I could probably tell you a lot - but for personal reasons, I don't want to. The past has taught me that the more I publish about myself on the net, the more vulnerable I will become. I became very vulnerable in the past and was hurt several times, so I will just skip anything too personal.

However, there's my Livejournal, which is mostly friends only except of some things that I consider interesting for the public. I don't friend everyone who gives a few comments; I have to know you before I friend you.
See, it's my personal private life I am writing about there; and you may well understand that I wouldn't show that to every stranger I meet in the street either. And such a stranger you are as long as I don't know you.

I am an 'online' person, meaning most of my social life is actually happening on the net. I find that totally alright as long as I don't lose track of the actual world, which I hopefully don't.

Some other things about myself:

If you look at my Livejournal without being on my friends list, you could get the impression that I
a) don't update it often and
b) if I do, I'm just filling it up with costuming- or meaningless other things.
This impression is wrong.
I update my journal quite frequently if I find the time and then with lots of personal thoughts, but these are all friends only entries so that people who are not on my friends list can't read them.
If you furthermore take a look at my friends list you will see that it's quite small.
I hand pick my friends, and the fact that someone friends me doesn't necessarily make me friend them back.
I need to know you before I friend you - and not by some chit-chatting in a costuming community.
If I discover you on my friends list, you can be most certain that I will read your journal to get an impression of you. If I personally think that your journal is not 'personal' enough, then don't expect to be friended
However, *if* you end up on my friends list, you can be sure that I will be a true friend. This includes that I will give comments only if I think that my opinion could be important to you.
It also includes constructive criticism if I think that it could be of use to you. And if I criticize, I will do so with all the honesty I can offer. I expect the same from you if you are on my friends list.

I have had many "friends" in real life who were just interested in me because I made costumes for other people for several years.

The worst case was someone who told me to my face (well, actually it was on the phone) that "the costumes are not so interesting, I am most interested in how YOU feel!" - and some weeks later I had to discover that the exact opposite was the case.

Another really bad case was someone else who *had* already about a dozen costumes made by me (!) at that time and always praised (in public!) how good my costumes were.
So far, so good - but when I had real big problems with my creativity due to personal problems which she knew about (!) and could temporarily not make more costumes for her, she a) turned into a real beast, b) declared (and still declares) in public, on her website, at conventions and on message boards that my costumes were / are the WORST on the market (and therewith practically destroyed my business) and c) retracted her (still open) orders, demanding all her money back - which I couldn't pay back as due to her behavior, I had no more customers.
She was one of the reasons why I completely resigned from making costumes for other people, except if I know these people very, very well. I'd rather live very, very poor than to have a friend customer false friend like her ever again.
One can just wonder what her other friends (or costumers who work for her now) might think if they see how she lies about someone whom she once called a 'kindred spirit"; because, let's face it - if she has obviously no problem treating one friend this way, she won't have any problems treating others likewise if she sees it fit.
It's also rather amusing to see her aggressively and eagerly filling her site - especially one page of it - with more and more lies, the more I am posting progress and finished pictures of my own costumes here. I'm so happy that I'm not the only one who notices this, and also that I'm not the only one who is amused about this. I'm also not the only one who makes screenshots of the various states of her site
Perhaps she will one day see that her 'Oooh, look at all the costumes I've BOUGHT!!!" site (also - again, not by me - called the "My costumes, my jewelry, my armor" site, in memory of a certain German bank's TV advertisement) is rather, well, painful and somehow reminds people (again, not only me...) of the otherwise typical male behavior of "showing out" ("Look! My car is bigger than yours!").
She accuses me of giving "unqualified comments" - interesting, I have *loads* of emails by her in which *she* gave *really* unqualified comments about other costumer's works...
The *very* good thing is that most of her old statements about how good my costumes are can still be found in the Google cache, rendering her recent statements as lies.
There is, for example, on her site something that describes the fabric of a certain gown. She claims that she had never seen, let alone touched that particular fabric before the gown was finished. Just good that during a meeting of *many* people , including herself, at my house, I didn't only show her that fabric, but dyed the fabric in the presence of many people, and when the fabric didn't take the dye, *I* already suspected that it might not be pure silk, even if it was sold to me as silk - but she wanted to have the fabric for her gown anyway.
I also still have all her emails, a backup of a message board we used to write on (which is in biggest parts also still visible in the Google cache) *plus* some documents from the authorities who already got involved in this case, which slowly but surely turns into a court case (which she completely denies to have any knowledge about - but those letters say something else - hmmm, perhaps I should scan those letters and publish them here...?).
I didn't see her changing her site so far, even if she knows what's written here... this makes me assume that she wants me to publish some scanned documents from the authorities in her hometown, Ab.?
I'd most certainly be willing to go to court in a civil case against her to hold her responsible for what she did and still does, but I'm lacking the money
However, the problem is that someone who hears (or reads) from her or one of her "friends" how bad my costumes were / are and who doesn't know that she once said the exact opposite will not necessarily never ask me if what she says now is correct.

A few words to you in person, my dear:
Winning the lottery might have been nice for you, but money spoils the character. YOU are the perfect example. If you kick a friend's ass, who has spent hours with you on the phone, whom you have visited several times at home etc. just because that 'friend' had creativity problems and temporarily couldn't satisfy your costuming needs, then, my dear, *you* are the bad person, not your friend.
You are trying to make me angry, drive me nuts by writing to my parents (what *exactly* do they have to do with the whole story? Same question goes to your "new" friend, whom you before found so "unnerving") or creating a site full of lies?
I find your actions quite amusing, "Mrs. Translator" - your guestbook- and mailing list entries in English tell me what you will probably *never* be (and what I strongly doubt you study). I'm *not* studying languages or translations, but my English is far better than yours. How's that possible?
Yes, I owe you money, but if you had left me any chance to EARN money then nothing would have gone wrong with the payments. Instead, you deliberately and repeated took any chance from me to work and earn money - YOUR money too, my dear - by telling lies about me.
And if you want to call me names which are legally relevant - why not go to the police and tell them I'm "forever fraudulent" and have me judged by a court? Then, my dear, in case that court would find me guilty being "forever fraudulent", then you would at least have the *right* to call me this - at the moment, you don't because you have no such court case against me (and, let me assure you - you'll never have one).
I hope you're glad with what you achieved... well, obviously you are, as you continue doing it...

And then I lately found a cache page from google from a certain Blog...
I read laughing how 'someone' wrote there that a certain gown was made of 'crushed blue rainbow silk and pink silk satin', and that this was 'obvious from the existing pictures'. The same person then complained on that cache saved page that 'other costumers were obviously 'not able to research a gown properly, making it from different materials' and how incredibly *happy* she was with a certain gown I made for her... well... almost the same text, just with more praises, can be found on a different Google cache site (It's time I reopen a certain message board - read-only, of course, so that no one can have the idea to delete certain posts from there... perhaps I should also open certain, formerly deleted but luckily restored areas for the public then?)
And then I look grinning at a certain 'reproduction' of another costumer, made of 'silk organza' and satin with a far too high neckline and of course wonder how she can be so happy with it, even if she claimed before that 'any other costumer who wouldn't reproduce that gown with certain materials was not able to research properly'...
I *then* take another look at a saved version of the Blog on my hard disk and suddenly see a picture of my gown appear there, overlaid with a very interesting text saying that the gown was done *totally* wrong, and just go on smiling, seeing that she already 'corrected' that little error in her blog by erasing that picture...
Then I see her stating that 'no non-natural fabrics are allowed anywhere near her', and grinning take a look at another costumer's reproduction made of something called 'Ming brocade'... and start to laugh violently, as that 'Ming brocade' is at least partially made of Nylon fibers. And *she knows* as that 'Ming brocade' comes from a certain Ebay seller whom she knows very well, as she and I had once contemplated buying fabric from that seller, but refrained from doing so as a) the seller couldn't deliver the fabric and b) that fabric was made... with... nylon fibers... Hahaha! Dozens of harmless little Nylons must have been killed for that gown... ;-)

And whoever might still suspect that I'm telling the lies and not she:
If there was someone would owed you money, would you - if you were interested in getting that money back - talk about that person's "bad behavior", call her "fraudulent" and "not to be trusted" in public, if you would really want to get that money back? I think not, because this behavior - and that should even dawn the dumbest person on earth - will almost make sure that that person will never ever be able to earn money again with which she could pay the debts back.
So if someone makes a site in that particular way about someone else who has debts, then, I can assure you, the least thing this person wants is any money back. It's probably much more like so that this person wants to trample the other person down, with no regard to any debts or expenses (The "Elephant in the porcelain shop" effect, as we would say in Germany...).
So... and here's the real big question... if that person obviously doesn't *want* that money back, what is the real purpose of her site...? One can just wonder about this... but I, for myself, already have the answer, and it's not a really pleasant one.

And some other words to some more people who are obviously so interested in my site (girls - see the tracker in the upper right corner and also the one at the bottom of the page? I *know* where my visitors come from, and in some cases, I know who they are!):
I wonder where D. got this website address from and why she - despite of telling me that her company doesn't allow private surfing during work time - is indeed looking from work at my site, even if I'm showing fashions from periods, or rather: *countries* on my site which she claimed to have no interest in?
Here's a question:
If someone says 'I think your hair sometimes looks a little too perfect', does that *really* mean 'Haha, my hair is better than yours and you have very bad hair and it's far from being perfect'?
You laugh? I know at least one person who is reading this site who would interpret 'Your hair is a little too perfect' this way - I have it black on white...
(Concerning interpretation: The above twice mentioned sentence means just that - that the hair is a bit too perfect. In no way the sentence says (or means!) that the sentence writer's hair is in any way better - just for the records: the opposite is the case, the writer thinks that her own hair is far from being perfect and much more resembles a broom at all times of the day. It also doesn't mean that the person with the perfect hair in the writer's opinion has *bad* hair. Bad hair can't be perfect, right...? But - conclusion - *if* a person desperately *wants* to misinterpret everything someone else writes, it's always possible to do so... )
But if that person knew what I know about her, that I know she lied to me in several cases and that evidence of this is also written on the net (though neither by her nor by me), then she'd probably break down and cry bitterly. And that has nothing to do with her hair ;-) )
Then there's S.
You won't be envious on a hand embroidered Elizabethan Spanish gown, my dear, right?
I mean - as you've claimed so often that Elizabethan is not your period... oh, and you claimed that Empire is also not your period... but wait, Victorian is also not your period according to your own words... what *is* your period, anyway? One (whereas 'one' is not referring to myself...) could get the impression that she's afraid I could come up with impressive gowns... ;-)
And then there's mother and daughter, pardon, the sisters (receptionists at hotels know how to get a higher tip if they see a couple standing there that much more resembles... young woman and her grandmother, as a friend of mine recently said about that story... I *know* why *I* at my age refrain from wanting pastel colored, flounced "Victorian" gowns (in brackets as that particular gown was not really historic) - why do *older* people don't get that this coloring and style combination is reserved for the younger ones...?)...
I better stop writing now, it's getting far too cryptic and confusing for harmless people browsing this site... I also don't want to think of those people any more, except if I want to have a good thing to laugh about. I've today said to a friend who also knows those two that I once had friends called S. and C. - but the people who S. and C. are today are no more the friends I had, they became completely different people - and that friend agreed.
But I just had to write all this, and the above referred to people will have no problems believing that I grinned like a madwoman all the time when I typed the complete last paragraph down...

The whole disaster resulted in one thing for myself:
I don't need people who like me as a person just because I make costumes. In fact, I strongly dislike people who declare something like this.
You may admire / respect me or be jealous of my skills (or deny that I have any skills) because I make costumes. You may (or won't) write me emails about how you like (or don't like) my costumes.
But as long as you don't know me personally, please don't declare that you would like to be my friend because I made some costumes that you like, or that you don't like me personally because I made costumes you didn't like!
As long as you don't know me personally I would say that you can't even give a vague *estimate* if you *would* like me or not if you knew me in person.
And IF you know me personally, then I expect you to like or dislike me because what I am as a human being, NOT as a costume maker.
As Xena said in "Friend in need": "Don't listen to the sounds, but what's behind the sound." It's about something else in that movie, but I think it's applicable to this situation.

There are a handful of people whom I know from that bad time (and the good time before) who have gone through that bad time with me who I still consider to be friends of mine - close friends, the best friends I've ever had. Those people know who they are, and I thank them for just being there whenever I needed them.
I thank them for something that's usually considered natural for grown up people:
For being able to make up their own opinion about me. It's not that natural, at least not from what I have experienced - believe me.

Best wishes,
Naergi