Vanity's Gun

Rick compilation

2006-03-20T00:58:00.000-06:00

Digital Photo Unit Assignment

2006-02-06T09:19:00.000-06:00

Marian junior Abby H draws on fellow junior and Academic Decathalon teammate Cheslea F's forehead at a study group at Abby's's house as they prepared for the Academic Decatholon Regional Tournament at Westside High School the following day. Teammates Kiah H and Anne G also drew letters on their forehead to show support for the team; each girl had a letter of M-A-D on their foreheads, the abbreviation of Marian Academic Decathalon, with Chelsea finishing with an exclamation point.

Chelsea F, junior, laughs in her religion class on January 23. Her friend and project partner, Kate V (not pictured) had made a remark that sent Chelsea into peals of laughter.

Kate V, junior, laughs as she finds herself caught between two chairs in her religion class on January 23. While backing up to take a photo, she accidentally fell backward off her chair; luckily, she was not injured.

Marian junior Chelsea F throws a frisbee to a friend on a sunny Friday afternoon. To close the week while taking advantage of the nice weather, she and her friends tossed a frisbee around out on Marian's spacious campus.

Title: Candle light
A candle losses none of its light when lighting another.

Browning Roses, close.

Browning Roses

She's got everything she needs/she's an artist/She don't look back - Bob Dylan, "She's an Artist"

On the Outside, From the inside.

Dentist Appointment

On Closed Communion

2005-12-25T14:03:00.000-06:00

With the grace of Peter and from his historical chair, I, Abbethus Maximus I, do hereby greet you with my divinity and supreme superiourity in holiness, of which I will attempt to impart upon you in the following message. My Excellency wishes to defer criticism from recent attention given to the refusal of the Church to distribute the Most Holy Eucharist to non-Catholics and addresses the topic per request of the Lutheran advisor to Papal Council.
The sacrament of the Eucharist is traditionally a gathering of the Church community that is a celebration of the Church's unity in the miracle of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This celebration of this liturgical meal is an exact and historically accurate remembrance of the Last Supper of the Lord. Diligent and concentrated scrutinization of the Catechism of the Catholic Church has found, however, no indication of Papal involvement in the Eucharal celebration. It has been acknowledged that the separation of the Catholic Church and several Protestant faiths was the sole result of disillusionment with the Papal authorities of the time, who were believed to be in some cases corrupt, inept, and abusive of the minimal Papal authority given them. In light of this acknowledgement, it has become clear that the division of the Church in its early days should not necessarily prohibit the reception of communion in the Church by non-Catholics if they accept the Church's teaching on the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Truth is found in the declaration of the purpose of the Eucharist as a sharing in Christ's ministry of manifesting a community of faith and rejection of exclusionary methods.
While the Church recognizes the heretical qualities of the majority of non-Catholics, it hereby wishes to extend the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist through communication in sacris to select members of the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Hedonite faiths. The status necessary to achieve full communion with the Church community can be acquired through the completion of a screening process conducted by My Holiness. Any persons of aforementioned faiths wishing to participate intercommunically should present to My Holiness a form of intent.
All things to the contrary notwithstanding.
This instruction was mandated through the supreme pontificacy of My Holiness Abbethus Maximus I and should henceforth be observed immediately by all concerned.

Love from,
*personalized signature*
Abbethus Maximus I

Papal Notice of Vatican Relocation

2005-11-30T23:17:00.000-06:00

Greetings and peace to you, my flock, from My Holiness Abbethus Maximus I. My Excellency would like to announce the relocation of the central powers of the Church from Rome to a location west of Boston, Massachusetts, USA. This location, which, by papal authority, My Holiness has requisitioned for the Church, shall become the new site of the holy papal states. This by dictate of My Excellency the Pope. All operations of the Church shall henceforth be carried out from this new location, including daily Mass in fifty-six languages and weekly public appearances by My Holiness. In order to ease the relocation process, the papal apartments and St. Peter's Basilica will be transported by barge from Rome to the United States, making several stops in heathen countries to spread the word of God to the unpriveledged foreigners.

This necessary relocation serves a dual purpose in the divine ministry of the Church, which is to effectively spread the word of God and to maintain the integrity and financial well-being of the Church. My Excellency and advisers have found that a significant representation by the Church in the United States will promote the general holiness of the local populace therein, and thus observing have decided to relocate the Vatican and Papal States to a more universal location. My Excellency has also found it taxing to have to constantly fly transAtlantica in order to supervise Vatican affairs and feels that the matter would be simplified greatly if the Vatican were on the same contninent as the Papal residences.

In peace,

Abbethus Maximus I

InterOffice Memo

To:

The Holy Chancellor

From: Pope Abbethus Maximus I
Date: November 27, 2005
Subject:Relocation of Papal States

Rick--

I think the announcement about relocation of the Vatican went over fairly well. Any suggestions for wardrobe? I rather think the black shoes are a bit frumpy and convey the message that I'm not connecting with the American people. Cowboy boots, perhaps? Also, upon reflection and public reception, I think it might be advantageous to tilt the cowboy hat back slightly. Please alert the costumer. Perhaps instead of the traditional Pope staff, I think we could redesign it to have a removable section to accomodate each individual nationality. Let me know what you think.
Also, the Popemobile remains in Rome despite my numerous requests to have it shipped. I will have to resort to alternative methods if it does not arrive shortly. Thank you.
Hopefully this move will continue to go smoothly. Do consider those questions about the wardrobe. I want to convey the message that I am very involved and commited to making change.

Abbethus Maximus I

CC: Head of Vatican Affairs

Encyclical on the Gender of the Supreme Deity

2005-11-30T23:08:00.000-06:00

With the grace of Peter and from his historical chair, I, Abbethus Maximus I, do hereby greet you with my divinity and supreme superiourity in holiness, of which I will attempt to impart upon you in the following message. My Holiness's doctrine concerning the moral implications of the recent misidentification of the transcendant deity, God, as a female must hereby be reiterated and examined more thoroughly. Though females have in the period since the intrinsically flawed Vatican II Council [i] gained significant influence in the most holy and exceedingly munificent Church, sometimes even serving as under-secretaries to local priests and clergy members, some radical effeminately inclined members of the Church insist upon portraying God as a woman. These radicals, I assure you, my faithful and androcentristic flock, are being investigated by a special task force that will inevitably find all of these infidelic and heretical seditionists and persecute them to the full extent of the papal authority. In order to expedite this necessary process, My Holiness has designated and heads a council to revise the official doctrine of the Church concerning the punishment of heretics. This council has reviewed the effectiveness of punishments dating to the traditional period of the Crusades and the Inquisition and have found several of the methods of our venerable forefathers to be acceptable to promote the interests of the modern Church.

As an adressal of the debate over the gender of the supreme entity, God, the text of the Bible, which has been proven countless times by Biblical scholars under the employ of the Church to be flawless and written by God, answers and expires all debate to the contrary of the position of the Church. The Church, through years of indisputable research and tradition, has come to the conclusion that God the Father is most assuredly male. This conclusion is based upon the undisputed premise that males are sovereign over females and upon evidence found in the Holy Scripture of the Bible [ii].
All things to the contrary notwithstanding.
This instruction was mandated through the supreme pontificacy of My Holiness Abbethus Maximus I and should henceforth be observed immediately by all concerned.

Love from,
*personalized signature*
Abbethus Maximus I

[i] My Holiness Abbethus Maximus I's views concerning the Vatican II Council will be examined more thoroughly in a subsequent encyclical.
[ii]Gen. 1:27 Note the very purposeful use of the words "man" and "mankind" in the Vatican approved editions of the Bible. Some seditious and blasphemous persons have revised this passage to read "woman" and "woman or Human kind"

Volunteering: Second to Everything

2005-11-28T13:13:00.000-06:00

A/N: Read and review
Word count: 1122 words

Many girls excuse themselves from a once-a-week commitment of volunteer work but can somehow squeeze a musical into their schedule. The handicapped lose out to basketball season or soccer conditioning. While no one will admit it, we frequently pass over what we might feel obligated to do for what interests us or that we enjoy doing. It's so easy to justify the hour we would volunteer with the tests and projects we must complete. It's all too convenient to write off someone's needs as someone else's job. It's habit-forming how often we say, "I don't have time," or "I'm too busy" - leaving the unspoken "For you" or "For this" out of the sentence and out of our minds.
And then disaster strikes and Marian's heart bleeds. We're horrified and sickened and, all of a sudden, we're convicted. We quickly set up forms of relief and volunteer work, drives and donations. We help and we feel good.
And then we stop.

But poverty, homelessness, and hunger did not disappear when Hurricane Katrina dissipated, nor when Thanksgiving ended. The loneliness that the elderly feel doesn’t cease when the Marian Juniors who visited them on their retreat left. A child's learning difficulties aren't suddenly resolved after a weekend of tutoring. The smiles fade off of the children's faces once the volunteers have left, the vacuuming and clothes pile up at non-profit places of help and refuge.
The need for volunteers is ever-present, even if the volunteers aren't. Then why would we stop volunteering after the worst of the storms has passed?

Each person that attends Marian has 24 hours, and with all four grades, that amounts to 68,000 hours a day. And I'm sure we're not scholars or athletes 100% of those 68,000 hours.
Oh sure, we need sleep, food, time to study, a movie, a new dress and shoes. We need time to laugh, hang out, and relax. We need to be young and play, practice our sports, go to work, be daughters, sisters, girlfriends, not to mention ourselves.
But I think that as a community, we might have our priorities a little messed up. It seems that we, as individuals, have placed more of an emphasis on our own self-improvement and self-interests than the interests of those who hunger, starve for attention, are overwhelmed in work, or need our intellect and time to better their abilities. Not only is this behavior selfish, but it’s dangerous and harmful to the future.
It's habit-forming. Pass over volunteering long enough and sooner or later, it becomes natural. We have school, sports, work, clubs, and loads and loads of homework, not to mention the time we waste watching TV, hanging out, or going online. Volunteering is pushed aside, maybe because we don't think it's very important or because we don't think it is as important as our own interests.
Someone's interests - someone's well-being - come second to our own interests and passions. Huh.
Normally, we call this behavior ‘selfish’. We tisk the rabbi, shame the Pharisee, and praise the Good Samariantin for his selflessness and compassion. But as a community, we walk to the other side of the road, saying "I have practice!", "I have a test!", "I have to work!" We shrug them off, as if a test is more important than a hungry stomach; like a movie is more important than the elderly.
Is it really so? Are these inanimate objects - mere things - more important than hurting people? So what if a kid will struggle through the rest of his school years because no one took the time to help him read? He'll live, but he'll live substandard. So what if a mentally-handicap person has never had someone who is not paid to hang out with? He'll come to know himself as a second-class citizen.
So what if we grow up thinking that what we want comes first? We learn to be selfish.
Volunteering isn't a matter of feeling good, doing what we're good at, or what we think is important. Volunteering is a matter of social justice; a quiet way of achieving it, not through legislation or marches, but through seeing something that could be made better and making it so. It's about making the future brighter and better, all because we have helped.
Eventually, we as a Marian community will join The Future. We will leave Marian (*tear*), we will go into and out of college, we will enter a career, marriage, parenting. We will become what others and we have made ourselves to be.
But everyone else will also. There will be more elderly people, sitting in the nursing homes, alone and forgotten, pushed aside by a generation that has taught itself to be selfish. There will be the poor who never had a tutor who cared about their future or a role model who cared about their choices. There will be the mentally-handicap who feel like they will never fit in, ostracized by disorders they have no control over. There will be those people who must choose between clothing and food, and for whom there is simply no time for education.
They will exist in their present circumstance for as long as their problems exist. And their problems won't away until we as a community make them go away.
We do this by taking the time now to make their problems an issue of social justice that the Marian community gives high priority to. This isn't accomplished by doing a drive for two weeks and calling it solved, but rather a constant drive to eradicate hunger and nakedness. We do this by establishing relationships with the elderly and mentally handicap, visiting them every week, not once or twice a year. We do this by constantly donating, and when money is tight, by sacrificing. We do this by tutoring students and fostering their potential and touching their dreams and inspirations every single week for an hour.
Slowly, we will begin to change the world. Quietly, we will impact the future. We will learn to see and think beyond ourselves and our shortsighted circumstances to see ripple effects, improved lifestyles, hope.

The future doesn't solely belong to us, though we may play a part in its formation. The future is all-inclusive and will bring into it those, that as a community, we did not have the time for. The future resides in the potential of all of the world's citizens, whether it is realized and developed or not. To not volunteer, to not give freely of our resources and talents hinders the future that will one day be the present - and not only the present, but our reality as we have so fashioned it.

Waiting for Their Moment in the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman

2005-11-20T22:18:00.000-06:00

By HELENE COOPER
Published: November 16, 2005, NYT

You can't get to Bukavu, Congo, from Monrovia, Liberia. Like just about everywhere else in Africa, the two places are separated by dense rain forests, interminable wars and impassable dirt roads that don't go anywhere.

Yet they might as well be the same place. "Oh, finally, now I'm home," I thought as I crawled out of the tiny single-engine plane and jumped onto the landing strip of what passes for Bukavu's airport. It was about six months ago, and I was on a reporting trip throughout Africa. It was a weird trip for me because I was there to write about poverty and development, yet everywhere I went, from Accra, Ghana, to Mekele, Ethiopia and Kisumu, Kenya, I kept thinking that none of those places, for all of their endemic poverty or corruption, seemed as bad off as my own home country, Liberia.

Until, that is, I got to Bukavu. After the semidesert of Ethiopia and the savannas of Kenya, Bukavu was otherworldly lush, with that tropical just-rained smell that often greets me when I go home to Liberia. Leafy, green mountains and valleys surrounded the teeming city, with rich banana trees and tea plantations dotting the countryside: the same luxuriant, verdant landscape we have around Monrovia.

And the same inexplicable sense of abandonment that comes from having a population ravaged by years of pointless civil wars. Thousands upon thousands of young boys troll fetid, trash-strewn streets, with nowhere to go. Downtown buildings, long devoid of any commerce, are marked with holes from rockets, grenades and the various other projectiles common to all of the continent's numerous wars. A few private cars - mufflers dragging, crammed with 10, 15, even 20 people - travel the crater-filled streets, but mostly just the white United Nations S.U.V.'s.

What struck me most, though, in Bukavu were the women. As I drove into the city, I passed women I have known all of my life. There were old women - old in Africa means 35 or so - with huge bundles of bamboo sticks on their back. In most cases, the burdens were larger than the backs carrying them as they trudged up one hill after another. There were market women in their colorful dresses - in Liberia we would call them lapas - huddled together on the side of the road selling oranges, hard-boiled eggs and nuts.

There were young women and girls, sitting in front of village huts bathing their sons, daughters, brothers and sisters in rubber buckets. No electricity or running water was anywhere close, but one 10-year-old girl had dragged a bucket of dirty creek water up the hill to her house so she could wash her 4-year-old sister.

These were the women I grew up with in Liberia, the women all across Africa - the worst place there is to be a woman - who somehow manage to carry that entire continent on their backs.

In Liberia, when their sons were kidnapped and drugged to fight for rebel factions, and when their husbands came home from brothels and infected them with H.I.V., and when government soldiers invaded their houses and raped them in front of their teenage sons, these were the women who picked themselves up and kept going. They kept selling fish, cassava and kola nuts so they could feed their families. They gave birth to the children of their rapists in the forests and carried the children on their backs as they balanced jugs of water on their heads.

These are the women who went to the polls in Liberia last week. They ignored the threats of the young men who vowed more war if their chosen presidential candidate, a former soccer player named George Weah, didn't win. "No Weah, no peace," the boys yelled, chanting in the streets and around the polling stations.

The women in Liberia, by and large, ignored those boys and made Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who is 67, the first woman to be elected to lead an African country. I wasn't surprised that Mr. Weah immediately said the vote had been rigged, although international observers said it had not been. In the half-century since the Europeans left Africa, its men have proved remarkably adept at self-delusion.

No one can be sure what kind of president Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated banker who was imprisoned by one of the many men who ran Liberia into the ground over the last few decades, will be. There are plenty of African women who have brought us shame, like Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. But after 25 years of war, genocide and anarchy, it's a good bet that Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf will smoke the men who preceded her in running the country. It's not going to be that hard to do; she is following Charles Taylor and Samuel Doe, both butchers of the first degree.

Ever since the voting results started coming in a few days ago, showing what the Liberian women had done, I've been unable to get one image from Bukavu out of my mind. It is of an old woman, in her 30's. It was almost twilight when I saw her, walking up the hill out of the city as I drove in.

She carried so many logs that her chest almost seemed to touch the ground, so stooped was her back. Still, she trudged on, up the hill toward her home. Her husband was walking just in front of her. He carried nothing. Nothing in his hand, nothing on his shoulder, nothing on his back. He kept looking back at her, telling her to hurry up.

I want to go back to Bukavu to find that woman, and to tell her what just happened in Liberia. I want to tell her this: Your time will come, too.

Encyclical on the Ethical Treatment of Poison Dart Frogs

2005-11-20T18:00:00.000-06:00

With the grace of Peter and from his historical chair, I, Abbethus Maximus I, do hereby greet you with my divinity and supreme superiority in holiness, of which I will attempt to impart upon you, my flock.
My Holiness wishes to address the complex moral issue of the ethical treatment of poison dart frogs and their intrinsic value to our most holy and rigid institution. In this modern society, an air of threatening animosity towards the poison dart frogs has developed, an air that represses the innate freedoms of these magnificently useful creatures and frowns upon and even inhibits the free use of them in religious ceremony. This limitation on their use is a topic of concern for those of us in the traditionally superior religion of Catholicism as we consider the many useful qualities of these animals.
I will commence with a detailed history of the affiliation and liaison of and between the Church and the poison dart frog. In the early days of the Church, the disciples used the poison dart frogs (also called tree frogs by locals) as finger warmers during church services, because the stone buildings in which they worshiped were very cold, as they were unheated. These early followers of Christ simply attached several genetically engineered frogs onto their fingers and used them as miniature space heaters. However, in the Middle Ages, the papacy considered the frogs to be evil and intrinsically connected with the Beezlebub himself. So the practice of shooting the frogs developed from a religious devotion to rid the world of evil in the form of frogs. In the time of the Renaissance, frogs were banned altogether from religious ceremony, as they were seen to be idols, but then
Martin Luther banned idols, and so the Church began a sort of closet frog-worshipping. However, this practice was stopped during the time of the Reformation by Pope Pius XLI, who introduced other, less temperamental idols to the followers of the Church. Today, many people still shoot frogs, and this disturbing act should be stopped immediately. My Excellency Abbethus Maximus I feels that a more practical, economical use of these precious animals would be to skin them and use them as purified finger slippers for the priests during the divine service of the Mass.
All things to the contrary notwithstanding.
This instruction was mandated through the supreme pontificacy of My Holiness Abbethus Maximus I and should henceforth be observed immediately by all concerned.
Love from,
*personalized signature*
Abbethus Maximus I

Encyclical on Transvestitism in the Church

2005-11-20T17:43:00.000-06:00

With the grace of Peter and from his historical chair, I, Abbethus Maximus I, do hereby greet you with my divinity and supreme superiourity in holiness, of which I will attempt to impart upon you.
My holiness's doctrine on the complex moral issue of transvestitism must be hereby reiterated and examined more thoroughly in light of the recent media storm surrounding the apparent cross-dressing tendencies of several of the College of Cardinals and Archbishops, as well as their chancellors(formerly known as underlings). It has long been the tradition of the Catholic Church to scorn and frown upon, even stone, cross-dressers, however, since it is our own clergy who is accused of transvestite tendencies, we might refrain and attempt to shield them from any legal proceedings and other such embarrassing affairs. Henceforth, I call you, my flock, to accept into your loving arms any clergy member you see who is wearing robes that flow and allow for the passage of air to necessary though disparaged anatomical body parts. The vestments of the clergy are not feminine in nature, because an admittance of the female gender would undermine the traditional values and institution of this holy Roman Church that was founded on the basis of acceptance and other such Christian values that we now cherish in the traditional mass. The vestments, or robes worn by the clergy are sacred in nature and are accurate, historical replicas of that which Jesus Himself and his apostles wore in the first century anno domini. I now, as Supreme Pontiff, now encourage all clergy
members and the parishioners and etc. of their communities take into full account and create a model of acceptance of this porting of dress-like garb. My Holiness feels that dresses are very clearly the most affordable and practical alternatives to the modern pantsuits and suit jackets commonly sported by heathen men and even young boys. The row of 500 buttons down the front, symbolic of one-quarter of the time since Jesus Christ our Lord has been departed from us, is, of course, necessary in the face of modernity and other such threats to the Holy Church.
All things to the contrary notwithstanding.
This instruction was mandated through the supreme pontificacy of My Holiness Abbethus Maximus I and should henceforth be observed immediately by all concerned.
Love from,
*personalized signature*
Abbethus Maximus I

A Complete History of the use of Poison Dart Frogs in the Roman Catholic Tradition

2005-11-14T20:56:00.000-06:00

Poison Dart Frogs, or tree frogs, were introduced to the early Christians by my predecessor, the Most Holy Saint Peter of Rome as a necessary accessory to the traditional Mass that was celebrated in remembrance of the most sacred covenant with God the Father through His son, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The frogs served as an exceedingly necessary tool in the Mass, as they allowed the parishioners and priests to concentrate their complete consideration upon the sacrament transpiring on the high altar by heating the hands of the flock during the ceremony. Obviously, in such a time of antiquity as in the time of Peter the Wise of the Key during which the ideas of modern heating and cooling systems were not yet conceived, the frogs proved to be inordinately advantageous and functional. However, it is to be duly noted that the frog's sharp teeth sometimes punctured the skin of the people, creating a dull, but perpetual pain which reliably produced an unfortunate loss of life. Despite this minor inconvenience, the clergy nevertheless encouraged the use of the frogs in the mass for several reasons, one being that the Church regulated the use of the frogs and typically leased the creatures out to the parishioners for nominal fees. The Church in its current status of omnipotency would consider the collection of fees for aids to the liturgy unethical and therefore unacceptable, however in its genesis, the Church of Christ, which included all Christians and not solely Catholics, was entrenched in poverty and therefore found it necessary to collect small stipends from its followers.

In the time of Pope Urbain XVLLQIV, however, the use of poison dart frogs in the Mass was prohibited and condemned as being a diabolic practice that was contrary to the integral beliefs of the true followers of Christ. Poison dart frogs, because of their ability to kill through tricky genetics and divinely inspired intelligent design, were banned from all Church structures and were not allowed to reside within a five-thousand meter radius of any of those structures. The Church was prepared to deal with any disturbances or violations of this code through the use of armed monks, summoners, and clergy members. These enforcers were trained in the defense of their faith with the use of catapults, slingshots, and spears, and were carefully instructed to recognize and kill any tree frogs that defied the orders of the Pope.

However, Martin Luther was instrumental in the reintroduction of poison dart frogs into the liturgy. His defiance of the sacred Church doctrine at the Council of Worms and his instruction to his followers to rid their worship of God of all idols created a renewed fervor towards sacred idolatry in the Catholic Church. Popes Paul the Incorrigible and Sextus the Venerable encouraged their flocks to renew any abandoned idols and halt the discrimination against tree frogs. Thus began a time in the history of the Catholic Church of tree frog worship as a response to the recognition by the Chosen People of the helpful and useful qualities of the frogs.

In recent years, a disturbing trend has been noticed by the Vatican Council of the consistent introduction of heating systems into newly constructed Church buildings, thus abolishing the need for frogs in the liturgy, however the perpetual omniscience of the Council deems that to maintain a sense of tradition in our Church, it should refrain from such modernistic practices and revert to the use of frogs. To avoid investigation by international authorities, however, the Council suggests a genetic modification be performed on the frogs to eliminate their ability to induce death. The Vatican Council also proposes the use of skinned frogs as purified finger slippers for the celebrants of the sacred ceremony.

This history was mandated through the supreme pontificacy of My Holiness Abbethus Maximus I and should henceforth be considered the sole valid source of this information.

Love from,
*personalized signature*

Abbethus Maximus I

Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Bullshit!

2005-06-27T01:33:00.000-05:00

Rick: there are four elements:
Fire - adore
Water - emotion
Wind - intellect
Earth - power
Rick: you are most definitely fire
Rick: ardor is passion for something
Dan: alright
Rick: i think that Shirley is Air because although he pretends not to care, he's got some ideas about stuff.
Dan: def
Rick: and i'm Water
Dan: explain how in the world this is possible
Rick: i have quite the range of emotions. except for cuddly affection, because that's just weird
Dan: you're very easy to light on fire
Rick: you can't light water on fire
Dan: upset, I mean
Rick: ah, that's true
Rick: anyway, i'm going to explain how we all work in sync
Dan: what's your horoscope sign?
Rick: ok, first yin and yang: you and i
Rick: Virgo
Dan: that's an Air sign, right?
Rick: Virgo? i don't know, all i know is the symbol is a maiden
Dan: pretty sure
Dan: who's earth?
Rick: Earth is on vacation, but i guess Rikki is Earth. she's a powerful French Canadian.
Dan: yeah... power
Dan: I would change elemental meanings
Dan: fire would stay the same and I'm an aries, which is a fire sign
Rick: anyway, i'm going to explain the ways that you, Shirley, and i all manage to refrain from killing each other.
Dan: Kurt is a taurus, an earth sign. earth = intellect
Rick: you know what, shaddup. this has nothing to do with birthdays
Dan: well think about it
Rick: this is personality
Rick: SHAAAAAADDDDDUUUUUUPPPP
Dan: it's told that our sign influences personality
Rick: they lie
Dan: you're a virgo, an air. air = emotion
Rick: DAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNN
Dan: water would be rikki
Rick: this stuff is written down. Air = Intellect
Dan: though I'm also sure she's an air
Rick: i have an EXPLANATION
Dan: she's air
Dan: damn. this messes it up
Dan: wait
Dan: you must be water
Rick: STOP TALKING AND LET ME CONTINUE!!!
Dan: you're water
Dan: alright
Rick: i am water!!!
Dan: go ahead
Rick: i've explained this. . . .
Dan: this works now
Dan: except air and earth need to switch
Rick: no
Rick: they'll stay where they are
Rick: i do things my way because Water is very very bossy and i'm an emotional groomer
Dan: but but but!!!!!!
Dan: no way. no excuse
Dan: this way makes more sense
Dan: just change earth to intellect
Rick: yes, now shut up becore i slosh water on you and you are nothing but smoldering embers
Rick: no no no no no
Rick: because it shoots my explanations
Dan: CHANGE IT
Rick: NO
Dan: whyyy????
Dan: damn
Rick: my explanations will be carp if i do!
Rick: not crap, actual carp
Rick: gills and everything
Dan: hahahahha
Dan: alright
Dan: tell me
Rick: ok ok ok, first i'll explain the yin and yangosity of you and i
Dan: fire and water???
Rick: you are fire, i am water. we work in sync and are often the themes used in cool paintings and on Axe body spray containers. whenever you get really really intense about something and start to burn down sequoias, i step in and say, "hey man, chill. just chill out." and splash some water on you (which is essentially my guts, but let's not get onto the teddy bear topic. . . ) and then things are under control. whenever i get out of control and my emotions are calling the shots you come in with your fiery element and start the boiling process. three minutes later, we have a hard boiled egg and we discuss our problems over that egg.
Rick: you and i are definitely meant to be brothers because of this explanation.
Dan: that really makes sense with a lot of inside jokes thrown in
Rick: yeah, see? it works
Rick: ok, which yin and yang next. . . you and Shirley
Dan: explain fire and earth
Rick: ok ok ok, he's Earth now
Rick: symbolizing Intellect
Dan: yup
Rick: you are the bonfire and he is the forest. sometimes you try to set all the trees on fire and Shirley doesn't like that at all, so he talks to his animal friend Smokey the Bear (heh heh heh, let's pretend that Smokey is being played by Mabel. . . . ) and then Smokey and his army of woodland creatures form a bucket brigade and get you the fire back into the bonfire pit where you belong. but sometimes it's the earth that gets out of control and you wake up and your lawn has become treeville and you can't get out because all the leaves are slowly eating up your house. so what do you do? you burn all those leaves. and the fire and the earth have a serious discussion in which the Fire states, "man, you can't go rampant in people's yards. it's not cool. you have your area, the forest." and the Earth says, "yeah, i guess you're right, man."
Danelfgirl: I just burn him?
Rick: when he oversteps his bounds.
Rick: you don't burn down all the trees
Rick: that's not cool
Rick: and Fire is weird. cool, but weird.
Dan: well I burn him when I overstep my bounds too
Dan: is that suggesting somethin?
Rick: yeah, see. and Smokey the bear and Kurt's army of woodland creatures sees that and says "hold on there, man."
Dan: Mabel doesn't have any part in this!
Rick: i just think it would be funny to see Mabel as Smokey the bear
Rick: no, he has nothing to do with anything.
Rick: why? because he's a Jerky McJerkyface
Dan: but Kurt needs him to control me
Rick: no he does not
Rick: Smokey just isn't doing anything so Kurt tells him to get his lazy ass up
Rick: ok, take out Mabel, then.
Dan: so how can earth control me?
Rick: geez, try to be funny and you're bombarded with symbolism.
Dan: well it ruins it
Rick: the Earth includes the woodland creatures.
Dan: they get burned too
Rick: and if things get bad Kurt can just make sure a huge mound of dirt falls on you from a nearby hiss of dirt and then you are extinguished
Rick: i've never seen a singed rabbit
Rick: see, there's a balance there
Dan: they don't singe. they poof into a ball of fire and then are extinguished shortly afterwards
Rick: hey Dan
Rick: chill out *splash*
Dan: *fosh*
Rick: are you chilled out?
Dan: I am a wisp of airy air
Rick: well, you're not supposed to be dead, just not burning up the palm trees on my beach
Rick: so is my explanation sufficient?
Rick: it had better be, man, because my brain is throbbing from that one.
Rick: ok, next yin and yang? your choice
Dan: next yin and yang?
Dan: you have another?
Rick: yeah, you choose
Rick: hello, there are more.
Rick: Rikki hasn't been mentioned at all
Dan: YAY rikki!
Rick: yay, next yin and yang?
Dan: alright. air and water
Rick: ok, Ricardo and myself.
Dan: yup
Dan: explain away
Rick: we work in unison because sometimes the villagers don't give thanks to the Tiki God who has granted them a bountiful harvest. they take advantage of the Tiki God and are not grateful for the gifts bestowed on them. this pissed Ricardo and myself off. *cirls upper lip and bares teeth in anger* we formulate a plan, see. she as the Air will whirl about wildly and sends heavy clouds to keep sunshine from the village. she whirls and whirls and whirls until i leap up and get caught in the whirlosity. i keep leaping and she keeps whirling until we're a big nasty hurricane, right. we'll position ourselves about a mile away from the village and then we'll call out "DO YOU PAY HOMAGE TO THE TIKI GOD????" if they agree and do so rapidly, we die down and everything is calm and the sun shiney shine shines again.
Rick: if they refuse, we slam into their communtiy with all the force of a Mongol horder and reduce it to a pile of sticks and stones. then we have lunch.
Dan: that is totally ridiculous
Dan: and complete bullshit
Rick: that is completely awesome
Dan: but air agitates or extinguishes fire
Dan: so togther, rikki and I burn Kurt becuz that's how wild fires spread
Rick: not if i'm there to chill you both out because when i tackle Rikki rain occurs.
Dan: how do her and I not burn kurt?
Dan: how do air and fire work?
Rick: Kurt builds a brick wall
Dan: that's bullshit
Dan: how do air and earth work? they just leave each other alone
Rick: air and fire work together perfectly. fire breathers will tell you that.
Dan: yeah, they make bigger fire!!!
Rick: they don't burn down trees though
Rick: Kurt's safe and sound
Dan: how so?
Rick: ok, you take a mouthfull of gasoline or some other flammable liquid, hold up a torch, expel the gasoline, the fire explodes from the torch, the air carries the fire, it's a cool trick, people clap, and then Air and Fire stand up and take a bow.
Rick: you can't do that underwater
Dan: hahahahahaha
Dan: so what about air and earth?
Rick: this is a bit more tough. . . . .
Rick: the air currents control things like the weather, which are important. see, if there's an area with a drought, Ricardo as the Air will guide the thunderstorm towards that area with a kick of her foot. the area is watered, vegetation sprounts, the bunnies feast, and people trap them and keep them as pets. problem solved.
Rick: and then Air gusts across a cave or hollow in the Earth, it makes a really cool sound.
Rick: "this is my bunny. i love my bunny. my bunny loves me. *pets the terrified bunny* bunny bunny bunny."
Dan: hahahahahahahha
Dan: water and earth? you and kurt
Rick: ok, first of all, you cannot make sand castles with dry sand. such a beast does not exist. anyway, Earth and Water work in sync because castaways need somewhere to land. i mean seriously, what kind of ocean would i be if i transported some shipwrecked sould floating on some driftwood directly from the depths to a flaming pit? the flaming pit will be much more beneficial to the castaway if i tossed them on a beach and the flaming pit was used to roast things over. you are the chef in this scenario. Kurt as the Earth is the beach and the beach says to the castaway, "Hey man, welcome to the Beach of Soggy People. i got some trees for you, feel free to make a humble shack if you so desire. . . . um, the chickens roaming around are free for the hunting, so help yourself. "
Rick: see, it all works out

Jaded twice, Braided

2005-06-25T02:16:00.000-05:00

How does it feel to be on the receiving end?

It's interesting how I can become one emotion, feeling/thinking/being only that - and in the next moment: complete normalcy. Interested indifference, I'm waiting (and listening) if you're talking (and somewhat present). The feelings forgotten, vanished, disappeared, and we're left with nice pleasantries.
These are the products of impassioned anger and hard-hitting offence. Foreign to me now, they rang true moments/hours/days ago. [and these are the beginnings of something new. Something ignored, trodden on, silenced.]
[Something voiced.]
[Hear my muffled roar.]

Disgust. Impatience. Insult. Anger. Indifferent silence; I play down and try to stay safe. Try not to be alive. [I'll be bored, no, you go and have fun. Not like I could stop you, and who cares about me anyways?]
And then…. Attack. Bite. Pain pain pain. Step back, survey the blood, the guts, the gore. The salt-water tears and stomach acid mingling and hissing and bubbling becuz they weren't meant to be together. Go for the kill, cut the air and silence the scream and break the neck with a self-satisfied crack. Necessary causality, unfortunate, but just another. Another bad-taste, successfully exposed and disposed. Thank goodness and good riddance for that. [Leave in peace, leave in pieces. I can only imagine what I'm missing out on. I imagine fast/funny/laughter - non-important things that suddenly become so damn important; it takes/steals two ventricles out of my heart, two lungs (hard to breath), and my two you. I'll pretend like I'm having fun and don't care, for yours sake. It's better that way, I assure you.]
What I think no longer matters. All that is important are technicalities! Not imagination, but reason. Not acceptance, but questions with blunt ends that hurt my back and my legs and my head. [Or silence. I'll be waiting, late in the morning for you, and then forget about this one emotion and how I could feel it, how I could breathe it, how I could become it. When that time comes, I'll be sure to be myself.] Not opinions but facts! Evidence! What is this all? I'll lock my mind in a cage and pretend not to miss it. [Or shut the door in my face, stub my big toe and my wrist between the door and the frame - either works.]
When I want generics, I need opinions and knowledge. When I want an EXIT sign, I keep walking through a dark tunnel and trip over electric cords, so mad I can't see that I'm so damn blind, why did I open my mouth in the first place? [Why can't I hold your attention?] Being honest gets you nowhere. [Being boring and serious and no one likes you.]
[I may have problems, yes, but none of them with feeling.] A cold, hard stare enough to freeze blood - wasted.

Sometimes I want to say "Back off" or "Stop it". ["Here! I'm over here!"] I won't - I can't. I'm not a quitter - a loser sometimes [that for the sake of your reputation, wouldn't be caught dead talking to… wait…], but not a quitter. For the sake of everything, I'll keep my mouth quiet. [Thanks for taking an interest. I'll wait for you to be done.]
And sometimes, I'm just really confused. [Confused/hurt. Same difference.]
I'll be myself again. Consideration [courtesy] is too painful and not worth it.

Well? I'm waiting. [Let's hear something.]

Would you even notice if i go
Would you be the last one there to know?

Now you're in is it all you hoped that it would be -
And do you remember leaving me out in the cold?

Generic

2005-06-12T03:44:00.000-05:00

Remarks set me off like a match consumes itself. I'm on edge, blinking fast, trying to juggle a million things and still be all ears, all yours. Be comfortable and open-minded (fancy word for "Confused but alright") and knowing sleep could do me good. Praying could do me good. Reading and concentrating - all do me good. Food - healthy, good tasting, freshly made food - could do me loads/leaps/bounds of good.
Trying to be interested and fun and chatty - it's not working. Why? Why? New batteries, hit the button - where's the light? New bulb? Since I'm preoccupied now, I'll put it on the back burner and think about it later.
Sometimes, I wish I could take the night off and clock-in in the morning. But I asked for this when I said Sure. I accepted this. This is mine. Life doesn't stop for timeouts and breathers, so bang!-bang!-bang!-keep up now.
I'll ask questions and be normal; play it down, play it safe. Nothing here tonight, hide the flashlight, and wait for mourning to come and shine on what I could not see in the dark. Don't end anything with the mark - I don't want to have to take that and probe my mind because it's not looking good. Sleep will do me good.

No antacid can calm the storm that rages inside my innards. I suppose I'll just have to wait it out in the morning and see for myself the damage that Hurricane Kiah has caused, blotting my nose occasionally when the blood staunch breaks and it flows again, covering my hands. Disgusting, but almost pointless to clean until the mourning, or until it stops.
I hide in a small shack called my mind, take cover from the winds of confusion and worry that threaten to topple it (does this mean I'm losing my mind?), and hold tight to the cross held up against my chest that is the perfect size for holding, and for throwing, and for anything. What was the only perfect thing here now has the blood from my nose all over it, and somehow, it's even more perfect. It's mine too.

[I don't know what to say.] Generic works, though I feel phony. (I wonder... when phony people say generic things, are they almost genuine? I hope I'm a genuine person who feels phony when saying generic things, not the other way around.) Interest works, though interest only leads to slight disgust. I'll stomach it for now and spew out generic. I don't mean to belittle you, but it's all that's running through my mind. I understand that I know nothing.

The silence calls me back. Not with the ring of phone or a commanding bark, but nevertheless, it calls and I hear it, come back/kicking/screaming. It doesn't free me or invite me to take the night off until tomorrow, but as if to say "Wait a second; your work's not done." (Never ending-done) The clock hands tick by and my paranoia only grows. My hunger only grows. My sense of responsibility only grows/multiplying/exponentially.
[I don't know what to say]

Tonight, I'll be your [any word].

Meet Shirley

2005-06-11T03:25:00.000-05:00

11,000 words and 28 pages later....

Dan: does it ever bother you or weird you out that I have a guy's name, the whole Dan thing?
Shirley: not really
Dan: good
Dan: becuz you have a girls name, we decided
Shirley: what is it?
Dan: Shirley
Shirley: haha
Shirley: is anyone actually going to call me that?
Dan: Rick might
Shirley: she just called me Shirley
Dan: hahahahaha
Dan: I'm trying to remember why we gave you such a crappy name
Dan: I think it was becuz of Eric, becuz he has a pretty bad name
Shirley: Eric's a bad name?
Dan: no, Mabel's a bad name
Dan: flamingstatik007: hey hey hey, Shirley's trying to get away with calling me Albert.
flamingstatik007: this will not do

Dan: and in that movie... Mel Gibson is not violent
Shirley: holy shit... is Mel Gibson John Smith?
Dan: yeah
Shirley: nooooo
Dan: no, he was pocahantas
Shirley: he could have been one of the other male characters...
Shirley: like the one english jerk who wanted to kill the indians
Dan: Gov. Ratcliffe?
Shirley: yeah
Dan: Cinderella is another love @ first sight
Shirley: is that the one with the slippers?
Dan: do I even need to answer that?

Shirley: He is talking bad about Beatles songs! Murder him!
Shirley: Nowhere Man is an awesome song
Dan: hahahahaa
Shirley: This person is not very nice
Shirley: John Lennon is God and I get offended when people think he should be in the pledge because he wouldn't want that.

On C/communism: Man, this arugement was so awesome. this is just the conclusion of it... and the 2b/3a stuff are references to defintions. if anyone wants to read the entire thing, asked... it was so crazy
Shirley: So Cuba fits 2b
Dan: or 3a
Dan: there is no 2b [or dictatorship]
Shirley: there's a 3?
Dan: are you blind?
Shirley: I'm talking about Communism
Dan: oh, ok
Shirley: Is there anything you're still confused about?
Dan: no, I'm left with an overwhelming sense of stupidity
Dan: so to say Dicotrial Communism is redundant
Shirley: no
Shirley: because of 2c
Shirley: or 2d
Dan: but to say Cuba is dictorialistic Communist is to state the same thing twice becuz of 2b
Shirley: But what if you didnt know anything about Cuba?
Dan: it's your fault
Dan: you can be taught and won't have a stupid arugment like this
Dan: Dictorally Communist is redundant
Shirley: I supposed Communist dictatorship can be redundant
Shirley: but communist dicatorship wouldn't be
Shirley: i hate adding d's onto things
Shirley: it's so close to e
Dan: what are you talkin about?
Shirley: nevermind
Shirley: if you didnt notice, you didnt notice
Dan: I did not notice
Dan: but using that as a means of escape...
Dan: I hate that d adn f are so close @ to each other
Shirley: no, im not escaping the discussion
Dan: damn
Dan: is this discussion throughally discussed?
Shirley: over-discussed, in fact
Dan: I agree
Dan: and what did we learn?
Shirley: Communist and communist are different
Dan: and they mean different things
Shirley: other than that there was just a bunch of confusion

Dan: crazy. biotin is both vitamin B7 and vitamin H
Shirley: what a hog

Two Weeks Until Freedom

2005-06-08T18:03:00.000-05:00

Seatbelt on
Adjust the mirrors
Key in ignition and start ‘er up
Shift into gear
Deep breath, Sara, you’ll do fine
Kind eyes like a hawk
Intimidation
Pressure higher than the tires
Drive drive drive
CURB
Shit
I swear I’ve only ever done that twice!
Drive drive drive
Dammit
I turned into the wrong lane
Couldn’t remember if I was inside or outside
Drive drive drive
Shut up assholes, you and your bitch
You’ve had to go through this too
Yeah, that’s it
Show off that stick shift
Your car sound like a fart
Stop following
Find something better to do
Drive drive drive
Beads of sweat on my upper lip
PRESSURE
Shirt sticks to my back
Hands grip the wheel
Don’t let go
Five under the speed limit
Drive drive drive
Hey, I like that song
Wait
Crap that’s my phone
Just let it ring
I should have shut it off
BEEP you missed a call
I KNOW THAT ASSHOLES
Swallow
I bet the whole car could hear that
They know I’m nervous
Swallow again
Why is it that swallows are only loud when you’re worried about people hearing them?
BEEP
Yes. I know I missed a call.
4:53
Pull into the parking lot
Stop
Shift to park
Turn off the car
Unbuckle the seatbelt
Run to mommyI tell you, nothing really humbles a person like driver’s ed

Prayer: (n) an earnest request or wish

2005-06-01T00:46:00.000-05:00

Author's Note: if you laugh, I'll cry.

I have a hard time admitting that I'm human, and that there are things I need to cope with; either share them with a psyche or shut the hell up about. (no one cares to hear how much it hurts to witness it all, because they can all clearly see that it only hurts because I hold it too close - too personal (it's completely innocent, or so we like to think) - and let the knife graze my chest, coming closer to my beating bloody heart every single time, and that in the end, this is my own damn fault. This is the bed that I've made for myself to sleep in, and sleep I shall)
These feelings that swell up and tinge my blue blood veins with their yellow sulfur plus two ions until I glow radioactive need to be suppressed, squished under my left ankle, crushed under Eve's heal and grounded like pestle and motar. I am stronger than myself; I refuse to be overcome by my feelings, and thus, I overcome myself and submit to you a more perfect me.
Nothing new and nothing surprising, and at the same time, challenging, tough, nothing I've ever seen before - will I survive and become, like gold seperated from ore, a better person? Is it possible? - because it's hard, and it hurts, and it's all I can do to hold on. It's all part of the growing up process, they tell me, it's all part of maturity. The evolution of the human.
Conquer them and capture them and burn them alive, hear them scream to uproarious cheering that I have finally conquered myself (or is it good thought who surrenders to the natural urges of possession and alpha male?) and know they're dead, and let their ashes float far from me until the anger leaves, and the shame leaves, and the yvne leaves, and all the pain is gone and all I'm left with is a little confusion and a lot of emptiness that echoes inside the chasm of myself waiting to be filled again, waiting for the process of resurrected human nature to start anew. This all the consuming rage - this all consuming monster that envelopes and manipulates and creates disasters and blows things up irreparably and brings slaps and tears and conversations that go nowhere and are of no interest and no one cares, most of all me. Though it does sting, occasionally, to know that you are not of interest to anyone. But get over it. I have interest to You, and You hear me when I call, and thank God for that.
I don't like that this happens. I don't like that I do this. I don't like that I'm like this, made to feel this, and that it's natural, and that it's human, and that I'm human. Most of all, I don't like to take the blame, claim the feelings and christen them with all these pretty names like Yvne, Truh, Layarteb, Ytirucesni, Ysuolaej, and Noissessop. I don't like knowing that I am so weak-willed and so concerned and so competitive that this is important to me and that no one else seems to care, or maybe no one else does care - no one seems to listen. (that's because this is no one else' problem, and for others, it's no problem at all.) I don't like admitting that this is me, these are mine; I wish I could throw them onto someone else to hold, to be broken by, and you'd be mine instead of these broken shards of glass and trust.
But for now, grab these empty hands and clasp them tight, reassuring me with a silent presence when I receive with broken eardrums nothing. That I'm not alone in this pain - in a seeming betrayal, that I have a voice that is heard no matter how much is confused by the crying yells, and that all this is just another place for me to slip up, a stumbling block that tears up my road, not a resting stop where I lie. Wipe the glass away from the cruelest cut (and You felt it too) and staunch the shiny blood and bind them until they are new, wearing Your beautiful rings. Listen when I scream and yell so much that my voice cracks, know I need a tissue when I hurt so much I cry - not a lecture and not advice. It's my secret plea to know that I am needed and appreciated - be there when my craving for attention becomes obsessive and let me know that I have worth when I feel like crap. Know that I am not a mistake, I am not junk - I have worth, I have value, I have input.
I hate to be ignored. I know I never am, but that doesn't make the feeling go away. Not always.
I am ashamed, and I turn my back, becuz I don't like admitting that I'm weak, I'm sentimental, I'm needy, and I'm human.
And You understand it all.
Even if they - even if I - don't.

Bless me, Blog, for I Have Sinned

2005-05-31T18:34:00.000-05:00

Bless Me, Blog, for I've Sinned

By SARAH BOXER, NY TIMES editorialist

Online confessors are like flashers. They exhibit themselves anonymously and publicly, with little consideration for you, the audience. Browse some of the confessionals on the Web: grouphug.us (a simple log), notproud.com (organized by deadly sin) or dailyconfession.com (where you can barely find the confessions for all the promotional stuff). You can see for yourself.

One online confessional, though, breaks the mold. At PostSecret, found at postsecret.blogspot.com, the confessions are consistently engaging, original and well told. How come? The Web site gives people simple instructions. Mail your secret anonymously on one side of a 4-by-6-inch postcard that you make yourself. That one constraint is a great sieve. It strains out lazy, impulsive confessors.

For PostSecret, you write, type or paste your secret on a postcard, and then, if you want, decorate the card with drawings or photographs. Next the stamp and then the mailbox. Yes, it's work to confess. And it should be, if only for the sake of the person who might be listening.

One message says: "I lied" under the word "oath." Another says, "I deleted the pope's funeral unwatched off my TiVO to make room for an episode of 'Survivor.'" The postcard picture - a split image, top half funeral, bottom half 'Survivor' - captures the moment of sin.

Some secrets cannot be separated from the cards they're on. One sad little postcard has a lineup of seven 3-cent stamps, each with a picture of a Conestoga wagon on it, plus one 2-cent stamp of a locomotive: "I found these stamps as a child, and I have been waiting all my life to have someone to send them to. I never did have someone."

The following typed message was pasted onto a card made out of a $50 parking ticket: "I got a parking citation and so did the car next to me. I replaced the ticket on the car next to me with mine. My ticket got paid. And the one I took? I mailed it to PostSecret." It isn't so much a confession as a live performance of sin.

PostSecret is simple to navigate. You scroll down to read one postcard after another. There's little else on the site. O.K., you will occasionally run into little self-congratulatory landmarks: announcements that PostSecret will be onstage in Melbourne, Australia, newspaper clippings from all over the world, scores of compliments from readers. But basically it's all secrets.

And the secrets are regularly refreshed. Each Sunday, Frank, the keeper of the secrets, posts a new batch straight from his mailbox in Germantown, Md., and removes some old ones from the site. One virtue of the resulting chronological lineup is that you can look for patterns emerging, certain kinds of confessions clumping together. And clump they do.

For instance, the most recent confessions tend to be the most graphically and ethically hip. They look like the work of Barbara Kruger, Damien Hirst or Sophie Calle. "I want to be anorexic," says one card with a photo of a skeletal woman, "but I can't stop eating."

And for some reason many of the secrets posted on May 8 follow a certain form, a confession followed by a coda with a dash more guilt: "I don't care about recycling. (But I pretend I do.)" "I had sex with strangers for money. And I liked it." "I hate loving families... Because I don't have one."

One odd thing about PostSecret is that there's a real disconnection between what the confessions are and what the readers think they are. One reader from Texas wrote, "Thank you so much for building a window into so many souls, even if it only shines light on the darkest part." A reader in Australia wrote: "Each is a silent prayer of hope, love, fear, joy, pain, sorrow, guilt, happiness, hatred, confidence, strength, weakness and a million other things that we all share as human beings... there is no fakeness here."

No fakeness? Oh, but there is. And it is the fakeness, the artifice and the performance that make this confessional worth peeking at. The secret sharers here aren't mindless flashers but practiced strippers. They don't want to get rid of their secrets. They love them. They arrange them. They tend them. They turn them into fetishes. And that's the secret of PostSecret. It isn't really a true confessional after all. It is a piece of collaborative art.

The oracle speaks

2005-05-26T23:59:00.000-05:00

**Warning** the following vision put forth but the Oracle in her oniscent knowledge has not been induced or influenced by drugs, alcohol, or incense in any way, shape, form, or influence.

Oracle: do you wanna interpret my weird dream i had while napping after school- even if you dont im going to tell you- cuz you are the only marian person on really and you were sorta kinda in it
Dan: I want to hear
Oracle: so it was sorta odd...... it started and i was talking to chelsea about crossdressing cows (my brother and i were talking about PETA before hand i think thats how the cow thing came up) anyway, we were talking and all of a sudden i realized that i didnt have my candy necklace on for the day
Dan: hahahahaha
Dan: what a shocking relevation
Oracle: somehow i teleported to my house or something because i was in my room and two of my necklaces were gone
Oracle: i freaked out and we had a 'trial' type thing to find out who stole them
Oracle: you were judge and chelsea and rikki and catherine were the jurrors but they had weird masks with beaks on
Oracle: and the door opened to show who stole them and it was
Dan: weird
Dan: hahahha
Oracle: ANNE
Oracle: and we were all shocked because anne stole something and they sentenced her to death
Dan: OMG!
Dan: BUT WE LOVE ANNE!
Oracle: and right when the axe dude who was katie veek was lowering the axe
Dan: hahahaha
Dan: executioner?
Oracle: i woke up because my parrot was screaming right by my bed because my stupid room is the warmest in the house and she would die from cold drafts
Oracle: and it was really weird because anne looked really sneaky like
Oracle: so what does my dream mean oh wise one?
Dan: hahahaha
Dan: you're asking me?
Dan: I think that as the oriacle, you percieve traits in us that we do not see ourselves
Oracle: yeah- you dont htink anne is a criminal do you?
Oracle: well yes- its hard to see traits in oneself
Dan: I believe Anne has some darker criminal urges
Dan: or is a kelptomaniac
Oracle: ah ha
Dan: and I am her superior; in the end, I will be better and more successful than her. we all will be. becuz she will die in a gang fight
Oracle: at the hand of katie veek?!
Dan: Katie veek has a hidden mean side
Oracle: oh
Dan: and delivers justice
Dan: Kate will be a policewoman. a crappy police woman
Oracle: and chelsea is really a cow in disguise as a cross dresser?
Dan: are you calling Rick fat?
Oracle: NO!!!
Oracle: NEVER
Dan: I think Chelsea will be a butcher
Dan: as in murderer
Oracle: oh
Oracle: shit- i have to go mow
Oracle: bye
Dan: right now?
Dan: it's 10.40
Oracle: i use headlights
Dan: weird
Dan: why now?
Oracle: i was supposed to have it done earlier and it has to be done before my parents get home
Oracle: i have to mow every day
Oracle: and i didnt today
Oracle: so im going
Oracle: have a good night
Oracle is away at 10:38:57 PM.

. . . and then a John Deere came out of nowhere.

2005-05-20T22:46:00.000-05:00

Dan, to be perfectly frank I have no idea what I'm doing here. I rarely write anything vaguely resembling poetry/rants/incredibly enthralling minute-by-minute schedules of my day that I want everyone to read and be enlightened by. So yes, I join because you are indeed my brother and I do not want to be subject to being chewed out because I didn't post anything. So, this is my post, and to leave everyone who is unfortunate enough to stumble upon it, I wish to leave you with an ". . . oh"-type feeling: I hate when people say that they talk to their pets about their problems. They are animals, they have little to no intelligence, depending on if they were a product of incest because people think it makes their dog more sophisticated so they can go to snobby-type dog shows, and the only reason they are even looking at you is because they think you will feed them if they put up with your monotonous whining. Talking out your issues with your dog or cat is not "cute" and it does not make the animal more intelligent. It does, however, make you look like an idiot. So. . . ciao, bella.

Boundries Man!

2005-05-18T22:53:00.000-05:00

Your Bounderies are too open if you:
- can't say "no"
- share too much personal information
- take responsibility for other's feelings
- allow yourself to be abused
- reveal personal thoughts, feelings, or experences to aquantinces or strangers
- believe you deserve bad treatment
- can't see flaws in others
- will do anything to avoid conflict
- engage in public displays of affection
- wear revealing or seductive clothing (including sagging pants)
- stand or sit too close to others
- make sexual comments, jokes, or noises in public
- trust strangers
- believe everything you hear
- have sexual encounters with acquentences or strangers

Bounderies VIOLATION
if someone has ever:
- interrupting a conversation
- taking your possessions without permission
- teased or made fun of you
- asked a very personal question
- gossipped about you or others
- touched your body without permission
- told other poeple stories or private information about you
- always hangs around you, makes you feel uncomfortable by invading your "private space"
- forced you to do something sexual
- physically abused you
- looked at in a way you didn't like
- laughed at to your face
- had a mud pie thrown at you.
YOUR BOUNDERIES HAVE BEEN CROSSED!!!
*alert alert*

- Unmasking Sexual Con Games

survey results

2005-05-18T11:07:00.000-05:00

ok... I am...

- most likely to join the military
- most likely to publish a book
-
almost. I lost by one vote
-
-
-
-

nice to know I'm so highly thought of. (am I missing any?)

Secrets

2005-05-17T10:10:00.000-05:00

I was @ Postsecret.blogspot and reading secrets, printing them off to share (oh, the irony), and thinking seriously about sending in one of my own. a secret that is.
that I've told one person and I'm not even really sure who she is.
only, it'd be an even bigger secret to keep if one of my postcards got on the site.

it's not even a big secret, but it's my own, and it's mine. I keep it locked up in the bottom of my sole, yes, my foot.

Anthem

2005-05-12T23:00:00.000-05:00

AN: just... don't ask.

Anthem

Are you listening?

Staring blankly ahead and wistfully wishing for life and joy and emotions and feelings and knowing that that's an absurd notion because that could never happen unless it's 2:30 in the morning on a Thursday late in the summer, lamenting about school starting in only three weeks and trying to snatch a piece in dreamland and waking only to find that time has stolen it back. We wish we had something meaningful to say, but the meaning of meaning has been so screwed over time and time again that eventually it was lost and our version of meaningful has always been fucked up anyways. And it's not cute, and we don't know what to do. It's hard to be new and innovative when this is all Greek and you can only read Japanese, and that alone is hard enough.
We don't know what we want - and when I say 'We', I mean 'I', but only we becuz I hate standing alone where everyone can see me alone, hear only me. Meaning it's all mine, this is all me, welcome to my mind. Roll your eyes and plug your ears and go away, because I don't want to be anyone's burden but my own and my broken self doesn't hurt too bad, and if I can concentrate on the goal, eight classes of chemistry left or seven hours of sleep on the weekend, it'll be enough to get me through.
(Please) don't start caring becuz right now is when I need it. If you didn't care before, don't start now.

So here's my anthem, here's my battle cry: I don't know what I want, I don't know what I want. Lay me on the operating table and extract my brain and hear it scream over and over again the words it would die to say. And then I could stop thinking and not feel so bad, and then the world wouldn't seem so damn large and me, so damn small and insignificant. And I still don't wish to be in control, but only to be able to grasp and hold something during the crazy ride.
I wish I knew, I wish I could tell you - all - what I mean, but the meaning, the secret, has since been lost, under the couch, in the car, in my purse. Or maybe I'm lost, or maybe I'm dumb, or maybe I'm weird, and it could all be it or maybe if you'd listen, it'd all make sense.
But everyone is long past caring.
Or they say it's nothing.
That doesn't go away.
Can nothing go away?

Confused? I hope to God so. I don't want anyone to know, so shhh… I chose you, but I don't even want you to know. You didn't care to ask before.

I wish I had something to say.
And dammit, now I'm all alone with nothing to say to everyone, other than: I hope I'm still a priority.

I'm halfway there (and it's all on me). This is what I get for wanting more (for wanting more). This is the way it has to be.

Kingdom of Heaven, almost

2005-05-08T22:14:00.000-05:00

blueyed elfgirl: Rick adn I got caught sneaking into an R rated movie
clarisse389: which?
blueyed elfgirl: Kingdom of Heaven
clarisse389: what happened?
blueyed elfgirl: well we went with Kurt and Eric
blueyed elfgirl: and Kurt's 17, so he bought himself a ticket
blueyed elfgirl: then he got in another line and bought Eric a ticket
blueyed elfgirl: and then Rick adn I bought Hitchhiker's Guide tickets
blueyed elfgirl: so we buy popcorn adn take the stairs up to teh balcony
blueyed elfgirl: and right as we're abotu to go in, a manager on the balcony asks for our ticket stubs
blueyed elfgirl: so eric and kurt pull theirs out, while Rick adn I pretend to be looking for ours
clarisse389: O_o
blueyed elfgirl: and I say, "I must've thrown mine out with some receits I had becuz I can't find it" - totally lame bullshit
clarisse389: o jeez
blueyed elfgirl: and he's like, well just show me your liscense
blueyed elfgirl: and before we went to the movie, we went to barnes and nobles and I wrote a check and took out my license for the check, and never put it back in my wallet
blueyed elfgirl: so I made a big show of going through my wallet and being only able to produce a student ID
blueyed elfgirl: and he's like, none of you have your driver's liscene? and we're like, "He drove us!"
blueyed elfgirl: so we hadta go on an elevator which was really awkward
clarisse389: an elevator?
blueyed elfgirl: yeah
blueyed elfgirl: and then we get out, and he's talkin about another movie we'd like to see
clarisse389: was this at AMC Oakview?
blueyed elfgirl: so we see Hitchhiker's guide, which we already have tickets for
blueyed elfgirl: yeah
clarisse389: who Kurt?
blueyed elfgirl: no, rick and I already did
clarisse389: o
blueyed elfgirl: which is why we didn';t show him our movie stubs
clarisse389: wow so you didn't...
clarisse389: hold on..
clarisse389: the preview for the movie makes it seem like Lord of the Rings..

Rainbow Party and other photos essay

2005-04-01T22:57:00.000-06:00

that's uh... Rick in her blindman sunglasses. I'm not sure what she's doing though. I think we're under the lowly stairwell which would be why the picture is so dark

The good picture of Catherine with her bright red hair @ lunch. There is a bad one.

Kate got shot in the back. She used a lot of red hair dye to dye her hair.

This is all of us minus me before we departed from my house. since then, our rainbow shirts have washed out and are devoid of all color and now just look... dirty.

I think this photo speaks for itself.

I love the red hair dye. Rick's gettin her hair done and she did Kate's so...

lonely stairwell pic... notice the change in haircolors. Rikki adn Catherine cuddle... they just do. (neither of them have boyfriends)

Meet... The Devil. No, it's just liberal Abby from Blk C and Homeroom. she's funny. I shut her locker a lot and she lets me read her TIME mags.

Anne is not amused. actually, she was really really bored when I took it, which explains the lack of expression.

Kit doesn't like making normal faces.

2005-03-09T00:56:00.000-06:00

... And then the internet got serious.
(boys and girls are different, you know.)

I'm sympathetic. So sue me. I owe Rikki an apology. I wrote this becuz I'm upset @ her and I'm frustrated with everyone. I beg of you not to take it too personally.

Resembling Pity

Here are my mistakes, here are my failures. Here's my offering, here's my attempt. Here are my broken and meaningless words, take them since I won't be using them anymore. (A bouquet for my mistakes. Too bad it's dead.) Take them and maybe you can make something out of them, or you can throw them away and I'll try again later. But you say you see the painting instead of where the oils crack and the color's faded or we've painted outside the already crooked lines. You said that the statue's beautiful when it's obviously missing arms.
[I'll start over. I'll try again. You give me hope and a second chance, and maybe this time it'll work.]
You step on failed romances and wilted roses, wearing chucks to not cut yourself, and sometimes the extended hand has a razor blade in the wrist and I know that I failed again somewhere, that this is all my fault.
[Take it out and ram it through my chest. Life goes on, and I'll be fine.]
Eventually, we'll learn. We'll listen to the voices in our heads, the little shoulder angels and demons and tooth fairies stuck in purgatory. We'll choose and stand on two sides of a beating heart, Side A on the left ventricle, Side B on the right, and forget that a rose has thorns and sometimes we get cut.
[But in order to heal, in order to be renewed, we first must be hurt.]
Here's the test of time, here's the map of emotions. Here's the game plan, here's our next move. This is where the alloys meet the fire and refine themselves until all that's left is Truth. Here's the medicine that we so eagerly dose out, take a gulp of it yourself. When it comes out, tell me how it feels so I can take it too. Let me help you dislodge the sawdust, but watch out for this swinging plank... my eyes have gone missing and I'm no form of Justice.
[If P, then Q; won't the reciprocal be the same? the art of compromise. the art of sacrifice. the art of stalemate.]
So lie down and don't cry out in pain when you get stepped on. I pour gasoline over everything and watch it burn in cruel words and opinions and mean looks and watch as ropes have races to see which one can disintegrate the fastest. The beams between them fall down into hell below.
[Since when has caring meant giving up? No fighting, no make up sex.]
Put on a mask and pretends everything's ok. Fit it nice and snug, it might be on for awhile, until it melts off because our faces have become so hot with anger. Maybe if its shoved into the corner, it'll die a nice quiet death with "We agree to disagree", but we drag it out each time, decomposing with a nice smell to accompany it, shove it into spotlight and let it reopen our scabbing wounds. We let this happen, and then point fingers, crying, "He's to blame!"
[Sometimes, the treasure chest is buried, and you must sweat hard and maybe blister your fingers to get it to the surface, burn yourself to break the lock, but who cares when the gold matches the color of your hair?]
Enough with fairness! Enough with forgiveness! Enough with civility! Toes have been stepped on! Car doors scraped and what was under it shines through now. Declare a civil war of words, where our enemy is a next door neighbor and the backyard is no-man's land.
[We'll never look exactly like Barbie. But some people do, kind of; they've got the legs, or the smile, or the hair, or the waist or therefore lack of. Some people don't, and will try their hardest to achieve her chest, or her arms, or her feet, hurting themselves foolishly in the process. And some? Some like the way they are, and they throw away their Barbies behind them, refusing to be defined by other's standards.]

We play Devil's Advocate and are excommunicated.
We make mistakes and are charged with manslaughter.
We murder a dream coldheartedly through the stomach and are given a medal.
We commit suicide and charged with first-degree.

It's only too easy to take sides.

Storm Chasers and Damage Control

2005-03-08T01:27:00.000-06:00

Storm Chaser and Damage Control
For Rikki

Mouse clicks and flashing orange.
Pens and swords.
Pleases and Caps Lock and begging and blowing off.
Three little letters, three little words.
Rainbows and tears.
Emails and friends and transvestites.
And anger and betrayal and disrespect
and just not caring enough or caring too much.
And yelling over Pepsis and passing of hands and papers.
And hugs and name calling and wishing for better, or wishing for you.
And a stalemate.
And a storm.
And words.

They're only words…
Which slide through the epidermis and the bullshit that we cover ourselves with and slice through kneecaps straight to the marrow and suck the bone until its dry, Walt Whitman smiling proudly on the side. His words paint colors in the sky and we for some reason, we care about his sexual orientation.
Our edges are sharp and they tear down twice as fast as it takes them to build up and repair and reassure. So we don't even try, even though it's so worth it. We just walk away, dropping the crazy glue and the saws with the fibers that made up the links that we thought were so thick. Ties that bind.

I've never cried because someone has said No, because they don't really mean it. It's only a word…
(… and its meaning doesn’t apply to me. You certainly meant Yes. Of course. I understand.)
And I've never smiled after hearing Pretty because the world has said ugly far too many times.
I've never said something I wish I could take back, or wish I could say something when nothing was said in its place.
I've never written words I dare not trust myself to speak, or said things I dare not ever record.
These are only useless words. And we're only humans (cells, perishable - nothing), and these are only choices. Your move, a finger on the king, with the water level up to our knees before we're in over our head-over-heels.

It's only wrong if we take offense to it.
Newsflash: we do.
Something's got to give up, and we don't care to lose.
If only you cared enough about feelings as much as you cared about the image you see in the mirror.
If only you cared enough to prove it to us.
If only you cared enough to care.

And so we all must wonder now: Is this character, or a character flaw? Are we being bullheaded and blind and refuse to open our eyes that would let the medicine drops that'd cure of us of this pink eye? Do we contribute to the standstill? Is the wait out worth the damage the storm will cost, or should we throw hope to the wind and move on? Do we bow our heads and smooth our hands over this small faction in the fabric of relationships or do we blow up the balloon until it can no longer be ignored, cutting off your neck and deliberately filling it with helium? A war trophy. (You've got to want to taxidermy.)
It starts with the word "Hi." Neutral, an agreement to disagree, though we haven't moved an inch, but only extended a hand, begging to be held and make amends. Generous, when we obviously won after a forfeit.
And you walk away.
We'll pretend we're not offended.
And pissed.
(Hide the magnum, Stephen.)

You can't do anything right. That's ok, don't try at all and you don't need to worry about failing. Be proud, you should be. Insensitivity and selfishness are quite remarkable talents, and not many people profess to have them.
You miss the face each time, but you're probably not prepared to see it either. It's like kicking a puppy in the stomach but leaving before you hear the heartbreaking squeal, only to kick it again. And each time, the puppy will come back to you because it trusts you and sometime you kick it and sometimes you pet it. Every. Single. Time.
It's only a kick though, right? - just like it's only words and they're only actions and we're only humans. As long as it's not you getting kicked, as long as you come out fine, it's ok.
It's cool. It's fine.

And this too will pass, leaving like a tornado, all our hurt feelings and severed ties and all the words that started the twister onto entwined fingers and hugs. All that’s left now is you, me, and the things that we can choose to or not to say, and the rubble and damage left behind, hanging in the trees and damaged by dirty water. And maybe, you'll pick up the remains side by side, holding hands (for there's strength in numbers and six-packs), or maybe you'll start on opposite ends and work your way back to square one and start over again; or maybe one of you will leave, chasing the twister and stopping only to dodge the regret (keep moving and it'll hurt less), and the other sit and cry and slit wrists using broken words and the sharper side of hate, wrap it in Despair, wash the blood away in Abandonment and salt-water tears, and call for help.
(Tears blur the ink and wipe away the eternal, I'll-remember-this-forever words on the paper, because you can't erase the memory and it's too late to try.)
Help comes armed with tissue boxes and Ben and Jerry

The Road

2004-06-17T22:11:00.000-05:00

The bridge has collapsed, the road has ended.
Yet cars still drive over the empty spot, ignorant,
fail to fly,
and fall to their end,
passengers' screams silenced by rolled-up windows,
wheels still turning as they hit the water and drown, sputtering.
car after car plunges,
death after death of people
down a road that only ends in distruction.

who will step up and save those who continue to travel down the road?
Who can see the start and the end and warn against continuing down thr road that will surely end their lives?
who cares enough to stand admist the danger of the bridge to save lives?

The bridge's end continues to crumble,
concrete splashes in a water grave below.
but there are no more cars -
- no more deaths.
becuz a man,
who saw the bedinning and end,
who cared enough about strangers who didn't even know him,
stood before them in the middle of the street,
spread his arms wide,
and held his head high.

He saved their lives. he continually saves ours.
so why do we insist on driving down that road?

raises a valid question, I think. yes, I happen to be Christian in a big way, and yes, i wanted this poem to raise a higher question with parallels and such. Written becuz I remembered the MC for teh Sea of Faces concert and he told us a real story about a bridge that had collapsed and this guy set off a road flare in front of a semi to stop it, adn the semi turned right in the middle of the bridge and stopped the flow of traffic, indirectly saving a whole ton of people's lives.
so yeah...

He Loves Me Not

2004-06-15T23:08:00.000-05:00

Rip open my scabs
Why don’t you?
Peel away the skin
My protection,
My barrier,
Until you can see blood.

Add salt to my sore wound
Then lather on the rubbing alcohol
And I’ll try to muster a smile
When you’d know I’d rather cry.

Rub my face and battered body
In the dust, because
You walked all over me
And never bothered to lend a hand to pick me up
To help me walk again,
Help me live again,
Help me love again.

Pierce my back with Cupid’s
Wayward arrow, for he so mismatched
You. Me. You and me.
Though there never was an ‘us’,
Or a ‘we’.

But could there still be?

Kill me a thousand times over,
Or better yet, wait until I commit suicide
By drinking the poison of your words,
And the acid in your work;
The indifference in your face,
Or the coldness in your silence.

Is this Jealousy?
Does the green monster once again rear its ugly head?
Or anger?
Can I be mad at you what you cannot help to feel -
- or not feel?
Is it a competion in which I must be victorious
In life and in your heart?
Or is it something else –
- something I must now do for myself
since your arms did not encircle me and offer me solace,
affection, company?
Love?
Am I a lovesick child, experiencing my first rejection
Of few, or possibly many?
Who now realizes that all is fair
in love and war?
Or am I simply crazy
In wishing only for you?

alright, I totally admit it: I wrote this for an assignment in H-Comp and Lit. but I really was gettin frustraited with a guy, adn we hadta write a poem about romance, so I made it bittersweet and kinda graphic.

so... I'm new here.

2004-06-15T22:30:00.000-05:00

I'm new to blogspots, so bear with the newbie here...

I already have a website, but I created a blog so my literary genius can thrive. don't expect any entries like my xanga site (www.xanga.com/kappaeta hahaha, a self-plug), but instead, a fanfiction.net profile of sorts. but you can anticipate poetry, prose, short stories, story excerpts, and short reports of interests. won't that be interesting?