No Matter Where You Go, There You Are.

So I looked up my first name in the image s ection of a search engine, thinking  that since, in the past, I found cute-s y graphics reminding me of the laughable fact that my first name is derived from a Gaelic term for "wise one". I was inspired by an older post by  the Bloggess (to which I've left a link below) about her adventures looking up the names "Jenny"  and  her blog name, so I thought  maybe this time I'd get a fun screen grab or two with the name 'Shannon' on it, like a s till of Jason in his hockey mask, weapon read y, sa ying, "Wha tayou mean,  you're ou t of peas?" or something,  but no. No. I got the smiling faces of a bunch of professional-looking pretty strangers,including some insanely ripped, skinny women, one wearing two gold medals, and one of these:   This treasure is from David  Thorne, much to my relief af ter clicking on it and seeing the words " Shannon the Human Snake.   www.27bslash6.com  -  Due ...

          It sucks that with love comes loss, but that's unavoidable, I think. When I ge t emotional about the December 20th passing of one of my loved ones, I repeat to m yself a mantra that I've been very lucky to know him, to be influenced by him. He was   is  was a wonderful person who, along wi th his wife and son, permeated my outlook on family and community and milking the wonderful, simple momen ts out of life. 

Dig this: You have a weird, bad social experience as a child, grow  to understand it, move on, but still occasionally have  the perpetrator pop into your world, and all that comes to mind when  you see them is , 'Go away!  Y ou're no t allowed  to be wi thin two miles of me! Didn'tcha read the con tract ?' And you're not angry or hur t, j ust... you e njoy pretending the bully fell off of our fla t, flat Earth.

  Dear Iconic Working Woman Joan Rivers,  I feel the need   to write you a note not as an inappropriate ploy for page views (ick), but as an expression of my gratitude for the gifts you gave us. I've been a fan of yours for years because of your guts - that willingness   to sometimes expose your compassion and culture and vulnerability, aside from   the fact that you'd "go out and do a talk show and [she'd] come out like a machine gun", as Kathy Griffin put it to Anderson Cooper on CNN. 

  -                 I already had a dumb stereotype-riddled bias against the idea of my living in a  small town and this show perpetuated all of them.   So thanks for that, Dr. Hart. -        Many of the jokes are cliché and are inserted into dialogue in such a way that it makes the whole episode script into the softest game of softball imaginable. Part of comedy is surprising your audience a bit, striking the part of the brain that goes, ‘Oh! That was clever, how great!’ and triggers a laugh. If a writer makes humor a very low priority in favor of playing to the basic wants of teenage girls via shirtless guys confessing their feelings to the uninteresting fish-out-of-water protagonist, then the jokes, the characterization, and even the kisses become cotton balls and cosmetic sponges instead of moments fans can cheer about.

As told to my mother: "I had a sort of lucid dream this morning just before I woke up. I went to see Ellie* at her   old place and pulled into the parking lot across the street...I looked over at a nearby car to see a   raccoon   sitting in it, leaning out of the open window on the passenger side. I looked away for a second,   turned back, and I heard feet at my passenger door. Slowly - here's the window (I needlessly indicate with my hand) - the raccoon put its claws on my door and peered in at me. It looked so aggressive that I thought it must have rabies! I knew I could drive over to the police station   that was just behind the lot, but instead I decided to   flip the bird   at the raccoon with both hands! It started attacking my car, trying to get in, which made me think, 'Don't wanna be bitten', and I wondered how scratched that door was getting, but I quickly responded to the attack by sliding into the closest seat and proceeding to sit u...

A few months ago, I discovered the writer Wendi Aarons. Her humor grabbed me first, wi th her website, relatable tweets and always-funny Twitter profile picture, bu t I also had to appreciate how she keeps things simple in each blog post, choosing a topic and following it through in the ‘short but sweet’ way that I still have to work on. She makes a living based on her work, serves as coauthor of the parody Twitter account @ PaulRyanGosling and just seems all-around cool. One day she published something about writer’s block and strangers disliking her style that made me think, ‘I should really ask this woman for a little advice! I want some of the things she has and she’s been in this field a lot longer than I have, so why not take a chance and come up with some questions?' I soon did just that, and – check this out, you guys – she responded! M y work life has been eventful lately because I needed  to change environments, y' know? It's time for a new adventure, so i ...