Sorry, Jaktards. I hope you don't mind me temporarily taking down the entries journal. It'll be back up in a few days or so. There's just something I need to get off my chest, and I'd like to use my public journal for it. I'm hoping it helps. Besides, the entry would just be too long.

For those involved in the explained situation; if you'd rather I took this down, please just say the word.

Months ago, I went through a Reboot kick--some of you might remember it. I'd found the show again, I fangirled, I fanarted, I even stumbled upon a great ReBoot forum (a [link] to which is here for all interested. Seriously, the place is amazing). I usually hate forums, but the people were so damn nice and chatty and fun to talk to, I got over my issues with using it. The layout just bothers me--I like LJ better. Anyways, it used to be I checked it a lot.

This was around the time that the Reboot comic was wrapping up. The comic was supposed to jumpstart the revival, but I didn't think what we had been told and promised was coming true. And whatcha know; there happened to be a thread where we could discuss the new comics as they came out.

That's when something amazing happened. Some people were mad, some people wanted the mad people to calm down and take a chill pill about everything. I mentioned that it shouldn't matter what opinion we express as long as we're not 'ASCIIhats' about them, ASCII being the Reboot slang for 'ass'.

A user photoshoped a hat with 'ASCII' written on it onto my icon.

Soon other people were doing it; it took off.

The same user who photoshoped the first pic--I believe it was her anyways, it's been a while--decided ASCII hats should exist. She set off to make this happen and did all this work to get it going and make it affordable for everyone on the site and herself. I, of course, had to have one. I look terrible in hats, but dude, it was my meme. I should have one.

I shouldn't have had one.

Plans went through, but by the time I got my ASCII hat, I believe I'd stopped going to the site every day. My Bob muse had left or something similar and I just didn't feel comfortable going back. The user contacted me about how to pay her...

Months went by and I kept forgetting to tell my mom--who is the one with the paypal--to help me pay for it. I wasn't busy, per say, I just didn't think about it. The user patiently waited for me to send her compensation for paying for and shipping me a hat, then contacted me after a few more months. I ignored her emails and DA notes because I felt so anxious opening them. I knew I had to do it--I owed it to her to do it--but I couldn't bring myself to.

I think it's because it was the first time I'd ever done this kind of transaction over the internet. It's not like going to a store or what have you. I had what I wanted, I had to give back for it. For some reason that was stupidly hard. I wish I'd just paid her when she'd started shipping them. So much grief could've been avoided.

Anywho, I finally looked at one of the emails. In it she asked me to stop ignoring her--she could see I'd done activity on DA, y'know? I felt lower than dirt--like suddenly, knowing she knew, I understood why putting this off was a bad thing. It'd always been a bad thing! So I sat down with my mom and sent her the money to the first email she'd given me--or so I thought. I'm still not sure how it got mixed up, but I didn't end up sending it to her account. I contacted her back, she gave me the correct email and we talked for a bit.

I didn't send the money to her for another two months, though. She contacted me again, tonight. The patience was thin if gone, but she was still very, very civil about the whole thing. I wrote back a response, and then woke up my mom to pay it right then because I couldn't wait until the morning. I felt terrible.

I still feel terrible.

I'm also not sure if I should be posting this. It's certainly not a plea for sympathy or...whatever. I just was a stupid idiot about this whole thing. Felt like talking about it, and doing it where people could see. Atonement kinda, if that didn't sound so damn cheesy.

I gotta get better at this. Life is gonna be full of situations like this and this can't happen again. I can say that until my face is blue, but it doesn't matter if I don't actually work on it. I'm gonna try not to suck so bad the next time I'm given a similar chance.