http://www.giveforward.com/jessfightsback

For those of you who know Jess, you can agree she always has a smile on her face and a positive outlook on any situation. For those of you who do not know Jess, she is one of the most giving, happy, caring, and optimistic people you will ever come across. If you ever doubt there is good in the world, she will help you see it. She is a wife, mother, daughter, sister, niece, grandchild, cousin, and friend.

Jess has a wonderful husband, Jonathan, who we all are so thankful to have come into her life. Together, they have two beautiful children – Rachel, 3, and Seth, turning 1 in October 2012. Talking to Jess, you would never believe she is going through the nightmare of being diagnosed with breast cancer at age 29 with two small children at home. Jess has handled this situation with strength, optimism, and unfaltering faith.

Jess is scheduled for a double mastectomy on May 24. She then follows with several months of chemo, radiation, and hormone therapy. Unfortunately, Jess has no insurance coverage and is relying on funding from non-profits and donations to handle medical bills and other expenses. While she can receive some aide for treatment coverage, there is no funding for some tests, exams, and treatment items. This means Jess is depending soly on outside resources, such as donations, to help cover these expenses as she fights back against breast cancer.

If you would like to donate in some other way, please contact me at HappyMo32@aol.com.

Thank you for you prayers, thoughts, and generosity,
Friends and Family of Team Jess

I welcomed Death. I searched for it, yearned for it. The people I loved begged me to learn to love living and hoped that, if it came down to it, I would fight to survive.

I learned to fight death, and now that I have, I fear it to distraction.

My paradigm is shattered. It is time to learn. Pity that the scales are so raw once the skin has been shed.

I just finished watching Series 4 of Doctor Who.

Phrases I no longer handle hearing, at all?

Labour camps.

There is no inspiration like thinking you are dying to make you appreciate what you have.

I look forward to when I am able to go to sleep easily again, automatically assuming I will wake up the next morning.

Too close.

softcastle-mccormick:

Virginia Woolf’s suicide note to her husband Leonard before drowning herself.

On 28 March 1941, Virginia Woolf put on her overcoat, filled its pockets with stones, and walked into the River Ouse near her home and drowned herself. Her body was not found until 18 April 1941. Her husband buried her cremated remains under an elm in the garden of Monk’s House.

This is so heartbreakingly selfish.

Oh hello mental health privilege 

Been a while since I’ve seen you around

balance by the lauenstein brothers, 1989

So, I might just have to go to this tomorrow - it is a “coming-out” rally for atheists, on the Mall in Washington, DC.

A few of the speakers will be Eddie Izzard, Tim Minchin, Adam Savage, James Randi … whoof! The most interesting speaker, I think, will be Fred Phelps’ estranged son, Nate (who actually loves us fags - sorry Freddy).

http://reasonrally.org/

“If people know and love an atheist, they’ll be less likely to stigmatize them.”

Heck, I know I’d love to stop needing to give a hurried explanation whenever I apply the word “atheist” to myself. I really do not think I should feel like I have to do that.

There’s nothing about atheism that trivializes human existence. Nor is there anything about it that automatically makes a person amoral or bad. In the most technical sense, Zen Buddhists are atheists too, after all.

You see, we have an entire lifetime to make an impact on the world, our friends, and our loved ones. If anything, knowing our time here is limited is an even greater inspiration to make something of yourself and to ensure that your impact on those you meet is a positive one. In essence, we are defined by the ripples we cause in the world; knowing that, we are immortal in a very tangible sense.

That is why I do not feel I need to be good to be rewarded in the afterlife. If you want to believe you will be granted eternal life if you are a good person, feel free - I can’t disprove that Heaven exists, so go for it. As for myself? I will be a good person because it’s the right thing to do. And by choosing not to limit myself to a specific creed,  I won’t feel guilty for loving everyone and treating all people with respect.

And hey, if you are a person of faith who does just that, regardless of the doctrines that govern your chosen path? Well, you kick absolute ass, my friend. Keep at it. <3

-crowsight-

sleepingtigers:

Lots of things might happen. That’s the thing about writers. They’re unpredictable. They might bring you eggs in bed for breakfast, or they might all but ignore you for days. They might bring you eggs in bed at three in the morning. Or they might wake you up for sex at three in the morning. Or make love at four in the afternoon. They might not sleep at all. Or they might sleep right through the alarm and forget to get you up for work. Or call you home from work to kill a spider. Or refuse to speak to you after finding out you’ve never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. Or spend the last of the rent money on five kinds of soap. Or sell your textbooks for cash halfway through the semester. Or leave you love notes in your pockets. Or wash you pants with Post-It notes in the pockets so your laundry comes out covered in bits of wet paper. They might cry if the Post-It notes are unread all over your pants. It’s an unpredictable life.

But what happens if a writer falls in love with you?

This is a little more predictable. You will find your hemp necklace with the glass mushroom pendant around the neck of someone at a bus stop in a short story. Your favorite shoes will mysteriously disappear, and show up in a poem. The watch you always wear, the watch you own but never wear, the fact that you’ve never worn a watch: they suddenly belong to characters you’ve never known. And yet they’re you. They’re not you; they’re someone else entirely, but they toss their hair like you. They use the same colloquialisms as you. They scratch their nose when they lie like you. Sometimes they will be narrators; sometimes protagonists, sometimes villains. Sometimes they will be nobodies, an unimportant, static prop. This might amuse you at first. Or confuse you. You might be bewildered when books turn into mirrors. You might try to see yourself how your beloved writer sees you when you read a poem about someone who has your middle name or prose about someone who has never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. These poems and novels and short stories, they will scatter into the wind. You will wonder if you’re wandering through the pages of some story you’ve never even read. There’s no way to know. And no way to erase it. Even if you leave, a part of you will always be left behind. 

If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die. 

by mols

Lucian.

Look.