the only thing in his rant I agreed with though. You have a beautiful child though and will probably positively touch many lives (Though I hope you don’t become one of those politically driven professors with your students and stick to facts and such).

Last edited by euphorbia on 04-18-2004 at 02:46 PM

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: seattle-ish
Posts: 11779

Very good stories, everyone. I love to read these kinds of things about your lives.
I've had a lot of negative things happen in my life; but at the moment, I don't feel like writing about them.
I'll just say that I love both my parents(regardless of some of the problems my mother has caused me). She has also done a lot for me that's positive.
My father and I have never gotten into an argument. he and I get along extremely well..though we don't talk often(about once a week or so).
My grandmother and aunt(both people are on my mother's side of the family) have been very influential in my life, as well. Both are always there for me; and give advice, without being pushy or judgemental.
I don't know anyone in my father's family, besides him. Both of his parents died when I was young.

I've always been drawn to the arts.. wanted to be an artist(like my father) or a vocalist for the majority of it all. I still want to be a vocalist, but don't have the time to invest in it at the moment. I was in a punk band when younger, but decided years ago that I would like to sing blues and/or jazz instead.

I have a 6 year old son who is the light of my life. I try to encourage him to be/do anything he wants, regardless of income potential or status. At the moment, he says he would like to be a teacher. He's smart, quirky, and funny.

I went to college for Fire Science a few years ago, and am currently in a tech school for computers. I graduate in 3 weeks.
I don't plan on doing anything with it, however.
I've never really had any STRONG desire to do anything besides sing. So, I find it hard to make myself choose a career besides that. I also have learned to play harmonica, electric and acoustic guitar, piano, keyboard, and drums(barely). I don't know how to read music.. have tried and can't comprehend it. I play everything by ear.
I currently work in my grandmother's salon, as a make-up artist & such. I don't really enjoy doing it, but it allows me a freedom I wouldn't get in a normal job.
I have considered many avenues for the future, just in case. One of which is a nutrition/health store. One was opening a bookstore(or small independent music store). I think the first is probably the best option, with the most potential, but I want to wait a few years(to make sure it's what I really want). From what I've seen/heard at my grandmother's salon, there would be/is a great interest in it, and woud probably do well in that area. I already give plenty of free advice, tips, make sample menus for some of her customers.
Eventually(again, if music doesn't work out), I would like to own a small farm, in one of the more remote areas around here. Regardless, I plan to eventually move out into the country. I've always loved my grandmother's house(it's in the middle of nowhere).. remote, quiet, surrounded by woods, creeks, and open sky.
I currently live with my son and my boyfriend(who is also my best friend). We're all moving to a new place in 2 weeks.. much quieter neighbourhood, in a hidden part of the city. We've been planning the move since February, and I can't wait to get it over with.

and now I'm drawing a blank.

*hits submit*

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location:
Posts: 17517

quote:

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Originally posted by karen
snippy

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I say you buy a karaoke machine, learn how to work it really well and do rounds in a few local bars. You could make money doing it and you would need to sing to fill in spaces when so one wants to go up. They might find your fantastic voice a bit intimidating though. Just call me when you are doing it and Ill go on right after you lower the bar
Hey you could get discovered…but in the least you’d be doing something you enjoyed and were good at. It would be an ideal second part time job too…unless you got into a position where you were making the money full time. I know I tip the karaoke dj really well when I make requests and junk. You could call it Karaoke with Karen!

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