Hm... I think they started to lose their guts after awhile, but they still sounded good. I mean, they put a lot more work into their silly songs, even, than a lot of bands now put into an entire CD of 24 songs.

"... he say: 'One, and one, and one is three.' Got to be good-looking 'cause he's so hard to see."

He says what we're all thinking.

I know more than a few of the gangster type, in fact. I like them and generally get along with them, but I don't hang around with them or go on dates with them. Why? Well: If I don't want to commit to ONE guy, why would I want to commit to a WHOLE BUNCH of guys...? That just wouldn't make sense.

I think this falls into the "sweeping over-generalization" category, and saying that all bikers are lovely chaps is just as erroneous as assuming that all bikers are criminals.

The "mid-life" crisis type of biker has pretty much taken over Sturgis, and at this point people who only put 500 miles a year or less on their bike are getting "born to ride" tattoos.

Meh. It was bound to happen sooner or later. yours in Chaos, Scarlett

(Corona)

The seagulls all stopped screaming
Silence extends itself like a lion stretching for sleep
And even the noisy surf seems subdued.

The light grows brassy purple, then grays out
Under my curling toes the sand starts to cool.
Facing me, you grin and hold the cards so we both can see

The small white cookie eaten by night that creeps and takes its time.
And now a chilly breeze stirs your hair
And wet, we both are chilled, and still.

Then turn at once
To see a strange blazing halo against a sky of slate.
Cold fire sears my eyes, and I sip my beer that grows warm while we grow cold, and wait.

(sorry... I had to work the beer into that!)

next: Airport security

Oh, good grief. I just lost another day.

All day I've been going around thinking that it's Tuesday. When I saw this topic I was like, *snort* "Don't they know it's NOT WEDNESDAY YET?"

But then I checked. Heh...

Hello! :)

Kick a$$!

(velociraptors)

Tiny brains, teensy teeth--
they're so small and engaging.
I tower above them
stamping and raging.

They flee from my talons
and cringe at my roar.
They must acknowledge that I'm
the supreme dinosaur.

next topic: A blue plastic grocery bag.

When I noticed that you had viewed my profile this morning I looked at your profile, and noticed the things about you that the others have noticed.

So--is it ok for us to call you "Mrs. Garrison"...?

All right, that was rude. I have no comment on your profile. I hope that you have a good time on this site. yours in Chaos, Scarlett

Nice to meet you! :)

Pretty good pics--the animation one is too pixelized to really see well. Someone who doesn't game a lot is not going to know what it is. I can't really think of anything else... well... this may seem kinda harsh, but: There's this sort of I guess smug...? attitude that comes through somehow, not so much in your pictures, but your description of yourself and what you're into. You're not overbearing about it, which is good, but there's like this little leak of superiority somewhere; hard to tell where. (And speaking of semicolons: They are incorrectly used in your headline, and make the headline seem confusing.)

You don't seem like a nasty person, or a cruel one, (or an out-of-control narcissist like me) but just kinda like you might end up being too hard to please.

Anyway, that's just my opinion. I really like the pictures, they are quite flattering. I hope this is useful to you! yours in Chaos, Scarlett

Ty. :)

(femininity wrapped up in her masculinity) :\

My sister sits on the coverlet
of frothy lace
flounced curtains letting in the light
and curls a blonde lock around one idle finger;
her eyes dart to and fro
a shuttle of rapt and silent reading.

The hunk on her magazine's cover
one can almost smell.
Greased muscles, polished grin dazzle in a photographer's light.
His tense and practiced pose frozen in a tick of time.
With conspiratorial slyness
his eyes, turned from hers, meet mine.

Next topic: A boring speaker.

I've known people--male and female--who were quite low in intelligence but high in such qualities as kindness, humor, and loyalty.

Intelligence is a good thing to have, but it is by no means a trump card. And I'm sure everyone knows at least one or two examples of the type of person whose intelligence is a distinct liability. (Stop looking at me! *stamps foot angrily*)

One of my favorite young men (not Helmut; he's much too smart for his own good) is, and will always be, quite simple. He IS good at applying the intelligence he does have to his problems, but if you met him in a bar and talked to him for a few minutes you would probably either A) not be able to understand a single word he says (his powers of verbal self-expression are quite limited) or B) think he was a retard (he's not, but it takes him a LOOONNNG time to get going, mentally speaking). Nevertheless, I consider him fascinating for a number of reasons, and actually created a character based on him for a series of short stories that I've been working on for the last couple of years. Spending time with him is great fun.

With regard to men who are intimidated by intelligent females: That's ok with me! I've noticed, however, that a guy who will deliberately choose a woman of low intelligence for marriage will usually cheat on her with someone he considers "smart". yours in Chaos, Scarlett

Actually--since you asked--there are things that are worse.

On social sites like this one, a lot (I won't say "most", but A LOT) of the people on the forum have either A) never belonged to an internet discussion forum before, or B) have only belonged to that particular forum and no others for as long as they've been on the internet. Let's call them "n00bs" just for the sake of brevity.

The members that fall outside this category are about 99% trolls. (I'm not talking about the mythical creature that haunts lonely bridges and forests; google "internet troll definition" if you are puzzled by this reference.)

On a forum like this one, the people who start "bold" topics are almost always n00bs. They will usually only do so a few times and then either get scared by the flaming and run off, or become resentful and only reply to others' topics in a hesitant and watchful fashion--like a kid on the playground who still wants to be in a clique but has already got beat up a couple of times, right?

Either way, n00bs may offend, but they usually only do so a couple of times and that's it.

Trolls, on the other hand, are those members who start a topic entitled: WUUUUUZZZZZZZAAAAAA!!!!!!!!1111~~~1!, with the text of the topic being something like: "Uigl? P?ol@!tz?"

Their troll friends will immediately pounce on this brilliant subject and very quickly the topic will be 10 pages long, with every reply being something like: "NEENERNEENERNEENER wokka wokka wokka CHILLY!" *long rows of LOL faces or dancing pickles*

Invariably, if the forum has text color or HTML capability, there will also be images and GIFs of such things as vomiting pumpkins, angelic kittens, and sparkly leprechauns pulling down their pants. Each image will be replied to with more long rows of LOL faces. If there is text color capability then the clever trolls will make their replies in the same color as the forum background, so that it can't be read unless it's highlighted. (We can't use colored text on this forum; I've already tried it.)

The n00bs who have already got flamed into submission will then attempt to join the party and make nonsensical posts themselves, and a lot of the time put in parentheses at the end of the post: "Am I doing this right?"

After the topic has grown to about 50 pages, the troll who started it will then generally have grown tired of the game and be paying more attention to another of the 15-20 spam topics that he started that day.

So: If anything about an internet discussion forum really "bothered" me--it would be that. But it doesn't.

Another really great thing about the internet is how easy it is to ignore people that are trying their damndest to get one's attention.



But an even finer amusement is to see how upset people get when someone asks for more information, or spots a hole in the OP's story. xoxoxo

Scarlett's Two-Fold Rule of Enlightenment which can also be applied to niceness

("Nice" is kinda the same sort of syndrome as "enlightened", to wit--)

If someone tells you that he's nice, then he's not.

AND:

Someone who tells you that he's nice is doing so as a means of emotional leverage toward some ulterior (that is, unexpressed) goal.

A truly kind, considerate, and nonviolent/enlightened nature does not have to advertise, and in fact will not advertise.

Some real-life examples of what I'm talking about:

*** A guy who approached me online with his initial description of himself being that people tell him that he's "too nice". I'm like, "Um, ok whatever," and I'm not interested in talking to him (because of the emotional leverage thing) but I was a bit bored so I strung him along. It turned out that he was looking for a local lady who would torture and demean him. He started sending me some "c0ck torture" pics of himself that were really yuccky, so I finally blocked him.

*** A former neighbor of mine was well-off (he had a great-paying job at which he did next to nothing and also had an inheritance) used to hit on me all the time, even though I obviously lived with my boyfriend and we obviously were crazy about each other. (Actually I think that he was more interested in my boyfriend, but that's not essential to our story.) This guy would make these fantastic displays of generosity towards me and my bf and he was always buttering me up with compliments. When that didn't get him any closer to My Pants Land, he got angry. The angrier he got, the more he would repeat the phrase: "But: I'M A NICE GUY!!" and then he would go on with some sort of tale about how he had befriended some lowlife. Meanwhile he did the shabbiest things to his so-called "friends" behind their backs that I have ever seen. He narked on his best friend who had used his house a couple of times to cheat on his wife; he would procure bags of pot for a lady at his work and take these enormous pinches out of the bag, amounting to almost 1/3 of the bag, and say in a contemptuous tone: "She's so stupid she doesn't know what an ounce is!" I mean, don't get me started telling stories about this guy; I could go on about him all day! Me and my boyfriend actually developed sort of a comedy routine around this guy, in fact; when one of us was relating some tale of shabby behavior, deceit, or dishonesty to the other, at the worst point in the story it was customary to break off, wave one's hands in the air, and say in a loud, belligerant voice: "But: I'M A NICE GUY!!"

***I've had the "pleasure" of being acquainted with several guys at various times (a couple of these were bar acquaintances and one I met online) who would attempt to garner my sympathy by bending my ear with a story about how they had been "way too nice" to a former girlfriend, with the result being that the dirty hoebag trampled on their heart, dragged them into debt, cheated on them, and left them for the proverbial and glamorous "bad boy". In my younger days, when I was less wise and more adventuresome, I would listen to stories like this with some degree of patience, as I would be eager to show these gentlemen that not all females are like that. Ultimately, after a short time (and usually a few drinks), the "nice guy" would start looking at me with a certain glint in his eye that was anything but nice. At that point he'd start to say something like: "That's why you're talking to me, isn't it? Because you're a dirty s1ut that wants to cheat on her boyfriend, AREN'T YOU???" What is a good answer to a question like that? (That's a serious inquiry, by the way.) At this point (being a total unsympathetic a$$hole, I guess) I would excuse myself from further conversation, at which point Mr. Nice Guy would fly into an intemperate rage. In the cases where I ran into Mr. Nice Guy at a bar, a string of virulent insults would follow me out the door.

NOTE: That's why I like the internet so much, btw; if someone starts acting like that or sending you penis pictures, you can just block him.

Anyway, if you keep the above two-fold rule firmly in mind, you may thereby be able to avoid Mr. Nice Guy, or at least keep him firmly in his place if he's someone you can't avoid spending time around, like a coworker or something.

I hope this was helpful. yours in Chaos, Scarlett

Hello! :)

Well, your question is: "What is the subconscious mind?"

My initial answer I think was fairly succinct: To me there's only "mind". The only distinctions that exist for me are the various degrees of interaction and understanding between me and mind. I was not attempting to pinpoint a location for "mind" or ascribe it to a particular physical function.

When one begins to learn meditation, one begins to apprehend the so-called CONSCIOUS mind as something much more wild and less definable than one had originally supposed. It's like a person standing on a shore, observing the surface of a lake, to use another totally lame analogy: We think of the surface as the known part, and the depth as the unknown, and possibly unknowable, part. But both surface and depth are equally knowable and unknowable to the observer on the shore. A guy who fishes from a boat may have another, more comprehensive perspective on the lake, and yet the surface and the depth are both known and unknowable to him as well. xoxo

I used to get a massage once every week or so for quite a long time, and it's the total sh!t. My neck and shoulder are messed up from a motorcycle wreck, and when I can get a good massage it puts everything back the way it should be and I FEEL GREAT.

Pretty soon I'm going to be able to afford to get a massage on a regular basis again, and you better bet I'm going to do that. Even if my health insurance won't cover it, I'm going to pay for it out of pocket.

In my opinion if you can get a good professional massage at least once a month or so, your general health and state of mind will be a lot better. yours in Chaos, Scarlett

Wow, you have really spruced up your profile! Those are some good pictures too. Nice work.

Anyway, to answer your question: You are only 25 years old and I know it gets frustrating, but you have to give it some time. If you want a really solid long-term relationship, you can't rush it. On a social site you are going to have to message a lot of people in order to get a few replies. It's not just like that for you, it's like that for everybody (except really hot chicks, but don't tell me you would rather be a chick! even hot! no way, right? damn straight! it's no picnic!).

Try to enjoy the purely social aspects of a social website and keep your expectations to a minimum as far as finding someone to spend the rest of your life with. If you are too impatient you'll end up with the wrong person. Maybe you think that's better than nothing, but believe me: It's not.

"However long it takes" should be your motto, if you really want to find love.

About three years ago a friend of mine who has gained a reputation for making predictions about people that always come true in a startling way (she's not a fortuneteller like me; she just gets these flashes about things) told me that "in about a year and a half" I was going to meet the man of my dreams, my soulmate (her words, not mine! I don't really think there is such a thing), and that I needed to "get ready".

I thought she was full of it (I figured it was a manipulative move on her part to get me to stop drinking) and it actually made me angry. However, since I knew that she had made correct predictions about people before, I couldn't quite entirely discount it.

So "a year and a half", right? GRUMBLE, FUME!!! Why would she tell me that? She's a lying cow! (and so on) But every so often I would think about it. And that year and a half went by realllly slooooowly, too. It was about the worst year and a half of my life! Not just figuratively, but quite literally: I was bankrupt, I got fired after less than a month from a job I had waited for almost a year to get, my band lost another drummer, I had the worst fight ever with my best friend (we were on the phone screaming at each other for SEVEN HOURS, lol!), I got evicted not just once but twice, I had to get rid of one of my dogs because he killed the neighbor's cat, me and all my pets nearly literally froze to death because the furnace broke in the dead of winter and I couldn't afford to fix it--you name it, almost every bad thing you could think of happened to me in that year and a half.

And so after awhile I met this one guy online and he SURE didn't seem like the man of my dreams by any means, but I decided to go hang out with him for a weekend anyway. He was friendly enough, and very cute. I even asked one friend of mine who reads tarot if this guy was the guy my girlfriend had told me about and he said, "It doesn't look like it." I was like "ok whatever".

So I get back from my fun weekend with this bloke and I'm sort of disgruntled--not because I was upset about how things turned out, but because I was angry about the prediction my friend Nella (not her real name) had made. "Ok! It's been a year and a half, and this definitely isn't the man of my dreams, ok? YOU'RE FULL OF SH!T, NELLA!" (I didn't actually tell her that, but I was sure thinking it.)

Two days after I got back from my trip, a guy started sending me IMs; he had got my add off a website that we both belonged to. We started chatting a lot, and after a few more days we started talking on the phone. We talk on the phone almost every day now, and have done so for over a year. We've met in person several times and if things go right, we'll get a place together at some point. I have been in love before and have had relationships before--lots of em--but I have never known someone like this, and I feel something that I've never felt before, with anybody: I feel humble that I actually know this man, that I can say he is my friend, and that he cares about me. It is an exhilarating feeling like awe--like being on top of a mountain, or looking at the planets and stars.

What if you knew that you were going to meet your soulmate in a year and a half, or two years...? Couldn't you wait that long? (P.S. I have known a couple of guys who were as short as you and had girls all over them. It's a matter of perspective. As one of them used to say: "It don't matter how tall you are when you're layin down!")

And again: I want to congratulate you for fixing up your profile the way you did. yours in Chaos, Scarlett

Obviously she doesn't want to talk to you. I mean, duh! She's not being stupid, necessarily, just sort of passive. She probably hasn't figured out how fun it is to be out-and-out rude to boring guys.

I mean, there's a wealth of opportunity here:

Q: What do you like to do for fun(?)

A: Have you ever heard of necromancy? No..?

Q: Where do you work(?)

A: At a morgue. Luckily for me my job and hobbies dovetail quite nicely.

(NOTE: Since you aren't using question marks at the end of your questions, maybe she doesn't realize it's a question! Just a thought.)

A: Do you want to go out on this day(?)

Q: Well, only if you can bring a shovel and keep REALLY, REALLY quiet! How fast can you dig...?

When all is said and done, most guys would much rather deal with stupid/passive than smartas$ed/rude. Maybe you should count your blessings, ya know? She could have just said something like, "Dang, dude! You're about as fun as watching paint dry!" and hurt your feelings.

I hope this was helpful in offering you a perspective on why us "woman" are so "stupid" sometimes. Better luck next time, I guess...? yours in Chaos, Scarlett

When I go on dates with myself, I usually end up slapping myself in the face and going home in a huff (which is similar to a sedan, but somewhat less well-constructed). Sometimes the two of us do end up having a great time, but it's always by accident and usually involves a magazine.

I have tried to trick myself into thinking that it's not me, but the ultra-annoying laugh always gives me away.

I hope this was helpful, Scarlett/Scarlett