Can I bum a cigarette.....

So I left off with Nikki on my adventures of the world wide webtv. Man I loved that thing. But what sucked was that I had one. For the whole house. One little webtv and keyboard. Granted Brat was a baby so she didn't need it. But me and Grumpy sharing? Let's put it this way....we don't have a table right now, but there are 3 computers in our house. We DO.NOT.SHARE.

So I ventured out of that newbie chat room for webtv and I discovered a whole new world. I tried going in the local room but man were there a bunch of jackasses there. So I kept exploring. Then late one night I found a nifty little room called Happily Married. What an oxymoron. Seriously.

This group was a crazy bunch of folks. But they were welcoming and friendly. I didn't know when I started there that there were 3 distinct groups. The late night group which is who I first met. The morning group. And the daytime group. Very few people crossed over. You were among one group.

Well my first interaction was the late night group. So that's where I stayed for the most part. I introduced Grumpy to it and he became as attached to this room as I did.

I did crossover though. I became one of "those people". I ventured into various hours of the day.

Looking back I wonder what attracted me to most of those people. They weren't exactly normal. Or sane. Which may be the answer to my question. For a time in my life, I felt I couldn't do without them. Funny to think about now as I talk to very few of them on any kind of basis.

But we had cyber weddings, truth or dare, cybering...though that was part of truth or dare most times....a newsletter that grumpy started and I took over and redid and then it fizzled. I mean it was a whole life that existed in this little black box.

But nothing will ever make me forget that one day. I was out of cigarettes and money wasn't there for more. I was needing one bad. And I was chatting about it. And how bad I needed a cigarette. When this newbie that I didn't even know offered me a cyber cigarette. Well hell if it worked for weddings and divorces why the hell wouldn't it work for smoking. So we started talking.

That was 10 years ago. My daughters whole life time almost. And she is STILL my best friend. We talk daily. We know everything about each other. We've been through separations, divorces, babies, jobs, lack of jobs, good stuff, bad stuff. We've never met. Though I swear we will someday. But if I thought Nikki was a friend....Well that was NOTHING compared to this.

No matter how many times we've moved, no matter who was or wasn't in our lives...it never changed anything. When I lived at my grandmas, we sat up all night on the phone thanks to five dollar calling cards and watched CMT. When I travelled back and forth....we talked the whole way. She's the sole reason I got a headset for my cell phone. When Brat was diagnosed Bipolar it was her that I went to. No matter what it is...I know I can talk to her. Just ask her. Just the other night we discussed the inside of a vagina. Please don't ask.

I'm going to copy and paste what she said when we were discussing this very thing. It says it way better than I ever could.

"imagine, we always have someone somewhere, who weve never even met, but we always worry about one another and keep in touch no matter how crazy life is, through a billion moves and life changes weve been there for eachother, even without ever having met face to face....without the internet, neither of us would be who we are, and a lot of it was because of our friendship, as we walked eachother through the bad spots and rooted the other on through the good spots
in my entire life, Ive never had a friend thats lasted as long as you, and we can talk about anything, without shame or judgement"

That my friends is the truest friendship I've ever known.

And no matter what else happens in life. How we might lose touch for a while. We always find each other. And we always have 89. Aliens. And sooo much more.

Love ya Lynn!

The tried and true fitness plan

It's hard to believe as I write this that its been almost 10 years since I discovered the internet...10 years...almost my daughter's entire lifetime. And here I sit...hooked as always.

It was a summer day in Wisconsin when I first ventured online. I was of the poor variety, so my first taste test was on a webtv. For those who do not know what that is....feel lucky. It hooks up to your tv and phone line. You pay a monthly fee and you get internet access. Not full fledged computer access. Pages had to webtv friendly. And you could not download anything. There was no hard drive. But oh how I loved that webtv.

I ventured into a webtv for beginners chat room and that started what would ultimately change my life.

In that chat room I met Nikki. I'm using her real name because if for some reason she ever found this blog, I'd love to hear from her.

Nikki was purely awesome. We clicked almost right away and we chatted constantly. Nikki loved to dance and was going through a divorce. Her theme song was Believe by Cher. We created our own infomercial. Yes I'm a dork and I'm about to prove it.In our chatting we truly discovered the use of the acronym LMAO. But it struck us one day....can you REALLY laugh your ass off?

That's the beginning of our informercial. It was called Laugh Your Ass Off with Nikki. We had our speech down pat. What better way to lose weight than to do so laughing??

If it were indeed possible, I would have had the flattest ass in America. Because Nikki truly kept me laughing.

One day I was lucky enough to be traveling through Knoxville, and Nikki happened to live in Knoxville. So we met at a Waffle House. It was my one brief meeting with her. And she was just as awesome in person.

Somehow over the years Nikki and I lost touch. I ventured on to other chat rooms. One that would become a staple in my life for several years. I met other people both online and off. But I will always remember Nikki.

When I look back and picture those early days of internet, I imagine Nikki dancing around her house to Believe while talking to me on the phone.

And hopefully today she is sitting somewhere laughing her ass off.