Could just be a hoax, though. I fake some headaches, everyone gets used to poor helpless Spike. Then one day, no warning, I snap a spine, bend a head back, drain 'em dry. Brilliant.

Spike ,'Potential'


Spike's Bitches 45: That sure as hell wasn't in the brochure.  

[NAFDA] Spike-centric discussion. Lusty, lewd (only occasionally crude), risqué (and frisqué), bawdy (Oh, lawdy!), flirty ('cuz we're purty), raunchy talk inside. Caveat lector.


Ginger - Dec 10, 2009 1:09:54 pm PST #3151 of 30000
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda

And Ginger, I'm sorry that the phrase "after a long battle" hits you that way. Is it any help to remember that sometimes we lose battles?

History rarely celebrates the achievements of the losing side.

You've had an unfortunate abundance of health problems too. Did you ever really feel you were actively battling your way to health? From my point of view, I felt like I did help pick a path, but after that my job was to put one foot in front of the other. It was nothing so active or heroic as battle.


Trudy Booth - Dec 10, 2009 1:10:49 pm PST #3152 of 30000
Greece's financial crisis threatens to take down all of Western civilization - a civilization they themselves founded. A rather tragic irony - which is something they also invented. - Jon Stewart

Yeah. I used to listen to music and sing along as a way to de-stress and calm myself down, and then I noticed that I always started by having to think a lot about the phrasing and messing up a lot of things, but by the time I got to the end of an album, it was much less difficult, and the effect would carry over into regular speaking for at least a little while. It doesn't last long, though, and in order to keep it going for a little while, I usually have to kind of run the songs through my head while breathing as if I were singing them, until it's my turn to talk.

Remember that article about people re-wiring their brains using mirrors and the body part that was working correctly? I wonder if this exercise could start to do that if a person did it consistently. Once a day, twice a day... something like that.


Vortex - Dec 10, 2009 1:11:49 pm PST #3153 of 30000
"Cry havoc and let slip the boobs of war!" -- Miracleman

My BFF has Vampire Weekend on her Amazon wish list. Is it bad that I want to buy it JUST because it has a song called "Oxford Comma" (of course, the chorus is "who the fuck cares about the Oxford Comma", which is not the message that I want to send, but still)


Toddson - Dec 10, 2009 1:13:40 pm PST #3154 of 30000
Friends don't let friends read "Atlas Shrugged"

It just shows that you're one of us.


Trudy Booth - Dec 10, 2009 1:15:24 pm PST #3155 of 30000
Greece's financial crisis threatens to take down all of Western civilization - a civilization they themselves founded. A rather tragic irony - which is something they also invented. - Jon Stewart

perhaps the act of praying itself gives me what I need.

This most accurately sums up my thoughts on prayer.

Me too.

My Mom does this thing she calls a prayer diet. When she's feeling overwhelmed with her life she'll pray only prayers of thanksgiving for two weeks.

There's also the notion that a prayer is an act of love. When you pray for someone (not in the antagonistic pray-for-god-to-fix-the-evil-sinner way) you are loving them in their time of trouble.


Daisy Jane - Dec 10, 2009 1:20:13 pm PST #3156 of 30000
"This bar smells like kerosene and stripper tears."

Thanks for the discussion y'all! I'm about to hit a bar for an after work drink so I'm out-you know what they say about religion and bars.


Vortex - Dec 10, 2009 1:32:29 pm PST #3157 of 30000
"Cry havoc and let slip the boobs of war!" -- Miracleman

Yeah, I'm headed home to a glass of wine in a few minutes myself!


javachik - Dec 10, 2009 1:32:51 pm PST #3158 of 30000
Our wings are not tired.

Vortex, I've repeated that joke many times, for the same reasons you like it.


dcp - Dec 10, 2009 1:46:38 pm PST #3159 of 30000
The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.

Took me a while to find it again, but I thought this was an interesting article on different types of prayer: [link]

Haven't found the reference yet, but I remember another article about how prayers are basically either "Gimme!" "Thanks!" "Wow!" or "Why?"


Seska (the Watcher-in-Training) - Dec 10, 2009 1:49:56 pm PST #3160 of 30000
"We're all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?"

Vortex, I love that helicopter joke. (I tell that one, and an old joke about evangelicals thinking they're the only people in heaven, so much that The Girl groans on cue as soon as I start saying the words "There was a man who died and went to heaven...")

Like, a woman who stays with a verbally abusive boyfriend gets breast cancer, because she's not taking care of her feminine needs.

How interesting. I wonder, are my joint and connective tissue problems the result of... not having connection in my life? (Of course, they could be the result of, y'know, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. But that would clearly be the view of a crazy radical.)