Wow. It's been a while. October 2006-- how can it possibly be that long?? Regardless, reposting was courtesy of destina who was encouraged by the gorgeous lemmealone and girlmostlikely. Here it is. As in all years past, I encourage you to pass it on!

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Most of you know that I'm not a big fan of the meme, but if I could ever possibly start a movement, a movement that could be close enough to a meme as to support the name, then this would be it. In the spirit of getting to know yourself better, and in order to spread positivity, something so lacking these days, I give you: The Love List. I want you ALL to do this. I want you to pimp the idea to your friends. I want to see this become the next LJ trend! So help me out, hmm? -smiling- Feel free to point them back here, for the directions as follows:

This is not meant to be a 'trite' list. It's not meant to be a substitute for your favorite movies or books or fandoms. It can combine all of those things, if you truly -love- them, but the list is meant to be created with substance. It should involve not only the things that you love now, but the things you've loved since childhood, the things that have endeared themselves to you throughout your life. Things that provide structure for who you are. Try to make them as personal and relevant as possible. Really, this is the only rule.

( The Love List )

Keep adding as you find more!

Everything here is designed to crack your shit up. I'm not kidding. If this doesn't do it, I don't know what will.

http://www.cracked.com/article_17493_13-most-unintentionally-disturbing-childrens-toys.html

I'm pretty sure someone got my kid sister one of these toys. Make a guess which! ♥

I have the urge to hug so many of you and tell you I wish I was half as talented and creative and incredible as you. Please don't come and tell me that I am-- I'm leaving comments open because you all seem to hate it when I turn them off-- but just let me tell you that you're all so amazing in your own way and I wish I was even a quarter as gifted. Some of you are just always blowing me away with how unbelievable you are. ♥ I wish I had your talents.

I have a campus full of grade schoolers all attending various camps this week. Today, over lunch, I went around to the various residence halls and taped these to the bathroom doors.



You are beautiful. Help someone else believe it.

She refuses to call me Jen. It's always Jennifer with a sharp, sarcastic bite. Says, "Too many people let you get away with whatever you want," and she ain’t lyin', but she thinks she'll be the one to set me straight.

We have dinner over a piece of paper she's folding, origami in reverse, a bird with wings taken back to a creased sheet-- unfair-- the lifelines smoothed out with her thumb. She's watching the way I pick everything apart on my plate. "You're upset by this," she smirks, looking down at the table, "but it took someone almost an hour and a half to make your dinner and that you have no troubles destroying."

"You calling me a hypocrite," I ask her, looking up at her with a bitten lip and my eyes hiding under my falling hair.

The bird goes easily back together. The food does not. "I'm calling you a riddle."

I'm not really a riddle, I tell her on our long walk back to her place. It's cold, white clouds of breath leading us as we hold each other's hand. Her fingers are long and thin, make me think of a piano playing, the melancholy vibrations of the keys. Make mine feel thick and useless, gripped so tight.

She laughs, suddenly, pulling me to a stop under a red light, the clicking countdown of the walk sign before it, too, goes out. "Not a riddle, but a challenge. It won't be hard to get into your pants," she shakes her head, knowingly, "not even into your heart. But it's impossible to get inside your head, isn't it?”

And it's sad, it really is. Being peeled away like that. Opened up like a paper crane. An unsuspecting Friday night, and an everyday street corner, and a gorgeous girl looking at you like she thinks she's got your number.

"I'm too sober for this," I grin, backing away as the light turns green.

--for the coward who always wondered why i'm such a passive-aggressive cunt.

Because I can be, though I think you're confusing passive-aggressiveness with overt apathy. Now, your turn. Why are you such gutless pussy? Sorry, can't hide behind anonymity here. Sucks for you, might have to grow a pair and man up. =)

The tire swing shook, dead thump of useless rubber as she pulled away.

"I don't know anyone so fucking afraid of being happy!" he shouted, an angry echo off a vacant playground.

She laughed. "Happy's just the illusion before bad puts a ball-peen hammer to your skull and cracks it open."

Every day now. Everyday it seems like another friend or someone I love or, hell, someone I haven't even met is losing their job, losing their home, losing the little faith they have in being able to dig themselves out of debt. People are jobless, homeless, hopeless and it hurts. It hurts me.

Last night I had one of the biggest breakdowns I can ever remember having. I was snuggled in my husband's lap (the one saving grace of the whole situation) just sobbing-- you know, like those gut-wrenching, can't breathe, probably have snot running down my face kind of deals-- about it all. And God, do I ever wish it just ended there. It doesn't.

Because no matter what the economic situation is here. No matter how many AIG's screw us over and how many pensions are lost and how horrifying the downturn is, there's still another 2/3rds of the world's population that lives so much worse than we do. No indoor plumbing, no clean drinkable water, no land for crops, no crops for livestock. Filth, pestilence, famine, corruption, intolerance, fear, hate. Limited or no education, no civil rights, natural disasters, national epidemics, no health care, polarization. No matter how fucked over we are, we are never going to know what it's like to be born, to suffer, and to die.

I paint a bleak little picture in my own fucking head, I know. Doesn't make it any less real.

And, as I was sitting there sobbing, I told my husband that at that moment, those few seconds that it took me to say, "At this moment," someone was being raped, murdered, sold, kidnapped, subjugated, imprisoned, terrorized, hurt. And, even though I knew it to be fact, there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I wish there was. This might sound horrific to those of you with strong religious beliefs (and for that I apologize), but I wish it was as easy as being stripped naked, flayed with any and all manner of instruments in front of an angry mob, being forced to carry wooden beams too heavy, being strung up and left to suffocate. To wear a crown of thorns. I wish it was that easy. If I could, I'd do it in a heartbeat. There's a lot in my life I love, but there's nothing in my life I love more than ending all that suffering. Not one single, solitary thing.

I've been quiet, I've been busy, I've obviously been dealing with this. I feel like I can't articulate this, that I can try, but it's not easy and I feel like it's such a deeply personal thing and anything remotely frivolous can't hold my attention even for the sheer sake of getting away from it, and in that and for other reasons, it loses so much in the translation.

I hope you're all well (I miss a bunch of you) and that you'll forgive me for being so intense (morose) sometimes. I just haven't said much here in a while so-- I thought I should.