After a whole lot of crap going wrong (mostly really rude people) I finally have the visa application sent off to the USCIS center in Nebraska. The postal clerk said it should arrive either Saturday or Monday. It cost $7.20 to send (with signature confirmation.)

It was a rough, rough afternoon. I watched the Terri Irwin interview with Ray Martin (Aussie television) and even though I sobbed through the whole thing, I was really uplifted by the love I could feel emanating from it. She is a strong woman who was completely devoted to this man, loved him with all her heart, and will continue to send Steve’s message to the world.

Terri Irwin with Ray Martin: 50 min 47 sec - Sep 27, 2006

Even though awful things happen in this world, love is still the strongest force.

Finally finished assembling the petition. As you might notice, it’s damned thick (3/4″ to be exact.) I didn’t count pages, but I’m guessing it’s somewhere around 75-80. I’ll be sending it off tomorrow morning if all goes well.

It will feel really bizarre and relieving to have that part taken care of and have some free time again. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything but prepare this document…probably going on a month and a half or two by this point. When I wasn’t actually putting it together, I was thinking about it or talking about it, basically living for this petition. It is as thorough as I could be without leaving out anything important. I docked about 20 pages from the original set of papers, but in the end I used all 15 pages of emails. It would have been too much work to go back through them *again* to cut more out. That was the toughest part of all this, deciding what was important enough to include. All of it is important to me. The government officials should be pleased I didn’t include the 3000+ pages of chat logs we have whipped out over the last four years.

Take a famous painting, drawing, or photograph and make it “wide-screen” by adding more imagery to the left and right of the original work

Where have I seen this idea before? Hmm…

Oh yeah, I came up with this idea four years ago. Guess it’s not too original, eh? Not that I could have copyrighted it anyhow, since work students do at school is technically the university’s intellectual property. :(

More universities banning Skype

Were I still in school and this were my university, I would be rightfully outraged. I’m not and it isn’t, but all the same I was pretty upset to read about this, given how much of my existence with Julian is lived through that application.

While I was coming up with evidence to include in the visa application I discovered that between March 2005 and September 2006, Julian and I talked exactly 31:09:28:56. To be clear, that is 31 days, 9 hours, 28 minutes, and 56 seconds. (Suddenly I’m reminded of Donnie Darko!) That is roughly 5.4% of all available hours of every day, just on Skype. So yes, I would be rather upset were that suddenly unavailable to me.

I debated over whether to write about this or not, but I decided there really isn’t any reason not to.

The other night, I was out with some friends in Ballard, my neighborhood. We were having some beers and playing pool, just taking it easy. When we disbanded for the night it was about 10:30 or so, and I headed towards the bus stop. There were two old guys standing there talking. As I got closer I noticed one guy was leaning up against the schedule with a pair of crutches next to him, and because I had no idea when the buses run at that time of night I really needed to look at it. (They run every half hour or hour, depending on the route, so I was trying to weigh whether I should wait or just walk home.) The guys seemed to be in their late 50s or early 60s, pretty dirty and unshaven, and just unappealing in general. I walked up to the schedule where the guy was standing and said, “Excuse me.” He kept talking to his friend, as if he couldn’t see or hear me. I repeated myself two more times with no response, so I gave him a little nudge and asked him if he could please move so I could see the schedule. No response yet again. I was getting really frustrated at this point so I nudged him a little harder and he fell over into the street!

To give you an idea of how shocking this was to me, this nudge I speak of was the gentle sort you’d give to a person if you wanted to wake them up. That’s all it took to turn him upside down. o.o At that point both he and his friend started cussing me out, calling me all sorts of horrible, vulgar names. The toothless friend went to help the guy up (I was too stunned at that moment to do anything but stare in disbelief) and as soon as I got ahold of my senses again I tried reasoning with them as they were both exclaiming very loudly that I should have just asked them to move. The guy who fell over continued to swear up a storm so I turned to the friend and tried to explain that I had tried to ask him to move multiple times but they both told me I was lying. Toothless was exasperated that I would pick on someone who had no sense of balance. As they got more and more threatening with their remarks I said something very uncharacteristic of myself and stormed off, deciding that walking was a far better option than waiting there with two guys who thought I was evil incarnate and who seemed to be looking for a fight.

Afterwards as I thought about what they’d said it occurred to me that their actual remarks didn’t upset me as much as the fact that they *forced* me to be a bitch in order to protect myself. In their eyes I was up to no good, so they had no motive to be reasonable about it. Of course I didn’t intend to knock the guy over, and I definitely didn’t intend to have to stoop to vulgarity, but they saw it that way, and there was nothing I could do to change that. I always do my best to be kind (or at the least polite) to people I meet, but when confrontations like that happen, there’s only so far that can extend until I’m getting walked on.

A similar thing happened earlier in the week when a homeless guy came up to me and said “Can you spare any change? God bless you either way.” I just gave him my canned response of “Sorry” which admittedly is not exactly sympathetic but at least it isn’t outright rude. This happens on a daily basis, as it does in large cities, so it isn’t anything unusual. I get asked for money every day by the same people. Most of them are used to this and will move on, but most people they ask don’t give them money. Well, this guy must have been at the end of his rope because he got up in my face and started taking it personally, telling me I wasn’t sorry at all and that I didn’t care about him and I’m selfish and I’m everything that’s wrong with people today, people just don’t give a crap about each other. Well, no shit man, who is going to offer to help you out after you try to guilt-trip them with Jesus talk, then start screaming in their face? Do you see me going around asking everyone around to help me? Life is hard, it’s not fair, and really sad stuff happens sometimes. But making other people feel bad is no way to garner sympathy.

I felt really bad after this exchange took place as well, but in both cases, I just reminded myself that I was just another body in a large pool of other bodies and the attacks weren’t really personal, just a matter of circumstance. It helps a little to think of it that way, but this is the type of unfortunate encounter I would much rather avoid as it’s not very good for a sensitive soul.

Are they Q-pons or Coop-ons? I go for the Q myself, and Jules laughs at me. Well, he does that for most of my pronunciations anyway. Pronouncing “herbal” as “urb-al” sends him into hysterics.

Anyway, just a note to self, I have coupons to spend.

REI $55
JCPenney $30
Visa Gift Card $50
Best Buy $10

I just have to think of stuff I want. I don’t really want any clothes. Hrm. I want this but those coupons won’t help me much there. Any ideas?

Julian and I are pretty well into our visa application now. I often get asked why it’s taking so long to send off. “You’re still working on that?!” Yes, yes I am. The thing is, this visa may be the deciding factor in the course of the rest of my life. If approved, it means that Julian and I can get married, live in the same country, and see each other more than once or twice a year. I have lived with the idea of being apart from him for all this time because the promise of us being together one day was always prominent in my mind. That’s the only way to survive a relationship like this! One has to maintain a positive frame of mind because things do get difficult at times. So, bearing this in mind, I don’t think it’s anything other than obvious why I am taking my time on this. We’ve waited this long already, taking an extra month to ensure accuracy and completeness is far better than having the application rejected and the processing fee usurped only to have to start over from the beginning (losing the money and the time!) I want to get this *right.*

At the moment, I’m just waiting on his paperwork. He has most of it collected up in one place, so now it’s just a matter of organizing it, checking it over, and sending it to me. Once I’ve received his papers, I will compile them with mine, put them in order, make photocopies of everything, then assemble them into a packet. The USCIS has a very particular way of wanting the papers assembled (2-hole punch at the top of the sheet, attached with an ACCO fastener, with tabs on the bottom.) I also plan to color-code all the sections to match the tab by placing a small colored dot on every page. I am in the mindset of “going a bit overboard is better” since they’re less likely to reject you for excess evidence than insufficient evidence. That being said, I think we will still need to cut our email examples down from their current status of 15 pages. Because there was already so much email correspondence we decided not to include our IRC chat logs, as Julian discovered his 2004-2006 log contained over 1500 pages! I don’t really intend to submit a romance novel to the government, as relevant as all the information may be. :)

I feel really good about going out of my way to get ahold of extra information to include in the application, as every little thing I do makes me feel like I’m bringing him closer to me. Since this application is primarily the responsibility of the US citizen, this is my big contribution to the process. From here on out, once it gets processed, the rest will be on him. I have to sign an affidavit of support which he’ll take with him to his interview at the consulate. (Chances are high that this will be about a year from now.)

Last week I went in and had my engagement and wedding rings appraised since both are family heirlooms (and ring receipts are one thing they look for as evidence of a legimate relationship and intent to marry.) This week I went into E.E. Robbins and purchased Julian’s wedding ring. I actually feel even more excited about this than when he gave me my ring, since I got to help make a decision about what he’ll wear on his finger forever. I chose about 9 rings I thought were attractive, took some horrible photos of them (I hate my camera so much…it doesn’t do anything well except be small enough to fit in my bag) and asked which he liked best. After choosing the one I had hoped he’d like (whee) I went back the following day and bought it. It is Titanium and will have to be manufactured and sent from Germany, so it will take about 6 weeks. But at least I have the receipt now to use as evidence! And something really exciting to look forward to!

That really has been all that’s occupying my free time lately (the little I have.) It is really going to feel strange to have that first step complete, to have this process in motion at last. Huuuu.

In other news, this week I managed to get ahold of PS2 versions of Lego Star Wars II, Rule of Rose, and Yakuza. In each case, they were the very last copy EB had, so I got the display copies. What luck! Jon sent my PS2 back this week after fixing it, so I should be getting that on Sunday. Wooooo! I have waaaay more games than I know what to do with, but if nothing else it’ll be something Jules and I can do together when he finally arrives. :D

Yes, it’s signed to “Grappa.” This is about the best gift I could think of to give to Julian, other than becoming his wife. :3

The myspace booth in the Indie Market

Monday began with browsing the Indie Market, where a bunch of artists and craftspeople had tents set up to showcase their goods. Many of them were so prolific it blew my mind. I have no idea how they have the time and stamina to create so much art! Also amongst these stands was the good ol’ myspace.com tent, where teenage hipsters could log on and update their pages. While I think the concept of social networking is pretty good for young people, it also disturbs me quite a bit. Because it is designed for people with little web knowledge, the quality of page design is pretty low and I’ve had a lot of instances of people not only stealing my art as their background, but directly linking it from my site with my watermark clearly visible. That doesn’t make me a happy camper, so I get a bad taste in my mouth whenever the word “myspace” is uttered by anyone.

Rocky Votolato (Backyard)

The first act I saw was Rocky Votolato. I saved myself a spot near stage left where I’d stood for Badly Drawn Boy, so I was pretty close to the action. The sun was high in the sky so I had to shield my eyes the entire time. I had pretty sore arms by the end of it, but it was worth it as Rocky put on a great show. He confessed he wasn’t used to 75-minute performances so he hadn’t prepared a full set. He played a traditional song off the cuff to fill in the leftover time in his slot. The crowd loved him and I even heard a guy yell out “Marry ME!” He dedicated a song to Steve Irwin, who had just died the previous day, which I found to be touching. He said his children watched Croc Hunter a lot so it was a big loss for his family.

Bitter:Sweet (Northwest Court)

My friends were keen to see David Cross (Tinkle) so they went over to the Comedy North stage to try to get into the show. I lost track of them so I headed over to the Northwest Court to see Bitter:Sweet, which I had really wanted to see. The stage had a bunch of chairs set up, which meant that it would be a seated show. Yay! I got the last seat on the right of the front row, so I had yet another fantastic view of the stage. They had 7 musicians in addition to singer Shana Halligan. She was absolutely mesmerizing; dressed in a low-cut, flowing white dress, her long red curls tumbling down her shoulders, she captivated everyone with her lounge-like, sultry vocals while flirting with her bandmates. She mentioned several times that this was the band’s first performance outside of Los Angeles and they were honored to be able to perform at Bumbershoot. The stage was clearly too small for them as there were people watching the show from every possible spot. For a “baby band” as she called them, they certainly had a significant following!

Feist (Mural)

The last show of the evening was Feist. The previous performance on the Mural stage was a band out of Louisiana whose audience consisted mainly of aging hippies, which seemed to keep most of the Feist crowd at bay. Despite my reluctance to be part of that audience, I braved it and worked my way down to the front and waited for them to clear out, then made a beeline for the stage at the first possible opportunity. I stood there for the better part of an hour, excitedly holding my spot. I had a chat with a guy next to me for awhile as they were setting up the stage. Ten minutes after it was all set up, she still hadn’t come out so people started chanting for her. She came out with her band and opened with “The Build Up,” a song she wrote with the Kings of Convenience. That had always been a really special song for Jules and me, so I was really happy to hear that. She was full of vitality and excitement and her beautiful vocals were even more stunning live than on any recording I’ve ever heard. I was really astounded by how absolutely tiny she is! So much talent and energy emanating from such a small person. Hee. :D

She played a very slow version of “Mushaboom” which the audience loved. She used two microphones and somehow worked them so she was using herself as backing vocals (I know little about live performances from a technical standpoint, so I have *no* idea how she pulled that off, but it was damned impressive!) At one point she intended to do a slow song so she asked the audience if anyone had a lighter. No sooner had she asked then one came flying through the air and struck her smack in the chest. Oof! Whoever threw that must not have ever been to a concert since she expected people to follow the usual protocol of raising a lighter in the air! (Who’s that dumb?) It was pretty funny; I wish I had gotten a video of that. She was cool about it too, so it eased the crowd.

Her encore consisted of three songs, one of which she had just learned an hour and a half previous. She began the song three times as the first two times one of her band members told her she was in the wrong key. Heh. Her final song was “Let it Die,” which was really fitting. A lovely performance from a very talented musician.

I left the show eager to start posting photos and writing reviews but I was far too tired to give it the attention it deserves, so I got some rest instead. I am so happy I made the effort to go and get as close as I could so I could share this lovely experience with everyone. After all that I’m really looking forward to some down time and some rest!

Other images of note: Knitta tree graffiti. This was near the Northwest Court where Bitter:Sweet performed. Knitta does this sort of thing to trees, car antennas, pretty much anything cylindrical that they can “tag.”