http://www.dearoldlove.com/

I'm supposed to go on a date with a new guy soon, but this site is
breaking my heart all over again.
Plenty of funny messages, but of course, we grab on to what makes us
feel. Worth sharing with your readers, but perhaps with a warning:
the recently heartbroken should avoid reading the archives.
-------------------------
and on the flip side, something happier:

http://tinyurl.com/aecwf9

Bridal Shower
by George Bilgere

Perhaps, in a distant café,
four or five people are talking
with the four or five people
who are chatting on their cell phones this morning
in my favorite café.

And perhaps someone there,
someone like me, is watching them as they frown,
or smile, or shrug
at their invisible friends or lovers,
jabbing the air for emphasis.

And, like me, he misses the old days,
when talking to yourself
meant you were crazy,
back when being crazy was a big deal,
not just an acronym
or something you could take a pill for.

I liked it
when people who were talking to themselves
might actually have been talking to God
or an angel.
You respected people like that.

You didn't want to kill them,
as I want to kill the woman at the next table
with the little blue light on her ear
who has been telling the emptiness in front of her
about her daughter's bridal shower
in astonishing detail
for the past thirty minutes.

O person like me,
phoneless in your distant café,
I wish we could meet to discuss this,
and perhaps you would help me
murder this woman on her cell phone,

after which we could have a cup of coffee,
maybe a bagel, and talk to each other,
face to face.
------------------------------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jETv3NURwLc
-----------------------
what to do with those extra carrots:
http://www.stthomascreations.com/video/player.html

Bly
--------------------------------------
being around him was about as much fun as stamp collecting in the dark
-----------------------------------------
she called herself 'the queen of car seat dancing'
--------------------------------------------
http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/

this is my suicide dress
she told him
I only wear it on days
when I'm afraid
I might kill myself
if I don't wear it

you've been wearing it
every day since we met
he said

and these are my arson gloves

so you don't set fire to something?
he asked

exactly

and this is my terrorism lipstick
my assault and battery eyeliner
my armed robbery boots

I'd like to undress you he said
but would that make me an accomplice?

and today she said I'm wearing
my infidelity underwear
so don't get any ideas

and she put on her nervous breakdown hat
and walked out the door

I once threw a big stick for a dog to fetch, but the stick broke into 6-7 pieces. I watched as the dog
carefully picked up every single piece, even the small ones into his mouth before trotting back -- with pride, tail wagging, just like your story dog. He didn't touch any of the other sticks lying around, only the one
I'd thrown.
____________________
here's a giggle from CG:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoQb8vb4blA
-------------------
and this one from KW:
http://www.underwatersculpture.com/pages/gallery/underwater-gallery/index.htm

http://hangoverjournal.blogspot.com/2009/02/open-letter-to-self-appointed-library.html

Diane Ackerman
---------------------------
"So what do you want?"
"Nothing but thunder."

Michael Ondaatje
----------------------------
"Your absence has gone through me
like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color."

W.S. Merwin
---------------------------
http://secrettweet.com/

from the new book

The best thing about a hand-made pattern
is the flaw.
Sooner or later in a hand-loomed rug,
among the squares and flattened triangles,
a little red nub might soar above a blue field,
or a purple cross might sneak in between
the neat ochre teeth of the border.
The flaw we live by, the wrong color floss,
now wreathes among the uniform strands
and, because it does not match,
makes a red bird fly,
turning blue field into sky.
It is almost, after long silence, a word
spoken aloud, a hand saying through the flaw,
I’m alive, discovered by your eye.

~Molly Peacock

from an article in the Washington Post:

"A new study by Thomas Pollet and Daniel Nettle in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior has found an interesting correlation between how often a large sample of Chinese women report having orgasms and the income of their sexual partners. The study, which surveyed women on a wide variety of questions, found that women married to wealthier men were more likely to report having orgasms during sex. Women who had sex with the wealthiest men were twice as likely to report they always had an orgasm as women who had sex with the poorest men. The researchers say the education levels and self-reported happiness of the women had no bearing on the outcome.

"The researchers argue the finding is consistent with a popular argument in evolutionary psychology which says women are driven to find mates who can be good providers. When they find such mates, they feel better about sex.
----------------------------
http://tinyurl.com/bcaqyg
-------------------------
interesting article:
http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9904/grossman.html

Valentine

by Wendy Cope

My heart has made its mind up
And I’m afraid it’s you.
Whatever you’ve got lined up,
My heart has made its mind up
And if you can’t be signed up
This year, next year will do.
My heart has made its mind up
And I’m afraid it’s you.
--------------------------
Valentine
Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.
-----------------------------
this is wonderful:
http://www.emailthis.clickability.com/et/emailThis?clickMap=viewThis&etMailToID=1885832517&pt=Y

Jean Cocteau
-----------------------------------
"You paint for yourself first. Then for your friends, and then for the people you would like to know."

Red Grooms
__________________
"It's not where you take things from-- it's where you take them to."

Jean Luc Godard
---------------------------------
"The secret of life," said sculptor Henry Moore to poet Donald Hall, "is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is—it must be something you cannot possibly do."
---------------------------------
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/sony_releases_new_stupid_piece_of

"Next time, instead of asking if it's right, ask them what's wrong.

"They may not say what you want to hear, but the chances are they will give you a truthful criticism.

"Truth hurts, but in the long run it's better than a pat on the back."

Paul Arden
------------------------------
An interviewer with a wooden leg said to Frank Zappa, "With your long hair, from where I am sitting you could be a woman." Zappa replied, "From where I am sitting you could be a table."

Nathaniel Hawthorne
______________________________
"But you offer what you have, perhaps even bless it with a prayer, and maybe somewhere down the line affection grows into faith and replaces memory."

James Lee Burke
-------------------------------------
"The women we really love are the women who complete us, who have the qualities we can borrow and so become nearer to whole men. Just as we complete them, of course; it's not a one way thing."

Robertson Davies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKSO7m3-MH8

"Animals are 'world poor' because they merely exist, reacting to things they encounter around them; whereas humans are the makers of the world they inhabit."

Heidegger
----------------------
"Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. If we run a hundred miles an hour to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the obstacle, we find the very same problem waiting for us when we arrive. It just keeps returning with new names, forms, and manifestations..."

Pema Chodron
------------------------
He may say he loves you, but wait and see what he does for you.

French proverb

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH6xCT2aTSo

The cat calls for her dinner.
On the porch I bend and pour
brown soy stars into her bowl,
stroke her dark fur.
It's not quite night.
Pinpricks of light in the eastern sky.
Above my neighbor's roof, a transparent
moon, a pink rag of cloud.
Inside my house are those who love me.
My daughter dusts biscuit dough.
And there's a man who will lift my hair
in his hands, brush it
until it throws sparks.
Everything is just as I've left it.
Dinner simmers on the stove.
Glass bowls wait to be filled
with gold broth. Sprigs of parsley
on the cutting board.
I want to smell this rich soup, the air
around me going dark, as stars press
their simple shapes into the sky.
I want to stay on the back porch
while the world tilts
toward sleep, until what I love
misses me, and calls me in.

----------------------------------
"I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody else on this planet. The president of the United States. A gondolier in Venice. Fill in the names. I find that a) extremely comforting that we're so close and b) like Chinese water torture that we're so close."
John Guare
----------------------------------
the feel-good clip of the day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNIpTbVMOnk&feature=channel