I love to pick apples. I love to hear the snap that happens when i bite into an apple. I love the smell of apples. Oh, and hot homemade apple pie.

Apple sauce… apple butter… apple compote… apple computers…………………….

And apples, I’m pretty sure, never mistreat each other or lie about each other or kill each other.

So today, I’m for apples. How about you?

First, second, and third grade. We lived in an apartment and I shared a bedroom with my two sisters. The school yard was behind us and there was a hill, smooth and worn as the spot on poppy’s leg, where his hair was gone. And to the right as you went up the hill were the woods.

One of my goals in life at 7 or 8 or 9 was to ride a HORSE. Simple. Get on and take off. Not having a horse, I used to be one, in the school yard. Snorting, pawing the dirt, galloping and then running, and trying to run so fast that I’d gather up everything I had to break through the very skin holding me in…

If we weren’t in the school yard, we’d be in the wood. The trees would take us in, sharing their shadow and the sunlight. We’d play hide and seek, look for pieces of glass from discarded beer bottles, pick up rocks, and use sticks as swords.

I’ve grown accustomed to your Face screen name… to see it every day. please don’t leave. me here. surely, you can find your way back.

This is a wake up call. Right here. Look at this video. And look and scream and cry for what we don’t have in this country: LEADERSHIP.

A man, a student, is dragged away from a speech being given by Senator John Kerry yesterday in Florida. Kerry should have gotten down off the damned podium and stopped the officers from this awful act. The audience should have gotten up to stop it. THIS SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING IN AMERICA.

What the fuck is going on here? What is happening to us? This is wrong. THIS IS WRONG.

As economists, psychologists and biologists try to determine what makes a person happy or unhappy, one factor stands out as especially powerful. To a large degree, it seems, happiness is inherited.

disruption. the black bear in your back yard. the canada geese on the golf course. millions of iraqis sitting on the world’s second largest oil reserve. the spider crawling across your wall. the neighbor blowing his leaves for an ENTIRE afternoon.

rain
water falling down
it splats on the ground

do you, when nobodys watching
^{sing in the rain}

do you spin around and let go
of all your worries
and who cares if anybody sees
^{you’ve already made sure
nobodys there}

do you pretend you’re in a movie
and turn your face upward
and open your mouth
and let the rain in

please tell me
you’re like me
…that i’m not the only freak
jumping puddles with
Gene Kelly

please tell me
you’re like me
that i’m not alone
in being alone,
… dancing in the rain