Latent Thoughts

Journals/Blogs. I believe I started this 5 or 6 years ago because I saw a button on AOL that said "journals" and pressed it. Presto, 5 minutes later I was an official blogger. At that point in time I had never even visited another persons blog online. I was a journal virgin who went straight for home plate on her first experience.

It didn't take long to discover I hadn't actually landed on Journal rock and discovered the holy grail of free public writing all on my own. Much to my amazement, other people were writing their thoughts and words all over the place. (remember, I'm typically behind the curve ball in all things tech by at least 2 years, see below entry)

So for me, online journals was an unexpected surprise. For one, I got to write whatever I felt like shoving into a public arena without regard to content. I've never regarded my writing here as motive driven or held expectations to my personal writing. To me, this is a house of free thinking, random writing and play time. The interaction I've received from others throughout these years has been nothing short of extraordinary. Input, Output, Insight, Encouragement, Friendship. Sharing..........

And then....... the reason I felt like writing tonight. When I go swimming in the super blogosphere pond, usually link jumping like a fat frog from lily pad to lily pad, I find myself pulling up short on a sentence someone wrote, a paragraph, an entire entry. Words expressed in a way that make me swallow hard, or smile or simply bask in the beauty of word expression.

The thing is, and this may come across as a strange obsession. I love words. I adore them. I pay attention to them, observe them, honor them. So when I come across a play of words that were layered by the writer in a way that knocks me off my lily pad, I feel like I just caught a juicy fly unexpectedly.

I savor a well written emotion or applaud a string of words written with wit and humor. I love to come across something so fantastic I'm jealous I didn't write it myself. I appreciate when someone writes a paragraph that arouses a memory or emotion of my own, or if someone writes a sentence that makes me, smile, laugh out loud. For someone like me, this journal world can be a smorgasbord of words to satisfy my constant need for word gluttony.

I haven't notified the authors of the journals I pilfered for this entry. Hopefully they will understand it's midnight, I'm impatient and it's easier to ask for forgiveness then wait for permission sometimes. (I can always edit) Simple intention. I wanted to share some fantastic writing with anyone that happens by my journal. The pilfered examples of their writing are just tiny slices of a delicious pie. For the full meal deal and the rest of the story, please visit each of their websites (link is their name in purple)

To the five people I selected to highlight for this entry. I appreciate the attention, talent and individual style of your writing. Well done and I look forward to enjoying more..........

Marc "We had certainly not cornered the market on originality. I was just one of those kids who needed to think of us as "different." Though I supposed I wanted to be different the way the rich are different than the poor. I wanted to be somehow "better." If not more monied, certainly culturally superior. After all, we had napkin rings and ate artichokes. My mother received letters written on light paper in blue envelopes marked "par avion." My brother and sister had been born in Chile, where my Dad worked in the 50s. Somehow or another, I knew God's secretary was writing all of this down, that we were in the running for some kind of award for extreme specialness to be given at some indeterminate time in future, with consequential if vague benefits."

Dan "I bought some apples at the store, and they were a complete disaster. Oh sure. They looked absolutely perfect, but after getting home and biting into one, my teeth sunk up to the gums in something that had all the crunch of mashed potatoes that had been beaten within an inch of their lives. Indeed, this was an apple that had simply given up. Unfortunately, that one bad apple seemed to have influenced all the other apples. They were all the same: flavorless, mushy and sad. I suppose I only have myself to blame. I mean, what kind of dope buys apples in the middle of January?"

Mary "Revelation is so inherently seductive. Because all the layers of defenses I use to guard my sanity-Get boring. Pierce your jugular vein boring. But, of course, true stories, long after the fact, are really just creative renderings of the past. Static images I've tried to fill anew with motion, emotion. Colored by an innate, or Catholic based? , sense of shame. But everyone has a beyond mere rhetoric story deep inside; we are just too easily discouraged by difficult enterprises. Caught between fear & longing. But whatever you do, or is done to you, in the unflinching honesty of the dark, eventually comes to light. It might as well be my light. ~Mary"

MissAlaineus "although my hate for proper capitalization and use of the apostrophe is well know here, i dislike any form of intentional misspelling, although i dont mind abbreviations. so anyone who uses words like boi in their profile i think is just asking for it.so my next potential ex-boifriend had a snap of him hugging up on a big pink fuzzy pillow. i could not waste the thought 'is that a pillow you are holding or did you kill one of the muppets?'he deleted the message but changed his profile pic. HA a small victory for the wit and wonder that is miss alaineus."

ScottEnnis"This curve of flesh conceals a hidden lake
where water bends the earth to seek its rest,
a liquid soul the body won’t forsake,
although the body flows at its request.
With gentleness the water laps the shore;
the shore responds to each progressive wave,
as if another soul knows what’s in store,
conforming to the life the soul will save......."