working-class hero

This is my first real post in a very long time - aside from hyperemotional rants and such. I have been on such a roller coaster for the past few months, actually since I moved in with Bill. I have had to confront many things I would rather not have, and learn to cope with even more. At this point I cannot say if this is a good thing or not - I don't feel any stronger than I was before, only more battered.

The problem is I struggle to find peace, my own little niche in the world that allows me to feel safe and in control of myself. I don't read as often as I would like because of work, and Bill needing attention, and therefore I haven't really been in touch with myself. It feels like I've lost an integral part of my person - or maybe not lost, but somehow submerged it, and it's screaming to be set free. Even so, I don't want to be alone because that is also a problem, I isolate myself too much, it's my comfort zone. I should be able to have fun, to do things with others, even if they aren't intellectually-related. I enjoy just simply hanging out, but I can't deny that there is a deeper need I must satisfy, which I can only do in solitude. I think once I can find that, I will be free to be happy with everyone else.

Maybe I'll write more later. Going for a drive for now.

I was bruised and battered
I couldn't tell what I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself
Saw my reflection in a window
And I didn't know my own face...

I walked the avenue till my legs felt like stone
I heard the voices of friends vanished and gone
At night I could hear the blood in my veins
Just as black and whispering as the rain
On the streets of Philadelphia

Ain't no angel gonna greet me
It's just you and I, my friend
And my clothes don't fit me no more
I walked a thousand miles just to slip this skin

The night has fallen, I'm lyin' awake
I can feel myself fading away...
So receive me brother, with your faithless kiss
Or will we leave each other alone like this?

I need something but I don't know what it is.

No, I take that back; I know exactly what I need, I just don't know how to get it.

deliver me, out of my sadness
deliver me, from all of the madness
deliver me, courage to guide me
deliver me, strength from inside me

all of my life I've been in hiding
wishing there was someone just like you
now that you're here, now that I've found you
I know that you're the one to pull me through

deliver me, loving and caring
deliver me, giving and sharing
deliver me, the cross that I'm bearing...

deliver me
deliver me
oh deliver me...

- Sarah Brightman, Deliver Me

God bless Benedict XVI.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7293186/?GT1=6305

It has finally happened.

Requiem aeternam.

Terri Schindler Schiavo
03 December 1963 - 31 March 2005

Why I love Calvin and Hobbes:

Happy Good Friday to all.

Today is the seventh day since Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed. The woman is dying from starvation and dehydration, and no one is trying to save her life, who have the power to do so.

This "right to die" idea is a myth - no, it is a lie, straight out. All of us are going to die eventually, in whatever fashion we are destined to. We do not give life, nor do we have the authority to take it. What we CAN do, and are REQUIRED to do, is to protect life itself from those who prey upon it - like Michael Schiavo. Is the right to live not mentioned in the Constitution as an inalienable right? How can we violate it, to serve our own interests? That man claims to love Terri - but sits by her bedside daily, watching her suffer as she struggles to survive, while preventing anyone from giving her the slightest comfort - even moistening her cracked skin. He calls that "therapy".

I saw an entire family - children and baby included - arrested and jailed, because they tried to bring her a cup of water.

My God.

If he truly loved her, wouldn't he want her to survive? Wouldn't he want to do everything possible to restore her to her former life? Of course not. Any intelligent person can see what kind of man Michael Schiavo is - he certainly is not a man who cares a whit about his wife.

But there are those who can't see, and that's the problem. Have we embraced the absurd so much that we can call what he is doing love? Are we that insane, that the very men who are sworn to protect the defenseless and the disadvantaged, refuse to give sustenance to a sick woman, who can say nothing for herself? Are we so selfish that we can't see beyond our circumstances (the Bush brothers) and act in a way that may be unpopular, but actually saves a life, rather than takes it? (I'm refering to the war.)

It is not enough to make speeches and sign legislation - a life hangs in the balance. There is some executive action that can be taken to save her. The right to live is inalienable. This is simply treachery.

Mr. Schiavo claims she wanted to die. If that were so, she would have been dead by now. She's still hanging on - what does that tell people? Why can't we see?

I feel like I'm raving at a dead world, shouting at a wall. I never realised the depth of spiritual blindness in people until now. I always hoped that people were better than they seemed, but unless there is a higher Agent at work, that hope is folly. We are every bit as evil, self-serving, and cruel as we appear to be - this proves it.

And to think, today commemorates a greater day, 2000 years ago, when another Man was unjustly put to death - incidentally, to save the people who murdered Him, as well as those who murder today. "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And we fools still don't know, Lord.

Terri, if she should live or die, will be a judgment against Michael Schiavo. Her life will testify against him, and he will have to face that for as long as he lives. And not only him, but all those who could have done something but didn't, either intentionally, or because they were afraid.

O God, have mercy on us all.

Your Irish Name Is...

Aislin Smith

But my name's already Irish... o_0

"Put on your red shoes and dance the blues."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-/1/hi/world/europe/4337031.stm

French court bans Christ advert

France's Catholic Church has won a court injunction to ban a clothing advertisement based on Leonardo da Vinci's Christ's Last Supper. ( The display was ruled  )

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

I've started one based on a scenario for a novel I'm writing called "Aouran: The Calling." If you want to follow it/join/know more about it, check it out at http://www.berserkanime.com. Go to the forum that says Role Playing and you'll find it. You have to be a site member to participate, but it's a cool place, so there! ^^

This is a List of the top 110 banned books. Bold the ones you’ve read. Italicize the ones you’ve read part of. Underline the ones you specifically want to read (at least some of).

Read more.

Convince others to read some.

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell One of my favourites
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 The Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Another fave
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 The Jungle by Upton Sinclair This is very good
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 In Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson Read as a kid - stayed with me
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler Don't ask why
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl Dahl's a master
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov Creepy old men
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George Another book from childhood - a fave
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean (John) Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood Loved it
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess Ah, the ol' ultraviolence
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Émile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Émile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Definitely want to read
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes The movie "Charley" is based on this... the book's more poignant

Boy, I really have a lot of reading to do!

Your Seduction Style: The Coquette

You are a pro at playing the age old game of hard to get. Your flirting style runs hot and cold, giving just enough to keep them chasing you. Independent and self-sufficient, you don't need any one person to make you compelte. And that independence is exactly what makes people pursue you.

( more quiz-silliness )

fearless people
careless needle
harsh words spoken
and lives are broken

forceful ageing
help me I'm fading
heaven's waiting
it's time to move on

I'm crossing that bridge
with lessons I've learned
playing with fire
and not getting burned
I may not know what you're going through
but time is the space
between me and you
life carries on
it goes on

just say die
and that would be pessimistic
in your mind
we can walk across water
please don't cry
it's just a prayer for the dying
I just don't know what's got into me

been crossin' that bridge
with lessons I've learned
playing with fire
and not getting burned
I may not know what you're going through
but time is the space
between me and you

there is a light through that window
hold on, say yes, while people say no

life carries on

I'm crossing that bridge
with lessons I've learned
I'm playing with fire
and not getting burned
I may not know what you're going through
but time is the space
between me and you

there is a light through that window
hold on, say yes, while people say no

when nothing else matters

when nothing else matters

I just don't know what's got into me

it's just a prayer for the dying

for the dying

- Seal, Prayer for the Dying

You Belong in 1971

1971 If you scored... 1950 - 1959: You're fun loving, romantic, and more than a little innocent. See you at the drive in! 1960 - 1969: You are a free spirit with a huge heart. Love, peace, and happiness rule - oh, and drugs too. 1970 - 1979: Bold and brash, you take life by the horns. Whether you're partying or protesting, you give it your all! 1980 - 1989: Wild, over the top, and just a little bit cheesy. You're colorful at night - and successful during the day. 1990 - 1999: With you anything goes! You're grunge one day, ghetto fabulous the next. It's all good!

it was only one hour ago
it was all so different then
nothing yet has really sunk in
looks like it always did

this flesh and bone
it's just the way that we are tied in
now there's no one home

I grieve
for you

you leave
me

so hard to move on
still loving what's gone
they say life carries on
carries on and on and on
and on

the news that truly shocks
is the empty, empty page
while the final rattle rocks
this empty, empty cage
and I can't handle this

I grieve
for you

you leave
me

let it out and move on
missing what's gone
they say life carries on
I said life carries on and on
and on...

did I dream this belief?
or did I believe this dream?
now I can find relief
I grieve

- Peter Gabriel


It's so hard being so far away...

lay down
your sweet and weary head
the night is falling
you have come to journey's end

sleep now
dream of the ones who came before
they are calling
from across a distant shore

why do you weep?
what are these tears upon your face?
soon you will see
all of your fears will pass away

safe in my arms
you're only sleeping

what can you see
on the horizon?
why do the white gulls call?
across the sea
a pale moon rises
the ships have come
to carry you home

and all will turn
to silver glass
a light on the water
all souls pass...

hope fades
into the world of night
through shadows falling
out of memory and time

don't say
we have come now to the end
white shores are calling
you and I will meet again

and you'll be here in my arms
just sleeping

what can you see
on the horizon?
why do the white gulls call?
across the sea
a pale moon rises
the ships have come
to carry you home

and all will turn
to silver glass
a light on the water
grey ships pass
into the west

- Into the West, from the LOTR: The Return of the King soundtrack, sung by Annie Lennox

maybe, someday
saved by zero
I'll be more together
stretched by fewer
thoughts that leave me
chasing after
my dreams disown me
loaded with danger

maybe I'll win
saved by zero
holding onto
words that teach me
I will conquer
the space around me

maybe I'll win
saved by zero

maybe I'll win
saved by zero

-The Fixx, Saved by Zero