Being the crappy person in the relationship
Contributing Writer Contributing Writer

Being the crappy person in the relationship

Dating the wrong person can bring out the worst in anyone. For me, this person's name was Jerry. And my crappy behavior is 100 percent my fault. He was nothing short of a gentleman. Which is probably why I had such a distaste for him.

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Emotional Turbulence: My First Writers Conference
J.L. Thurston Jenni Thurston J.L. Thurston Jenni Thurston

Emotional Turbulence: My First Writers Conference

For weeks I had been riding a lifeboat in a raging sea of panic, joy, anticipation, and self-doubt as I prepared to attend a writers conference. To non-writers that may seem kind of weak. But the first conference is like stepping onto a stage for the very first time only instead of your looks and performance being judged, it’s your mind.

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On Aggressive Countering: NPR, Kessler, and Challenging the Garbage
Elizabeth Harper Elizabeth Harper Elizabeth Harper Elizabeth Harper

On Aggressive Countering: NPR, Kessler, and Challenging the Garbage

Often I’m reminded of this quote from Yeats’ “The Second Coming”: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/  Are full of passionate intensity.”

The smart people will ponder and contemplate and collect information and second guess themselves and hold their tongues while the stupid people dominate the public conversation.

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On Wanting More
Kari Castor Kari Castor Kari Castor Kari Castor

On Wanting More

Call me greedy. Call me a hedonist. You’re not wrong. I am who I am, and I’m not ashamed of it. I’ll never be an ascetic. I’m hella attached to worldly pleasures, and to the world. I suppose I’m probably lucky that I’m not inclined to addiction — but there are too many things I want more of to focus all of my energies on just one substance or one sensation.

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Take Your Shit Seriously, Not Yourself
Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall

Take Your Shit Seriously, Not Yourself

Show me a storyteller who only strives to teach the audience a lesson, to show the audience her pain and victim status, who takes his shit so seriously that every story told has a moral or a sense of condescension, and you have a Shaman. Show me a storyteller who only wants the attention for the laugh, who only tells stories of her "most embarrassing moments" with the sole purpose of being liked, and you have a Village Idiot.

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First Season At The Unicorn Ranch
Fiction Guest User Fiction Guest User

First Season At The Unicorn Ranch

The pails of lemongrass milk we yoke out to slake them will be the same to pick up their poo: pink for girls, blue for boys. Noisome as a teenage pageant winner’s bedroom, it reeks of very horny flowers with a pollen fetish. If left uncollected the deep pheromones attract an unsavory population... I'm not talking about the diamond lice that we inspected their horns for each day...

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