Y’all should answer this meme if you haven’t already.
I’ll start off by putting my answers up in the comments section.

1. Tell me something obvious about yourself.
2. Tell me something about yourself that I don’t know.
3. What is your biggest fear?
4. Do you normally take the safe route or the shortcut?
5. What is the one thing you want the most that you can’t buy with money?
6. What is your most treasured possession?
7. What is the one thing you hate most about yourself that you do the most often?
8. Tell me something about you sexually that I don’t know.
9. Tell me something about you sexually that everybody knows.
10. What is your favorite lie to tell?
11. Name something you have done once that you can’t wait to do again.
12. Are you the jealous type?
13. What is the 1 person, place or thing that you can never say no to?
14. What is the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?
15. If you could do something crazy right now, what would it be?
16. When was the last time you cried?
17. When was the last time you felt so good that nothing else mattered?
18. Do you feel comfortable in public with no shirt on?
19. Name something embarassing you did while drunk.
20. If you post this in your journal, do you want me to answer it?

I was at a funeral for most of today and at a wake last night, so I was behind on it. It just got posted.

I find myself getting sentimental about this as the time winds down to the last column, but I suppose I’m entitled.

Anyway, it’s short and actually sweet this week…a diversion from the week’s events. It includes the poem from my last entry and some thoughts on the place of a poet in dark times.

If you must read it, and of course you must, head over here.

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I’m about done with blurbs for the book. Thanks to all who sent something along; hoping we go to print this week.

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I think, sometimes, that social change is one of the most difficult things we do not because of the big battles, but because of the small ones — the individual conversations in which you try to make a difference.

When it works, it’s empowering.

When it doesn’t, it can leave us heartsick.

We should do it anyway, of course. Who else will?

I just hate the pain that sometimes comes from it; the breaking relationships, the cold stares, the bafflement and the anger.

It sometimes seems not to be worth it. Better, I sometimes think, to keep silent.

But I know I do that too often. So…

I recommit myself to enduring immediate pain in the pursuit of eventual joy.