Hey, then you’re halfway there. :)
Here’s to a 2011 with a few less miles between you. :)
Peace,
Shannon
Ask and ye shall receive.
Peace,
Shannon
I figured this was made up, but it’s real. And it’s fucking awesome.
DO IT YOU DRUNK BASTARDS!
Out of all the holidays, NYE is ALWAYS the one I spend alone watching the ball drop on TV and crying into my Chinese food at midnight.
This makes me feel less bad/lonely about it. So thank you, followers, for making me feel less forever alone. You’re fabulous.
Life is its own reward. Being alone doesn’t have to be a punishment and you won’t be forever alone. You’re beautiful, intelligent and funny, and someday, someone — the right one — will stumble into your life and you’ll look back on these days and see that it was all going the way it was supposed to go.
The time you have now, believe it or not, is a blessing. It’s your time, your youth, your life, and you get to live it the way you want. Once you find someone, it’s different. Not better, not worse, just… different. And each phase of life is different… 8 is different than 18 is different than 28 is different than 38. Each has its perils and pleasures, and each will be devoured with either delight or despair, but you ultimately decide how to live.
When I moved back to St. Louis shortly before 9/11, after a horrible relationship ended about as horribly as a relationship can peacefully end. I met my current wife, Veronica, a few weeks later and I knew I wanted to be with her forever. We dated for about two months and she said she didn’t want to date anyone at the time.
I was heartbroken because I was certain that she was the one and that I had lost my opportunity through some asinine action. For two years I dated compulsively, hoping that “the one” might still be out there. For two years, I was disappointed to find dead end after dead end.
Finally, in August 2003, I got so desperate that I attempted to move to Oregon near a woman I met on the internet. I stayed with her about a month before I decided that it was a mistake, found a job and place to live near San Francisco (which turned out to be the front for a cult, but that’s a story for another day), and moved out.
But something else happened in San Francisco while I wandered from college to college using the library internet to try and figure out what the hell I was gonna do.
I used AOL chat to keep in touch with people and Veronica was online and we started talking. I told her all about the cult recruiter and the woman in Oregon and how I didn’t know what to do. She offered to help, but there wasn’t really anything she could do either. In the end, I decided to go home.
I returned to St. Louis a broken, lonely man. I felt like my life was going nowhere and I didn’t have anything waiting for me there. I quit my job and was about to have my car repossessed, and my parents wanted me to move out immediately.
I needed a friend, so I contacted V when I got home. We started hanging out, just as friends (something I had bristled at after dating in 2001 because I couldn’t stand being “just friends”).
Then one night at karaoke (we loved karaoke) I finally got up the courage (thanks to several Jack and Cokes) to ask her if she wanted to date again. She said yes, something I had not expected at all, but knew I had to ask anyway.
Later, I found out that she had been talking to her friend Diana that night about whether to ask me about dating.
Seven years later, here we are.
But two years out of nine, I was desperate for love.
I never would have imagined that this is the way it would have happened. I felt strongly that it would happen, but I couldn’t see how after breaking up with me and me turning down her friendship because of my feelings… well, I now see that it couldn’t have worked out any other way.
Or maybe it could have.
Who knows.
The point is that life is sweet, even during those lonely, weeping New Years Eves that you wish you could share with your person. And I can’t blame you for being sad. It’s hard to be lonely and it’s hard to trust that life will take you exactly where you need to be.
But it will.
You just have to let go and follow the current. You’ll get there. I swear.
Happy 2011.
Peace,
Shannon
Ask and ye shall receive.
Peace,
Shannon
Should I drink heavily tonight?
Either way I’m going to cry at midnight, so that’s not an issue.
Drinking will a) make me forget I’m alone, and b) make everything funny.
Y/N?
I vote for marijuana.
No? Great. Then my New Year’s Resolution is to learn enough Spanish to keep up with 12 Corazones.
Yes. Yes, I do. I care how much you sleigh. Horses should not be working in the wintertime. It’s just wrong.
Andy Sullivan, a construction worker and Brooklyn native, has been one of the loudest opponents of Park51, the planned mosque and community center near ground zero. Founder of the 9/11 Hard Hat Pledge — under which construction workers vow not to work at the mosque site — Sullivan has been a regular presence on television, known for wearing his signature American flag hard hat and talking tough about radical Muslims.
So it was quite a surprise this month to read that Sullivan has set his sights on a new target: Canadian teen pop superstar Justin Bieber.
Mosque foes recently started a boycott of Bieber after he made comments in support of the mosque project in an interview with Tiger Beat, a teen fan magazine, Sullivan told WYNC earlier this month. Now, his 8-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son have been banned from attending Bieber performances.
“I informed them, ‘Hey guys, guess what? Justin Bieber spoke out for the ground zero mosque,” Sullivan explained to Salon in an interview. “My little girl took down his poster and said she didn’t want to have nothing to do with him anymore. These are my kids. They’re living this thing.”
…
Intrigued by the idea that Bieber would weigh in on one of the most polarizing political issues of the day, I began looking for his interview with Tiger Beat.
The magazine does cover Bieber obsessively (“Justin Bieber Dodges Dating Selena Gomez Question!” and “Did Justin Bieber Grow a Mustache?” are two recent features). But I couldn’t find any sign of an interview on Park51. There is, however, a post on the website CelebJihad.com purporting to describe a Tiger Beat interview. It reads in part:
In an interview with Tiger Beat, the pop sensation stressed that freedom of religion is what makes America great, and went on to say that those who oppose the Mosque are motivated by bigotry.
“Muslims should be allowed to build a mosque anywhere they want,” the singer said. “Coming from Canada, I’m not used to this level of intolerance, eh.”
Bieber went on to say that Muslims are “super cool,” Christians are “lame-o-rama,” and that the mosque will help “start a dialogue” with all religions about which Justin Bieber song is the most awesome.
“I was like seven when September 11th went down, and frankly I’m surprised people are still going on about it. Move on, already!”
Celebjihad.com seems to specialize in softcore celebrity porn, but poke around a bit and you find this disclaimer:
CelebJihad.com is a satirical website containing published rumors, speculation, assumptions, opinions, fiction as well as factual information
I was able to reach the proprietor of the site, who confirmed that the Bieber item is in fact a hoax. “[T]he fact that some people take it seriously is hilariously depressing,” he said in an e-mail.
Emphasis mine for general awesomeness.
Surprise, surprise, historians have found glaring errors in a textbook claiming that African Americans fought in large numbers for the South during the Civil War.
A number of additional errors have been found in other textbooks being used in some Virginia classrooms, since the state ordered a review of the books, the Washington Post reports.
Among the textbooks’ errors are claims that the Confederacy included 12 states and the U.S. entered World War I in 1916. Five professional scholars reviewed the books, with three of them finding “disturbing” results. State officials are scheduled to meet January 10 to review the results.
…
The Post first reported the errors back in October. The author, Joy Masoff, defended her work, telling the Post, “As controversial as it is, I stand by what I write. I am a fairly respected writer.” But when it came to one of the Civil War’s most controversial themes — the role of African Americans in the Confederacy — she relied primarily on an Internet search, according to the report. And the results were based on the work of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a neo-confederate group based in Tennessee.
Masoff’s other literary achievements include “Oh Yuck! The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty” and “Oh Yikes! History’s Grossest Moments.”
” —This is what happens when right wing revisionists get their way and replace factual history books with conservative propaganda. (via fiercefatties)
I’m trying to roll my eyes, but they just won’t go back any farther.
(via heytherepoodle)
Wow. Sounds like a marvellous education system they have there in Virginia.
(via mssswitch)
i love that you can’t trust anything.
(via mollyfreakinpotter)
You know, I’m not really a fan of homeschooling children, but this kind of shit makes me a little more sympathetic to that ideology.
(via rabblewriter)
I disagree. i think, if anything, homeschooling is where this kind of revisionism takes place with greater frequency. We just don’t need the state contributing to the misinformed (not that all home-schooled kids are misinformed, but that those with historically inaccurate views are more likely to home-school in order to prevent their kids from learning a more balanced view).
