That sounds cool. I love plaid and I love wool, but the place I live now is usually not cold enough for wool. Do you live somewhere cold, where it snows?

I live in the northeast so it does snow. And when it doesn't, it's plain freezing.

I'm from WI and I think the weather there is quite similar to the NE, it can get below zero with wind chills as low as 40 below zero at times. I remember when I lived there and after a cold snap of a couple of weeks the temp would rise to about 20 degrees and it actually felt WARM.

Now, after 23 yrs in California, if the temps go below 40 (at night, they rarely go below 40 during the day in winter) it's considered very cold. Yet when I visited WI in January in 03 I was LOVING the cold. But I don't have to go out in it every day. Generally I've turned into a big baby who thinks that 35 degrees is REALLY cold, but if I moved back, I think I would adjust. I don't like the lack of real seasons here. And Christmas without snow is very weird. :)

I've been a Jersey girl all my 20 years and it's okay. I'd like the snow if it just wasn't so wet. I love my job here too because I get paid for snow days. (I work at the library)

I've never been to California. Here we thing 90 is boiling and close the schools that don't have A/C

In Wisconsin 90 is not the norm but I remember some summer days when it got that hot. It's also very humid there so an 80 degree day with humidity of 70 to 90 percent feels hotter than when it's 90 here and the humidity is 20 percent. That's truly how dry it is here in summer, and then at night it's very damp, even in summer and it chills the bones cause it gets into the 50's and 60's at night (cause this area is a natural desert). I can tolerate 90 when I'm inside, my apt gets almost no sun so I don't need to turn on the AC unless I'm moving around.

We never had any AC in any school in the 60's and 70's and most ppl didn't have it in their homes unless they were rich so it' wasn't considered a necessity, just old fashioned thinking, actually, since it's almost impossible for kids and teens to think (and it's not healthy) to be out in that kind of heat. I'm guessing it's humid there too.

When I was 20 I had actually been away from WI quite a bit, but only because my dad is from Nebraska so we visited his family a couple of times (all over the west--Colorado, Wyoming, etc) and we went to Chicago a lot (it was only 90 miles away) since my mom's family was there. I was born there, it's where my parents met. I also went to N. Carolina two times before I was 20 cause my mom's brother lived there.

He wasn't rich, but he paid for us to fly (and it was very cheap compared to now) cause he was more well off than my family. We were basic middle class, nothing fancy, and had 4 kids. It was a lot cheaper to travel by car (for those trips west) when I was young, gas was only 22 cents a gallon in the mid 60's and everything was SO much cheaper compared to today. If it hadn't been we couldn't have traveled.

I've been to NY state and Washington DC, when I was older than you, but not NJ. One of my closest friends here, who's just a little older than you (22 as of July) lives in NJ, I think in Plainfield, but I'm not sure. Well as usual I've been sitting too long. I hope you're having a good night.

Oh there was one more thing: snow in Wisconsin can be VERY wet or very dry, it just depends. We liked it wet as kids cause we liked to make forts and snow people. It doesn't pack well when it's dry.

I haven't been out of state much. I've been to Florida and Virginia on vacation when I was younger but these days the only places I go are Pennsylvania and NYC.

Snowforts are pretty awesome

It's just my opinion, but for a 20 yr old you've traveled enough to give you some perspective. I have a friend who has a 20 yr old son who has barely been anywhere.

Well it's cool that you can go to NYC. I know that all cities have their bad neighborhoods, but I would LOVE to go to NYC. Sometimes I think I want to live there, but I'm certainly not rich, I'm on section 8 housing, so who knows where I would land. I see NYC in movies and I would love to explore all different areas.

The super wealthy places aren't even the parts I'm most interested in. From what I've read there are parts of Brooklyn that used to be affordable that are now upscale. I don't care about upscale but I'd love to visit all the Burroughs and the different areas of each. I'd like to live in an area where there are ppl from all over the world. NYC is a dream because I grew up in a place (between Chicago IL and Milwaukee WI) where people are SO different than here.

And those two cities are world class (as is NYC) Where I live now is not. I don't mean classy and snobby when I say world class. I mean places where you can get a real slice of pizza and a good bagel, good cheesecake, stuff like that.

California is too new and doesn't have the feel of "old world" in terms of architecture and restaurants, etc. I was raised in a small town, a farm town, but I moved to Milwaukee when I was 18. I have a mix of country "girl" and city "girl" (and my parents were one of each--country and city.)

Nowadays I travel by watching movies, they're my window to the world. I don't even go out of my apartment unless I have to. My doctor makes me go in every month or two. I have to go tomorrow (Friday the 24th) I really hate going out.

Snow forts ARE awesome. I remember pushing the snow together to build walls, and I also remember digging caves in it, but what was the coolest was when we figured out we could "cut" it into bricks with our hands and build walls that way.

We had a low spot in our back yard and I remember one winter when there was a January thaw it all melted into a shallow pool and then froze up again so we had our own private ice rink! It was small but we were so young it seemed pretty cool. I was never able to skate very well cause my ankles are so loose but we spent a lot of time outside in the winter and those are good memories. :)

subeta keeps "crashing" sigh!

I've been to China Town and Little Italy. There's this awesome shop around too called Toy Tokyo and food is usually good depending on where you go.

It's been agravating that Subeta keeps crashing but sometimes I think it does that when they uppdate

Those sound like great places, and what sort of shop is Toy Tokyo?

I agree about the crashing, but I DID enjoy that game with getting rid of those books on the ceiling. I'm very bad at any game involving arrow keys. I didn't grow up on video games and have never played any--other than the very first one called pong, which is a bit like that "book game" though a friend told me the name of another game that came out after pong (both in the 70's) which was more like the book game. I can't remember what he said it was, though.

So I was slow at it, but I was able to do it. If a game that involves arrow keys is timed I don't even try anymore. I "hit the wall" before I even get started with most of them.

Toy Tokyo has all these cool figurines and toys all different kinds. and they have some blind boxes so with those you don't know what you're gonna get.

I've played a game like that before. I don't know what it was. Playing the book game I kept hitting the up and down arrows because the keys on my laptop are so close together.

Are the toys and figurines from all over the world, or mainly Japanese?

That's the one thing about a laptop that I'm not looking forward to. My first computer, 15 yrs ago was a very small laptop so I got used to the small keyboard at that time. But I have long fingers, so I like the most old fashioned keyboards--raised keys, space between them. I've gone back & forth and I can adjust my reach in either direction, it just takes some getting used to.

I'm a touch typist and I didn't learn til I was 40, but it's great being able to type w/out looking. I'm not good at the numbers--I use the number pad instead of the ones across the top most of the time. I'm already so bad at the arrow key games that having them close together will be a challenge, but if I have to go both up/down as well as side to side I have to watch my fingers anyway, lol.

I hope you're having a good weekend and making some sP from the Saggi quests. He's been pretty good to me. :)

They have everything from Nightmare before Christmas figures to Anime and Hello Kitty figures and plushes

It must be a LOT of fun for you to go to that store, since those all sound like things that you like--usually people don't mention the stuff that they're not interested in.

Did you do the Saggi quests? I did all 15 of them today and I made 2.5 million sP. I didn't turn down any of them, even the expensive stuff. When I do his quests i keep putting away 500K every time the available sP goes over a million. I don't want to run into the tax collector when I have over a million out. I don't care if there's an achievement for it!

Did I ask you when your birthday is? Some ppl don't like to say exactly cause they're worried about giving out info, but you could tell me what month it's in, if you're willing.

My birthday is the very last day of May! I like it then because it's warm.

You're now the 3rd person I know with that birthday, and it's also close to mine. The others are old fogies like me, lol. One of my best friends from years ago, I never see her anymore, who I met when I was 19, will be 62 on May 31st next year. The other one will be 54. Then I'll be 60 on June 21st. I've known a LOT of Geminis all of my life, while I am a Gemini/Cancer.

Yeah, I once had a slumber party in our back yard in a huge tent that my dad got us for camping. It was nice having a summer birthday.

From third grade was the last year till high school that I had a party. I don't why it just happened that way and these days I share my birthday with at least one of my friends. I think it helps me mentally to stay happy.

So sorry you never had any birthday parties after 3rd grade. My mom was very into giving us parties. It was because HER mother was very big with birthdays and Christmas, they had magical celebrations. Then she died when my mom was only 9 and basically her childhood was over. Her parents were divorced, so she had an evil stepmother for awhile, then she and her siblings were in a horrible orphanage. I think my mom loved being a mom and having four of us to entertain and give love and presents and celebrations to. She wasn't perfect, but she got her heart broken by my dad when I was 12 so I can't blame her. After that I became the adult in my home and helped my mom with everyone's parties (and everything else) but she was still very generous and loving with me and with birthdays. It's just that she started confiding in me when I was so young, so I lost my adolescence, which is why I spend as much time as I can playing these days. I'm making up for lost time.

I'm glad you have one friend who shares your birthday, and I agree it helps to stay happy. When you get as old as I am you might not care anymore. I seriously find it to be an inconvenience nowadays when my mom wants to get together for my birthday. If Joe were still alive it would be different. I just miss him so much that I can barely find any happiness in life now. I don't know why I'm being SO glum tonight. I've been trying to be more positive lately but something hit me awhile ago. There's a forum that I post on now and then and this one person has a signature that says "life has no limitations other than the ones we make." I'm sorry but ppl who were born with stuff like bipolarism and the condition that I have (and my friend with MS) have LIMITATIONS that we did NOT put there. Also, I wonder if she would say that if she saw HER husband drop dead in front of her face. Ugh. Sorry...

I have crippling anxiety that sometimes literally hurts me and people expect me to get over it if I just "calm down"

I'm sorry, that's truly awful. People are idiots who know nothing about this sort of thing. I think that being told to "just calm down" makes it worse because what you need when you have crippling anxiety is someone who is understanding and validating. If they say to "get over it" they're just saying that they don't understand, don't know how to help (or don't want to be bothered) and the bottom line is that you're left feeling as if you're alone. I know that's how I feel.

And over time we think it's our fault and after being told that SO many times it begins to feel as if we're supposed to know HOW to just calm down and then the feelings of failure...anyway, that's my experience of it. I'm always the one who has something wrong with me that I am supposed to change, even though I CAN'T change it. Someone with anxiety cannot change that anymore than a person with diabetes can "will" that away. We're still in the dark ages with understanding "mental" illness, which I prefer to refer to as psychological/emotional and in fact it's probably JUST as physiologically valid as any other disease such as the heart or diabetes. Scientists simply don't understand the workings of the brain so it's blamed on the person who suffers it because they can't admit they don't understand something. Ugh. I am a student of psychology, if you can't tell. I took a lot of classes in it while at the University.

I totally agree