Well... I accidentally deleted all my photos from my blog! It was about the time I purchased a "smart phone", or shorty thereafter. All of a sudden, in order to go online with my phone, it starts linking up this, linking up that, creating new accounts, making new passwords, and even... get this... changed my google account's main email address to the freaking new one I had to have to make them happy, when setting up my smart phone... gmail, which I never use, btw. A long time ago, someone sent me a link to "google circles" ... I accepted, but never really hang out there, there just isn't anything happening. But, unbeknownst to me, anyone in my circle (there were a couple or three) can link up to my google profile... the one that I created eons ago, when I first started blogging(I know, sounds like a no-brainer, right?). Which would be ok, accept that I found out, quite by mistake... and glad that I did... that every single photo I ever posted on my personal blog, had made it's way into a photo gallery in my google account that, now, apparently, anyone else can view. Yikes! Another thing happened, quite unexpectedly, as well, and that's that all those same pictures, several hundred to be exact, had now shown up in my "stupid" phone... and no matter how hard I try, they just can't seem to be removed. Which is how I came to accidentally delete them all from my blog! Actually, it was while trying to figure out the answer to that mystery, that I stumbled upon the photo gallery, online, that contained all those same photos. Aha! I found you out! All my lovely, and not so lovely, photographs secretly hiding away in some unknown gallery that I knew nothing of. It seemed not quite fair. Not that there was anything to hide, but I like having choices, and deciding with whom I want to share what. So then, my long time blog is ruined... set to nothing... now the story, there, is not over. Yahoo, the account where I receive notifications for this blog, kept asking me, suggesting to me, that maybe I might want to change my password, it was just a suggestion, but my password didn't seem too safe, it may be easily compromised... well, hell no, thank you very much, I cared nothing to change it. It was the 2nd oldest of my email accounts, and if I wanted to change it, I would. And I did not! But, they kept on and on and on.. and began blocking access to my blog, making it near impossible to get there, without bending to their will. I found ways to sneak in the back door, for a while... but they soon caught on to that, until finally I had no choice, if I wanted to access my blog. I changed the damn password! I changed two freaking digits. Oh, good! Congratulations! You've just changed your password! ... and now it's gonna way safer? I think not. They also screwed up my YouTube. I can't tell you how many times they asked didn't I want to chaaaaange my user name to my "real" name... No! I do not! First of all, who the f#$&s business is it, at YouTube, what my real name is? If I wanna be AlwaysShinze, because it gave me the choice, way back when, then leave me alone! And I never did change that one... but guess what? All of a sudden my password wouldn't work. And whhhhwwwy wouldn't it work? Because, you see, they assigned, to my YouTube, the new password that I gave to the new email account, that was forced on me, and that they forced onto my google account, as my main email account. Oh sure, I can log in to it with my old email... but I have to use the new gmail password... and yeah, if I want, I can log on with my gmail account. But I don't want to! It probably won't be long before AlwaysShinze bites the dust, going the way of Shinze, Winged One, Sun Glider, Moon Walker, Sunny Blue, Hobbit, Golden Feather, Little Wing, Grasshopper... and, god forbid, shimmerrings. Now, I'm sure there's a logical explanation for all of this, and, most likely, I was informed of this in all the tiny print that no one ever reads, so that would make it my fault. And, most likely, all those photos had been in that google gallery for a long time, and I had never known? Would make sense, given that, when I belonged to MSN Communities, I actually could click on a link, that would allow me to see every pic I had posted online... because, you see, we were given only x-amount of megabytes... ha! ha! megabytes! ... but, back then, nobody else could see it, but me. I don't like all this "connecting". If I did, I wouldn't have two separate kind of accounts. One with my real name (and that took a long time coming) and one with the name I'd prefer to be known as, when I am sharing with those whom I do not know, personally... or, when I care not to have non-cyber friends or family access things, online, which I may consider to be private. Oh yeah, I once googled my user name and found all sorts of comments that I'd made on someone's blog. There it was, for anyone to see who googled that name (which was attached to my email). Nothing naughty, nothing incriminating... just that I don't share the deepest part of me... with just anyone. Or what if I just wanted to say, "fuck!" and not be judged for it, by those that I know, or disappoint someone, who might think that word was wrong... sometimes you just feel that way! And there's no other word to be chosen! I remedied that one, by shutting off the feed. I think there's more to all this, however, than meets the eye. At least in my country. There's this thing, now, where everyone's private stuff can be gotten into, by the powers that be, if they suspect you may be a terrorists... and that would also include domestic terrorism It's called The Patriot Act. They say that all our communications are being monitored now, looking for key word or phrases. Even read that the particular virus protection that I purchased, has an agreement, to allow certain 'viral type' things to by pass the protection... there are protected codings, that can slip right past the virus protection, and into our things... and isn't that just dandy! So, now all my stuff is connected... whatever they want my main email to be, they decided, and whichever password they'd like me to use, they did... I've been forced to change an old password, that I didn't want to changed... they started nagging me about changing a user name, for what reason, is beyond me... but... whatever. Gone are the days when you were strongly advised to never ever ever use your real name. Now, I can see those early days, when everyone was afraid of the internet... but not me, it was more for privacy... I met, fell in love with, and married the coolest guy I've ever known, whom I met on the internet. And, gained friends far and wide, all across the globe. But those were... and are... my choices. Well... life has certainly changed. When I came here, I was healing from the loss of the really cool guy... who bit the dust, in an unexpected way, and on an unsuspecting day... and it changed me for all time. I still don't know all of the ways, in which I've changed, only that I have. I started my tale from the start of my days, as a shy young sprout, growing up on this good earth. I wrangled through first loves and second loves, and a tangle of sweet hearts here and there. I told those tales, and some were left untold, some Part 2's were never completed. But that's ok, some things are better left unsaid. I tried other blogs here, other ones there... some are still hanging in cyberspace, long abandoned, passwords forgotten, usernames now unknown. Lol, sometimes when I attempt to use my old standby Shinze, and it says "user name taken" I can't help but wonder, if it had already been taken by "me" ... Well, so FB came along... about the time that I was losing my inspiration to write, here. Oh, it had been lost long before then, when not so emotionally healthy relationship stepped into the middle of that healing... and then, quite unexpectedly, on top of that, my eldest son went to jail. And I have not talked about that, except to one, and then he sorta went away, not that he was ever there, in the first place. The things our desperate minds do. So now... I have become a caregiver ... and soon find that the privacy I so adore, that allowed me to write, was suddenly... STILL not available. Then... well, then I go and accidentally delete all my pics from this blog? For cripes sake! It is truly ruined... forevermore. Half the music videos don't work anymore... and I never finished putting up the links, on the sidebar, to oh... let's see... maybe the last couple dozen posts? I think it's a done deal. My first blogger friend was Sandy, from Running On Empty. I so enjoyed reading about her days... and read along, as her sweet grandson went thru the trials of chemotherapy. Then Dust Bunny came along... and I always spelled it Dusty Bunny, for some reason. That would be Lisa. Her bits were always a joy to read... and her spirit so sweet and strong. We saw her go through the financial crash, watched her daughter go off to college, and experienced the wonder of two families, divorced from one another, somehow congealing for the kids... But, like Running On Empty, she either grew tired of writing, or closed her blog off... and those were the end of those days. There was the guy (whose blog name I can never remember) who told magnificently funny stories... as well as very touching stories from the days of his childhood... which weren't funny, at all, instead, very sad. His pic appeared to be someone wearing a welding helmet, I dunno... he hurt his back and soon his posts stopped coming... and, like many, his blog still hangs in mid air (as does his wife's) ... then there was Skinny Little Blonde... and her sister The Hippie Parade... who both, great and beautiful free spirits, wove tale after tale after magical tale, of the love between sisters, the love between family, kids and grand kids, and all holding one another up, and yet all so very strong... wild times and crazy times, as mischievous kids, and hopeless romantics, and artistic creations, and righteous protestations... and soon their well ran dry, too... there were those who wove poems, in tandem with others, who danced spritely upon stars and clouds of wonder, and there were those who preyed for whirled peas... and created think tanks, so that people could think about whirled peas... there were those recovering from drugs, writing journals towards their healing... those ranting in intellectually woven briers and brambles, teaching philosophical smug... those playing music, and those remembering the wars that they'd survived... there were others, who hadn't the good manners to reply when you commented on their writings... there were those who were electric, no make that eclectic, whose lives were dedicated to orchids, and more orchids, organic foods, and teaching about... orchids... and spoke in lovely accents, and took a long time before revealing more than an eyeball on their intellectual profiles, and when they did, there was nothing to hide, only the beauty that was on the inside, so specifically reflected on the outside, to.... and there were those who found me, and loved and seemed to adore me, weaving in and out of entertaining me, until they finally weaved their way out, until they were "no more"... at least as far as I knew... there were young doctors, and writers and poets, glorious singers, humanitarians, and compassionate beings, passionate lovers, and organizers of good will... and that one, my friend, was one person, rolled into one, so beautifully multi-faceted... clothed in all those many layers of genuine LOVE... and then there was Bill... oh, wait, there were two Bills... one Bill was out West, always writing interesting pieces, in West Coast style writing, which I also tried, simply inspired... by his style... and... to which I always replied. I liked his mind, as jumbled as it was, always talking out loud, inside his frazzled, complex brain. I liked his youthful demeanor, I liked the way his crazy mind thought... and I laughed at his mishaps that, for a time, I had no idea were caused by the left over bits and pieces of having survived the big C... but that's c to me... and I hope he knows I never meant any harm, when I laughed at his spilled coffee, a time or two... and he worked the camera to reflect what was inside (not outside), loved good music, and high brow sanctuaries, where the wealthy and intellectual gathered to ponder what was... now... so that they could get to... next... he loved the taste of the ocean, and driving sweet sports cars, through the winding roads that ran by the sea... so... here's 3 dots, saying farewell to 2 dots... be careful, hope you enjoy your summers in the surf, seaweed, and sand. And then there was... yeah, Bill ... "Bill" Bill... the forever friend, who reveled in how long we'd been blogger friends, he'd come by each year, "you know, we've been friends for blah blah blah years," and I loved that he remembered me that way... he always dropped by, after being gone for ages, with some new blog he'd created... again ... and again... and again... and just when I'd think he was gone forever, though I'd always hoped not, because gee it was nice that he'd share music and spiritual garbanza, and oh, yeah, his really, really really good poems... but then he'd pop right back in... again. But it's been a very long time, now... this time. I think he really may be gone... forever, now. The reality is, we never know where... these virtual friends are, and what really happens in their lives... though they pull on our heart strings, because we've laughed together, sometimes, more than we've laughed with friends who are here, where we are, physically, in our real lives, although "here" is as real as "there"... or where... ever... and cried... and applauded, and cheered one another one... sharing the deepest parts of ourselves, those uncertain places, where we're still searching for the reflection of God within our souls... but you see, sometimes we don't get it, the Creator is staring right at us, all around us, in everything we see, touch, and feel... to include those long lost friends, who touched our very souls... oh, back in the old msn days, where I started... it was shocking and most disturbing, when after a few years, I went to log into an old acquaintances page, to find a memorial there... a memorial... and we were not even good friends, just acquaintances, having passed by one another on the same broken road... he was a good soul, and a good steward of Mother Earth, who peddled rocks and stones, after fashioning them into bits of lovely energy... how wonderful, after having been taken, by a cruel heart, who played a nasty trick, who'd finally found his... one true love, and soul mate... and left his precious East Coast, to follow her, to her beloved West Coast... a lovey bird, who sang and sang and sang, enchanting his swooning heart... and then to be run down by a car, while crossing the road. He was a good soul. Peace to you, my good Sacred Earth friend. So... "Bill" Bill... who got nearly a whole paragraph, up above... did you ever find what you were looking for? Did you find Jesus, the way you wanted to? Did you find the church, did you get set free? Did you survive the crash, do you still have a job? Are you homeless, today, did you find a new dog? or cat? Did you write a new poem, oh, those lovely poems, that I so loved so dearly to read? Did you drop dead of a heart attack? Did someone shoot you, like your wife? Lol, just kidding... Did you get run down by a car? Well, Bill Bill.. I guess I'll just have to miss you from afar... but don't forget me, cause I won't forget you... and somewhere, in the deep dark bowels of some broken down computer... are your poems... to remember you by, like I have to have poems to remember you by... no, I won't forget Bill... or Loretta, either... my friend :-) Well, peeps... I'm on a new track now. There are a few blogs out there, that I never write in. And then there is tumblr, where I am trying to learn to write short bits or stories, instead of the long out of breath kind that I mostly wrote here. And, sharing my poems, and the poems of others, and a song here and there... it's called Moon Wind Rising... I'm thinking of a new blog... The Funny and Not So Funny Tales of A Caregiver Named Jacked Onassis... and here it is: thefunnyandnotsofuyytaleofacaregiver.blogspot.com Love to ALL... Good Journey! Shimmerrings aka Sarah ;-) p.s. I hope you are ok Bill... God Bless... may the Creator watch over you, lift you up, and forever wrap you in loving arms.