Stacey lived off campus when she went to school. On-campus housing is limited, and that was fine with her because sharing a tiny dorm room with someone was not her idea of a fun time. Stacey needed her space. So she rented a room in a large Victorian style home in a neighborhood that pre-dated the Civil War. It was a gorgeous house, and Stacey loved her big room with the odd angled walls, light green paint and dark green carpet. She had four housemates. Three of them attended graduate school at another local college and the fourth had previously attended Stacey�s school but had dropped out. With the exception of the dropout, Stacey liked her roommates very much. They were all older than her, but as Stacey had always felt older than she actually was, that suited her just fine. Stacey�s dropout roommate spent most of her time in her bedroom and never joined the rest of them to eat dinner, watch TV, or to hang out. So it surprised everyone when she it became obvious why she had been gaining weight over the past few months. In December, while everyone else was home for Christmas break, Stacey�s roommate gave birth to a son. Stacey and her other roommates were outraged. How could they live in a house with a baby? They had to study and be young and they did NOT need a screaming newborn. They called their landlord, who told them they had to stick it out because unfortunately the lease didn�t provide for such a situation. So Stacey lived the second half of the school year with a baby in the house. A baby who didn�t have a very nice mother, it turns out. Finally the end of the year came, and dropout and her crying baby left, much to Stacey�s relief. To her disappointment, however, two of her other roommates graduated and also moved out. Three more girls moved in, one of whom was one of the few friends Stacey had managed to make at school. Stacey loved living in the big old house (where she only paid $210 in rent. What a deal!). She had nothing to do but go to school and nothing to worry about besides whether she�d get her ass in gear in time to write that paper due in three weeks.

Stacey didn�t really date in college. Oh, there were appealing guys, but she just couldn�t bring herself to like any of them enough to put forth the effort of a relationship. She�d much rather hang around with her friends than go on a date and have to be �on� all night. Most of her friends thought she was crazy, but she since learned not to care. They always wanted to examine her head for reasons why she wasn�t so pressed to be in a relationship. Had her parents� divorce soured her on relationships? Was she scared because her dad left her mom? Maybe the problem was boys! Yes, that must be it. Stacey is a lesbian! Her friends simply were not happy with leaving her alone. They couldn�t understand that she was just happy. If her friends did have a point with any of their brain picking, Stacey wouldn�t know because she didn�t ever examine herself the way they did.

In Stacey�s senior year of college she met a woman online. Someone Stacey knew invited her to a message board that many people frequented. There was no specific topic, just a bunch of people talking about many different things. Stacey was drawn to the posts of Sara very quickly. They were intelligent, insightful, and funny. Stacey immediately recognized Sara as the kind of person she admires but whose attention she can never seem to get. So Stacey studied Sara. She read her posts and learned what she liked and what she believed in and what got her all riled up. Stacey then strategically wrote posts that she knew Sara would not be able to resist. If this all sounds very devious, that�s because it is. Stacey doesn�t do anything by accident, and she had made it her mission to become Sara�s friend.

Stacey�s ploy worked. Soon Stacey and Sara were talking on Yahoo Messenger almost every night, and for hours at a time. They wrote each other long emails many times per week and they began to share many things with each other. Stacey found herself thinking about Sara all the time. Something would happen and Stacey would think, �I can�t wait to tell Sara this.� or �how would Sara react to this?� Stacey didn�t realize it, but she was actually falling for someone she had never met. Now, anyone alive can see the problems in that. Stacey, however, was blinded and failed to see what was going on. In March 2001 Stacey made plans to meet Sara in person. Sara was going to be in Washington, D.C. for the weekend so Stacey met her there. When Stacey saw Sara in the hotel lobby, she had a physical reaction to her beauty. It was the first time Stacey could ever remember being attracted to another woman, and also the first time she was able to put a label on what she was feeling for Sara.

Stacey and Sara had a very nice weekend. They went to the Smithsonian and saw the First Ladies dresses and Stacey nervously spouted off all the historical information she knew, trying at once to impress Sara and to calm her nerves through talking. When Stacey and Sara parted ways that Sunday, Stacey didn�t know what to feel. She knew she would probably never see Sara again. Sara lived halfway across the country, after all. That made Stacey sad, but at the same time she felt like she was walking on air.

Stacey never really found out what happened to end things between Sara and her. Maybe they both realized that it wasn�t best for them to obsessively talk to each other for hours each night. Maybe Stacey freaked Sara out with her incessant rambling and her inability to take her eyes off of Sara�s beautiful red hair. Who knows? The only thing for certain is that things were never right with Stacey and Sara after that weekend. They both tried to get over it, but in the end decided they needed some space from each other. They didn�t talk via Yahoo messenger again, and they only exchanged a handful of emails, none of which contained the brutal honesty and emotions of emails past. Stacey did not talk to Sara at all the summer of 2001 and they only contact they�ve had since then was one round of emails checking on each other on 09/11/2001. It took Stacey a long time to get over Sara and she cried more tears than she knew she had. But ultimately Stacey learned a lot about herself from Sara and was changed because of their relationship. Stacey doesn�t like to talk about Sara, and not many people know about her. Stacey told Matt about Sara one night when she was intoxicated, and when she was at training for her first �real� job after college she bonded with another woman there and told her one night when they sat talking in the hotel. Other than that she keeps quiet about it, mostly because she believes no one would be able to understand.

Stacey graduated from college in May 2001. She couldn�t bear the thought of moving back in with her parents, so she instead moved in with her brother who lived in Baltimore, MD. She had spent the past two summers working at a lumber yard and went back the summer after she graduated to work until she got a real job. She looked and looked and there just wasn�t much of a market. Finally she got an interview on 09/11/2001 to work for a large investment firm. Needless to say, due to the events that day, her interview was cancelled and rescheduled for a few weeks later. The interview went well but the firm decided not to hire for that position due to the uncertain economy after the events of 09/11. Stacey had worn out her welcome at the lumber yard, however, so she quit and began the trifecta of waiting tables, substitute teaching, and working in retail. She spent many long days at work, usually working two jobs per day just to pay her bills. Finally she found a job with a company doing background investigations. It sounded really exciting, but it turned out to be horrible. After about six months, Stacey began to hate her job. Little by little, it began sucking out her soul. Stacey knew she had to get out of the job, but she had nowhere to go.

In 05/2002 Stacey moved in with her best friend, Matt. This raised her cost of living considerably and further trapped her into her horrible job. She and Matt had a great time living together, and did so until 08/2003. At that time Stacey finally got up the nerve to quit her job and didn�t know what she wanted to do with her life. She moved in with her sister, Robin, and began waiting tables. She worked at a restaurant that she loved with people that she loved, and she was surprised to find happiness there. Unfortunately the restaurant closed in 02/2004 and Stacey had to take a job somewhere else. This place wasn�t as nice and the people were all too young for her taste. But she�d been offered a job working for a Shadowy Government Agency and was simply waiting for all of her pre-employment screening to be finished. That�s where she stands now, waiting for the next big thing.