Sidetrackedery

Tentatively, the start date for the fest is Monday, April 26.

Just to make sure it is clear, anything that you choose to create and offer for this festival is with the understanding that it be posted only on Dreamwidth for three weeks from the date you post it, with the intent of stimulating conversation and connection here at home. After three weeks, you may post the content anywhere you wish.
[...]
There will be at least one friending meme. We will be using one main comm to link things, and emphasizing posting to existing comms. We will be including both fannish and non fannish content. There will be totally awesome memes in private journals.

heathermacicons

heatherslibrary

sidetrackedery

good_news_week

accessworld

whole_books

But perhaps the new administration has not yet caught up on the niceties of what powers the mother country retains over these "overseas territories". It is security, defence and foreign policy, if they ever ask.

atheism

ontd_political

Teens who haven't abandoned the shopping mall altogether are buying their clothes at stores like American Eagle and Aeropostale, which are increasingly positioning themselves as budget-friendly. Both stores are currently pushing promotions online, like buy-one, get-one free deals. Check out Abercrombie's Web site, though, and while you won't find any such online promotions on the latest season's items, you will find (warning!) a model with his hand down his pants.

colbertobsessed

>>A book for 'Children of Valor'
>>Camp Liberty Shooter's Dad Blames Army

mil_wives

cat_macros

fizzylizard

ferdinandthebull
When I was 5 or so my mom would tell me to lie down before she tied my tie and I just now realized at the age of 19 that she did this because she's a funeral director.

Alexandra
As you were breaking up with me, all I could think about were those mornings when you compared the Pop-Tarts and gave me the one with more frosting.

petalthrow
One night on ecstasy, I stopped a fight between two drag queens in the ladies restroom and then I made them give each other a hug.

Reno Reading
My 8-year-old sister proudly declared that she knows that "WTF" means "Wow, That's Funny" and has been using it all over the internet.

Ashamed
My atheist neighbor has helped more people in the past year than my entire congregation has in the past ten.

lines
Today you shaved your hair into a mohawk to make my mom laugh over losing hers to chemo and today I realized that you are my hero.

Five Hours
After calculating that I wasted 6500 hours in church the first 25 years of my life, I vowed to spend 6500 hours doing volunteer work that would actually make a difference in the world.

Beth
Instead of him they sent back a folded flag, and when I was alone I tore it to pieces.

Probably Not Okay
My online dating service matched me with my cousin.

Finster
My friend Bob loved his vinyl records so much that he used to obsess about which ones to save if his house caught fire but when it actually happened he chose his girlfriend instead.

Erik Wennstrom
It was one of those exams that you absolutely must pass if you want to continue in the program, and I failed the set-your-alarm-clock-properly portion.

Heather Rose
As I woke up from my nap to find written on my feet "This is my momma and you can't have her," I realized that my child is very, very strange.

Tom
From the moment her arms wrapped around my chest and her head found its place against my shoulder, I knew beyond a doubt that I would never think of five feet as too short ever again.

Jabberwocky
I know 18 digits of pi and can recite the quadratic equation, but I still need to make an L with my hand to find out where left is.

the bible belt
Supporting gay rights does not make me a lesbian any more than supporting the civil rights movement made my mother black, you idiot.

Anonymous
I couldn't bear to tell the girl I loved that I was only dreaming and that she was merely a figment of my imagination, so I kissed her, and as the world lost its color, I slowly woke up.

Sorcha
When the strange man wouldn't quit staring at me while I nursed my baby, I finally lost it and asked him if he wanted some for his coffee.

Ryan
Three years into my English major, I finally ran out of BS.

Kris
I married my husband on our first date, but it has taken me more than 5 years to decide what colour to paint our dining room.

Shane
I was nearly sent to the hospital because I could not convince the school nurse that my head had always been this shape.

Johnny Luddite
As the porter wheeling my gurney down to the operating room took a corner too tightly, crashing my arm into the wall, I reflected that my last utterance on this earth might well be a profanity.

..
I never thought at 24 I'd have to move 3000 miles, share an air mattress with my brother, have my car repossessed, and have to file for bankruptcy because my husband decided suicide sounded like a better option than getting professional help.

Lona
The $1 store swiss rolls I bought to console myself were better than all the expensive chocolates I received when we were together.

Sean L.
I found out today from my neurologist that my heavy marijuana smoking actually improved my brain-wave activity and functionality and my IQ rose 20 points, so I smoked a joint in celebration and finished my calculus homework.

annoyed
I think what bothers me the most is that my mother pretends not to understand why I will never leave my children alone at their house.

countedx58
How fitting it was that my best friend's abusive husband died a painful death from melanoma of the rectum.

bad best friend
The day I got fed up with her daily suicide threats and didn't call to make sure she was okay was the day she was found dead.

AMCN
I just realized after looking at the photos in the "sold" listing of my foreclosed home, I forgot my soap dispenser in the bathroom when I moved out.

I'll get right on it
At the age of 17, a trainee religion teacher told me, an unbaptized athiest, that I wouldn't be given an apple at break if I continued to refuse to write a letter to God.

vix
One time, when I was four, I stood between the electronic doors at the supermarket waving goodbye to all the departing shoppers when suddenly one of the doors closed on my wrist.

Dave Walls
I vowed today not to laugh at someone's funny name while working, then I was introduced to a older woman named "Gay Usher".

Sheryl
When asked to name the one person absent from her life that she missed the most, she responded, "The person I hoped I'd be by this point in my life."

JayOutEast
I spent five days getting there only to realise it was the jouney I should have been paying attention to.

Erik Wennstrom
After several minutes of poking and prodding, the dentist put down his tools, looked me straight in the eyes and said, "You're going to be putting my daughter through college."

Rob
I once drove many a mile to visit the Land of Little Horses and, indeed, they were quite wee.


Matt
A couple in their seventies sat behind me in Clerks II and exclaimed, "That was a great movie!"

Kris
I collected paper towel rolls for weeks, gave them to a group of kids and they created a human marble maze.Elaine A

I went to a Bell Biv DeVoe concert on the night of my senior prom and ended up at a burger joint eating chilli cheese fries alone in the most puffiest of dresses.

More to come, as after I went through the most popular, I went into the archives.

If you read most of the blogs in my Blogroll, then you are most likely already aware of the Day of Silence. You are likely aware of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoove hanging himself at the age of 11. You might have seen his picture. If not. look into the face of battered innocence.

The antibullying action taken to protect this child was to force him to eat lunch with his abuser. That is as effective as the silence I faced when I was Burned at the Stake. His family is supporting the Day of Silence, as he was going to turn 12 this Friday. The Day of Silence is April 17th.

I look back at my life and see how close I came to suicide as well. I wanted to die so often, but I wasn’t able to make myself or someone stopped me. No one considered the ramifications for this boy. His death is criminal. Suicide? In a way it is murder. Every child who ridiculed him is guilty. They may be children but I honestly hope that they feel the guilt, that it eats at them enough to prevent the next act of bullying. I doubt it. The excuse that Children Are Cruel is not acceptable. No, children are not cruel. They are innocent. They are taught cruelty by the adults in their lives.

--Textual Fury

(Day of Silence website)

ths_just_in

I miss winter too...FLORIDA winter.

Actually, in the same vein, what are your crazy plans/dreams/hopes/aspirations/etc?

Well, I went to school to be a paralegal in the hopes of working for the ACLU and helping make gay marriage legal in Florida.

What would you do if you had the money?

I'd buy my husband's army contract, and the contracts of any of his friends that also wanted to come home.

And/or flying around the country/around the world helping with sandbagging ahead of floods, or helping out after wildfires, that sort of thing.

What would you do if you had more confidence?

Wear sleeveless shirts outside my home.

What different choices would you have made in your life if you had known x?

If I'd known that Jason wasn't the only guy that would ever fancy me, I'd have skipped him entirely.

samikayy

"You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden, even though you have some place where you can put your stuff, that idea of home is gone. You'll see when you move out, it just sort of happens one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean, it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start. It's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place."

From the movie Garden State

marlykins

Relationships don't work the way they do on television and in the movies: Will they, won't they, and then they finally do and they're happy forever -- gimme a break. Nine out of ten of them end because they weren't right for each other to begin with, and half the ones that get married get divorced, anyway. And I'm telling you right now, through all this stuff, I have not become a cynic, I haven't. Yes, I do happen to believe that love is mainly about pushing chocolate-covered candies and, you know, in some cultures, a chicken. You can call me a sucker, I don't care, 'cause I do... believe in it. Bottom line... is the couples that are truly right for each other wade through the same crap as everybody else, but, the big difference is, they don't let it take 'em down. One of those two people will stand up and fight for that relationship every time, if it's right, and they're real lucky, one of them will say something.

-- Dr. Cox, [Scrubs], episode 1.15 "My Bed, Banter, & Beyond"

sdmrks10

Well, if it makes your friend fell any better, I didn't think I could live through the 1st Bush administration after he wasn't officially elected and all... but I did. Then I was certain that no one would re elect a war mongering President who took away our freedoms and made us less safe, but they did, and I cried, BUT I survived. Stupid, useless John Kerry...

The stimulus. It is not an unnecessary occupation of another stable (albeit tyrannical country.) It is not war. It is most likely not going to kill any Americans. It is not the Patriot Act. It is not a document taking away anyone's rights to habeas corpus. It is not violating our or another country's human rights. So, from where I sit, while it is not the bill I would like to see, it is worth a try and it holds proper perspective in comparison.

gillen

atheism

"Religion is not the opiate of the masses. Religion is the placebo of the masses."

--House

rahmbamarama

sarken

The Pundit Kink Meme is the most massive timesuck to ever suck time.

sarken

re_cma

rahmbamarama

nacho_cheese

poor_skills