24 June, 1997

Javina's Journal is gone. She posted her last entry today. I don't want her to go. I want to be selfish and nasty and throw a great big fit on the floor. I want to take turns with her as This Week's Most Depressing Diarist. I'll even let her have the good weeks!

_{I don't want to be alone.}

I really am taking the loss of Javina's journal hard. It isn't Javina herself, though. She could be most anyone, and I'd still feel this way. It isn't often that I actually find people I like. When they leave — especially if I've not yet screwed up the courage to tell them that I think they're terrific — it just kills me. I guess I oughtn't be surprised; I have "Day late and a dollar short" etched on my heart.

For a little while, I forgot my own creed: Don't expect anything and you'll never be disappointed. I guess some idealistic splinter of me expected I'd become her friend. I'm really too stupid for words to begin to describe.

Fractal Design Painter 5.0.1 (yes, that is the correct version number, now get over it) arrived UPS this afternoon. I used my graphic pen and played with it so long, I was nauseous. That pen does it to me every time. I've fussed with the settings, how it tracks across the screen, the sensitivity. No luck. It makes me...well...motion sick. Painter 5.0.1 (can I rub it in, or what?), on the other hand, makes me drool like a pup in heat for the first time. Whoohoo. I cannot believe I've been suffering PhotoShop's severely limited drawing functions as long as I have. Yeah yeah, bite me; I don't have Illustrator, and I refuse to set my discerning eyes anywhere near Paint Shop Pro. Can you say, "Spoilt Brat?"

Painter (and the Peanut Gallery choruses, "Five-dot-Oh-dot-One") isn't the only new toy at Chez Gage. I done bought me a copy of Kai's Photo Soap, I did. Yum sums it up nicely. I snatched four childhood pix from Cara's pages to use as guinea pigs while I learned the programme. Removed every trace of discolouration, every scratch, all the "red eye," all the fuzziness. Restored to vibrant colour I'm not entirely sure was there to begin with. Early 60s snapshots, you know. Showed Mum what I'd done, and she instantly set me to work on some ancient pictures of me (oh gawd, oh lord, i'm older than the dirt under my nails). Not that hard, and all the fotos turned out spiff.

So, while I was helping myself to Cara's pictures, an idea for a total site makeover plopped right into my head. No, not for Backstory; I'm finished screwing with the layout of this site for a while. Cara's site, on the other hand, needs an eleemosynary (I had to use it some time) Auntie to visit on alternating Sundays, feed it candy, pinch its dumpling cheeks, and send it home with lots of noisy toys. I am that Auntie.