Thadea's Big Red Blog

3/3/02 -- 10:41pm CST
I have seen the greasey bottom of the human soul. No it is not major evil but a swill of hypocrisy and self-absorption that has flowed like a fetid sewer into my inbox. "Well you made your bed Thadea," my husband, Jacob tells me. Now enjoy the smelly sheets.

Five months ago I started site fighting. I've been at it since summer if I count my misadventure with Little Dragon Castle. I carry 150 fighters on an exchange list that goes six pages long. I send out reminders to 150 fighters. I don't mind the clerical work.

I do mind when other fighters who have grown tired throw me away like a used snot rag. I was only good to trade votes with and when they tire of the game, they tire of me. This was supposed to be for friendship and fun. I got used.

A few weeks ago, I realized that Haldis who wanted to see fighting done so she could join in, can never fight. We watched a new competition called Seven Wonders of the World fill up with all the old familiar faces, all the fighters in three and four competitions. How can a raw newbie compete as anything else except cannon fodder? I remember my first humiliating defeats. Somehow I stayed with it. By the time, Haldis' lists mature enough for her to have any luck, she will be facing her AP exams, which are like college finals only more brutal. Haldis as a fighter would be a guppy amongst sharks.

Then this weekend I learned that the game is rigged. No, my competition and the ones who score it are honest, and the fighters with fantastic scores are just looking out for number one. There is nothing wrong with that. It has taken me a while to learn that the top scoring fighters all vote for one another. This collusion is a fact of life and there are vote exchange boards to help it along. Those who take their campaigns seriously are willing to be put in the "Garden of Shame" when they can't vote for everyone on the board.

All right, none of what I described so far is unfair. I ought to quit complaining and join one of those vote exchange boards. OK, so I set out to join the biggest and best in the business. It's called, ironically enough, Open Door. They only take 100 fighters. They did not take me. I am wait listed. Now I could recruit many of those fighters directly so again why am I complaining? I can't recruit those fighters directly. Most only vote on their boards. They and their votes are off-limits to newcomer Thadea. They will also be off-limits to newcomers Haldis and maybe Orelle, my aunt, who does fantastic coding and graphics.

Well web site competitions were never merit based. They are contests of hustling votes, but with the largest boards dominated by old time fighters and off-limits to the likes of me, the playing field is no longer level. Maybe it never has been.

Now it gets even worse. On several of my lists a letter lists a letter circulated asking fighters to send snail mail to block a convicted murderer's appeal of his sentence (not his verdict). We, the know-nothing vote exchangers, would keep this man from having his day in court where competent witnesses could be heard and a learned judge decide. I complained on all of my vote exchange/chat lists. There were a few unfavorable letters and within less than a day, the whole thread vanished.

I wasn't even run off the lists! No one even suggested I unsubscribe! The fighters on those lists were too busy screaming "vote for me! vote for me!" and "I voted for you!" to care. A young man who complained of the high noise to signal ratio on one of these lists was accused of being mean and treated like dirt. Tonight I cleaned out 750k composed of four letters from one fighter. I sent her my amazing bloated mailbox award.

I am amongst the most hypocritical and self absorbed people I have ever met. My favorite example is winning in the Tower at the Wizard's Quest right now. She says her site is to "increase awareness" about child abuse. Hmmmm, are there people who have not watched TV, read books, or looked at a newspaper in the past twenty years? We all know there is such thing as child abuse and that it happens and that it is bad and that it is against the law.

What purpose does this site serve? First it gets votes. Second, it gives the owner attention and makes her special. In other words, it allows her to reap secondary gain from her suffering. Suffering by itself makes no one special. Suffering is the lot of all humanity. If you enjoy telling the tale of your suffering in front of an audience, or better yet, if you find an audience who confers special status on you for that suffering, that is called secndary gain. Secondary gain is self-serving if not selfish, especially when it masquerades as an unquestionable good deed.

Of course when I write to this blog, it is my hope that I get attention. The same is true when I regale LOTH tidbits with a tale or ask a question there. I am honest with myself. I have wanted attention, friendship, belonging, recognition. I also have a naturally competitive nature. I want to win. That is why I site fought, but I am honest about my needs. I don't pretend altruism.

Now I am not so sure I care. It has taken me five months to reach Bronze at the Golden Elite. Tonight I thought about not sending out reminders. I am utterly burnt out. I did send reminders and I voted today for BOTA and Bards of Fortune fighters and even a topsite or two. Why? Because somewhere at the start of all this there was a fighter who responded to a personal letter from Sahara Elite. Maybe she was more innocent than I am now, but she joined a competition and promised to exchange votes with other real people behind other websites. Vote exchange is about real people and promises. If I forget that than I have not only sampled the filthy muck at the bottom of human nature, I have let myself drown in it.

Tonight I enter Bronze at the Golden Elite, covered in slime. The victory I sought all winter is pyhrric. I got where I am because I beat a newbie. She is a campaigning newbie. She made it to my round because she beat another newbie who was so burned out from more experienced fighters rolling over her, she had stopped participating. We have another marginal fighter in our round who is going to get clobbered and a fighter who is on the Open Door board, is going to in turn beat me. If by some chance I make a good showing and move on, I doubt it will have the good feeling I thought winning would have.

And this is where it ends. Win, lose, or get disqualified, it is all the same to me. Somewhere I made a wrong turn. Don't follow where I have gone. I have to cast my votes and I will cast them. I will pay for my fun; for once it was fun. It is not fun any more.

2/25/02 -- 10:29am CST
I work second shift today which means I'll be down in the morgue. I hope and pray there wasn't a car crash this weekend because I don't care for mutilated dead bodies. This is ironic since I am the one who makes the first incision, but an incision is neat and neatly sewn up at the end. I really feel for those forensic workers in Georgia who are handling all those decomposed remains.

We are shortstaffed at work because Sherrie, whose first year this is in our operation, is pregnant and now afraid to do autopsies while there is new life growing inside her. I tried to talk her out of this decision and so did my boss pointing to me as the shining example of a nonsperstitious tech. Sherrie still took her unpaid leave so things downstairs are going to be crazy.

Being pregnant never made me squeamish. They did send someone from psych to talk to me a bit because they had never had a pregnant tech before in the morgue but we all got used to it. It's the same work whether there's a fetus there and fresh flesh is safer for the growing baby, then fixatives and chemicals used upstairs. Well this means I'll be voting whenver it gets slow and I can sneak upstairs.

There are days I think I provide amusement for my colleagues, especially the guys and the physicians. Thadea, the computer weenie tech, jack of all trades, and now fighting fool. Over my computer or the one I end up sharing, hangs a banner featuring a running skeleton in a track suit and the words "Go Thadea!" Sometimes a colleague brings me coffee from the break room. He is careful to lace it with plenty of honey and milk. Yes, someone went out and replenished the honey supply. I am not supposed to have caffeine, but am grateful for the lift the brew gives me. They want to see me, go, go, go. They also want to see me drop, drop, drop. There's a pool here at work to see how long I can stand it. I simply refuse to give up.

The person you fight against is yourself. If you say you can't cast a hundred votes a day, guess what? You can't. If you decide you are going to find a way to do it. You will. I added seventeen new supporters this weekend and lost six. That's a net gain of eleven. I have to do better than that but I am a third of the way to my goal of one hundred and fifty. Eventually I take on the board fighters and hit the brick wall. Is that when I'll quit? I don't know how I'll feel about returning to the team ballot again after higher levels. I am almost afraid to find out.

Oh well....my girls have gotten a thing for spring flowers. They keep going over to the Cahill's property and looking at the foundation. " Are the crocuses up yet?" Caltha keeps asking. I keep telling her, they won't be up for another three or four weeks. She asked me to show it to her on a calendar since they have a calendar at her school. She is in pre-K and they are talking about gifted and talented classes on top of kindergarten (It's a pull out program) next year. Caltha asked if they'd pull her out during art. She likes to draw. I have nothing against gifted and talented because I figure Caltha might meet some interesting kids and it may stimulate her to work harder. Oh well...all of this is a way off.

The biggest and saddest thing for Caltha next year will be being away from her sister again. The kindergarten is full day like the pre-K so she will only see Typha in the afterschool program and the five year olds are big kids and housed in a different set of rooms. Caltha is the kid who did not want a room of her own and who gets angry at the adults when we tell her that Typha, her little sister, is "too little" for one thing or another. At five and two the age difference between the girls is immense. I can't remember being this close to my younger sisters and Jacob's brother is four years older than he is and while they were close, it wasn't like this either. Oh well.... time to get back to work.

1/17/02 -- 5:27pm CST
Let me capture the moment. How do I describe the way I feel. My lab mates can see it in my eyes. They have enough sense not to cast votes for me. How does it feel? It hurts.

On the outside, I am seated at the computer with the voting list, ticking off the ballot box URL's as I vist them and cast a vote. I cast about seventy to eighty votes per day. I do it when I can as I can in shifts. There are eight competitions out there where I support fighters. The sites load fairly well on the lab's connection, but voting is lonely, dreary, monotonous work.

Why do it? You think I would ask, but I am past the point of questioning. I know that when I start out at the top of the list or when I am recruiting supporters for vote exchange for my site at Golden Elite that this is important. I taste the joy of competition and the power of knowing that these folks will vote for me when I come off hold.

And no, being on hold does not have to do with why this hurts. I know in two weeks I'll be up against Wendy's World of Richard Marx and this time she will not roll over me as easily as before. The thought of a grudge match against a really tough opponent sustains me.

Actually inertia is what sustains me, that and imagination. I close my eyes and see myself rippling with sinewy muscles sheathed loosely in a mint green nylon sweat suit the color of my web page and adorned with a silk screen of my name spelled out in asparagus. I am lean and athletic as befits a fighter whose numbers when she fights are better than 90% of teh fighters who are in competitions where numbers are available. Many fighters of course only get zero or one vote per day and others get only a handful. With thirty plus votes per day I am up in the big leagues and one of the best. That is a statement of fact. There are better fighters but I can name them.

My prowess comes from daily running that vote exchange gauntlet. If you want votes you give votes. Compliance is about 40-50% and it goes down the size and age of your supporter list. Attrition happens and you replace the fighters who leave.

It is at times like these, that I consider walking away, but walking away from being this good, and this strong, and this hurting will leave a different kind of hole and a new kind of pain. I have seen fighters on some of my website competition lists burn out. I have seen tempers fray and fighters snap at one another. It can get very ugly. We are all hurting and the only way out is to leave a big hole where a success once was. To leave the pain is to leave the success. That is the cruel calculus of being in any website competition.

So why do I do this? It didn't start out hurting and there are times when victory is worth the pain invovled. I am not ready to drop in my tracks. I close my eyes and see myself covered with dust and streaked with sweat. I have run my race. I collapse in the sun with the other runners who have gone from competition to competition to cast ballots. There are middle aged ladies, mothers, daughters, fat ones, skinny ones. We say nothing because in the end we have nothing to say. Tomorrow we will need to do it all again.

11/28/01 -- 5:15pm CST
We have been in the new house four eight days! We moved all at once and Haldis did not have to spend any nights alone. At the time we moved, both Haldis and Caltha, my oldest daughter were ill with a nasty viral sore throat. Thanksgiving dinner consisted of Manhattan style fish chowder, cous-cous, salad, assorted fresh and canned fruits and juice. Neither of the two invalids could have faced traditional fare.

I enjoy taking my daughters shopping. If I take my oldest daughter we do a lot of "discussing purchases" and I do a lot of saying no. Still it's fun to have the company. Typha, my younger daughter, just likes the change of scene. We were in the local large mall two days after Thanksgiving and there he was -- SANTA.

I hadn't counted on him. There was a long line of adults and children waiting patiently to see him, and Caltha, my oldest, of course wanted to get in the line. I sighed. It looked like half an hour's wait. I explained that seeing Santa was not free. They charged for a picture. Caltha said "maybe we can see Santa without the picture."

I ansswered: "we can't."

Caltha inquired "did you ask?"

I hadn't so I asked and sure enough we could see Santa without the photo and I was on the line eating crow. I hoped the girls would get bored but Caltha really wanted to see that man in a red suit. I wondered if she'd want repeat visits every time we came in the mall between now and Christmas since we now knew that visits to Santa were free. I imagined Jacob finding himself standing in line with the girls. I imagined the conversation. "You saw Santa last week." "Yes, but there's no law against seeing him again. He loves children."

This was amusing and the girls were pretty well behaved. The line moved forward. I decided to lecture Caltha on the fact that money was tight and there would be no big expensive presents from daddy or me this year. "We are going to buy a house and it is very expensive." Blah blah blah. Caltha listened. Typha is too young to care. I wanted Caltha to know that begging Santa for a big ticket item was only going to lead to disappointment. "The house is a Christmas present isn't it, mommy?"" said Caltha. I smiled.

We got closer. Then the big moment arrived. I told the lady at the counter we weren't getting a picture. My girls just really wanted to see Santa. In they went, Typha holding her big sister, Caltha's hand. They both sat on Santa's lap. Typha was too tongue tied to say anything. I did catch what Caltha said though. Here it is.

"My mommy says I can't ask you for anything because I have to ask her for the Christmas presents." Santa blinked. He said something about helping mommies and daddies everywhere. "Yes, but we are going to buy a house," Caltha announced. Santa congratulated her. "Santa," said Caltha. "Will you visit the refugees?"

I had not expected that and neither unfortunately had Santa. "What refugees?" he asked his face no longer looking so merry under his fake white beard.

"The ones in the camps in Pakistan," Caltha reminded him. "They used to live in Afghanistan but now they live in tents and they are hungry and cold."

Santa to his credit said he visited all the girls and boys and then he said there were other children waiting in line. Caltha climbed down from his lap. That was when I noticed the floorwalker standing nervously behind me.

"Ma'am," he began. "Santa is here to make children happy and to give parents a family moment they can share. We don't appreciate you putting your children up to a political stunt."

"Look," I answered. "I had no idea what Caltha would say. I don't prescript my children's conversations." I was not going to apologize for my child. "She must have heard something at home. Don't you think it's good that a child is concerned about others?"

The floorwalker blinked. "Children aren't supposed to talk political issues wtih Santa," said the floorwalker whose name is Duane. "It disturbs the other parents. Please don't let it happen again."

I nodded. I also decided to write a letter of complaint about rude treatment to mall management when Caltha piped up. "I think you're a mean man!" I wanted to laugh. On the way home I found out that it was Haldis who told Caltha about the refugees. She and Jacob were talking and Caltha overheard. She asked what a refugee was. Of course Caltha is right about the refugees deserving a visit from Santa. It just won't be the Santa who's an employee of that mall.

10/29/01 -- 6:37pm CDT I am taking a break from painting. Most of the walls have second coats on them and the furniture painting will start as long as the weather holds. That is done in shorter spurts and most of it is Haldis'. That means it will need four coats since it will match her walls.

In the middle of all this my younger daughter, Typha, age twenty-one months came down sick with a raging viral sore throat. Children's motrin keeps the pain somewhat at bay and the kid actually naps. She sleeps as if drugged. She also contaminates the entire apartment. Because she is stll a kid that walked at seven months of age, her spittly little hands are everywhere and her spittly little face and body are all over the couch where Haldis sleeps. She is a walking spreader of contagion. We are just waiting for this deadly crud to incubate in the rest of us. Hopefully the painting will be done before the crud claims one of us.

Typha sleeps like the dead. She also has a weird startle reflex when awakened. Around midnight, Haldis came home from sanding. Her hands were chapped, raw, and bleeding. She was also beat both mentally and physically. She had taken a break to study at the new house for its quiet, but now she wanted to sleep. There was one problem. Typha was snoring away on Haldis' couch.

I picked up Typha as gently as I knew how. I got her about four steps across the floor when she opened her eyes in stark terror and let out a piercing shriek followed by more howls and wails. This is not a temper tantrum. Typha just freaks when being awakened from deep slumber.

I am sure Typha's noises awakened the neighbors. They also awakened her older sister, Caltha, age four. Caltha appeared in the nursery doorway face blazing with anger and said words unrepeatable becuase I am in website competition. Yes, my four year old knows how to cuss. There I stood with arms full of shrieking toddler confronting a cussing preschooler and flanked by a tired adolescent.

I had to think fast. "Caltha," I said. "Haldis has boo-boos all over her hands. Go in the kitchen and she'll show them to you. Don't you want to see her boo-boos?" Haldis' knuckles are cracked and bleeding from sanding furniture in an unheated garage. Haldis held up her hands to show Caltha the goods, and Caltha scampered into the kitchen to inspect the fantastic array of boo-boos.

I took Typha into the nursery where Jacob and I tried to calm her down. This takes about half an hour. I turned on the tape player which is as much for me as for my daughter. Jacob sat next to Typha and patted her hair. She bunched up her legs and refused to look at either of us since we had both robbed her of sound sleep.

Eventually Typha was calm enough for us to put her to bed and I came back into the kitchen where Haldis had made she and Caltha hot lemonade. Haldis said her throat feels parched. I tried not to look at her hands. She went to school this morning with bandaids wrapped around her knuckles. She has no more sanding to do thankfully. I told Jacob if he watches the girls tonight, NOT to let Typha fall asleep on Haldis' couch, but make her go to her own bed in the nursery. I don't want to have to move her again.

10/23/01 -- 10:53pm CDT     The big news is that my family and I are getting a house! We are painting the inside now and get four months rent free for our sweat equity startinng in November. We should be out of the apartment and into the new place between Thanksgiving and the first of the year. Painting this late in the season requires good weather, something we haven't had this week.

At the new house, Haldis will be able to walk to and from school. This is good since walking seems to relax her perpetually raw nerves. Haldis may never be able to drive due to poor eye sight but she has no trouble getting arounnd on foot or using public transportation. I hoped we could get a garden in at the new house which we are planning to buy in the spring, but it is almost too late in the fall to order and plant decent bulbs. We'll do vegetables and flowers this spring from seed and in the fall we'll plant our first bulbs. And yes -- some of them will be Asiatic lillies like the ones that adorn this blog.

10/23/01 -- 10:48pm CDT     OK, this page came up as a way to prevent some teenage boys who hang out in the computer lab from setting out on the road to "dumb male-hood." My niece, Haldis, showed the boys my web site and they were showing her their blogs. Of course they had to start complaining about my free space provider.

It must be a "dumb male" thing wanting egg in their beer and every bell and whistle even when there remains a direct and simple way to do what you want. The boys said: "Your mother is chintzy and has a cheap webspace provider that won't let her have a blog because she can't FTP...." I told Haldis of course I can have a blog. Freewebz.com has an online editor. It is the boys who think they are so hot because they can resort to fancy softwaare. We ladies with our cheapie web sites can do just as well if not better.