As I am writing, I can hear a story blaring from the TV about an 11-year-old girl who has been raped by 19 young men. The story gets worse as this little girl, who has just been gang-raped becomes the target of victim blaming. The TV anchor quotes one of the rapists, who defends himself by saying, “She looked older than 11.”
Fiction Friday: Rory’s Story Cubes, an Open Call
A few days ago, I bought a game called “Rory’s Story Cubes” at Borders. The game is made up of nine dice. Each die has a variety of pictures on it. You roll the dice and then you make up a story based on the order (and pictures) of how the dice fall. It’s kind of like a writing prompt, but I didn’t have much fun playing this game alone…. I’ve posted a cube arrangement below and invite anyone to make a funny or even serious short out of this. I hope this will be fun, I can’t wait to read what transpires.
This is the order in which they fell, beginning with a fish, an alien, a word bubble, an apple, a credit card, a magic wand, a question mark, a turtle, and a fire. Please feel free to post any responses in the comment area
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Filed under Fun
Random Acts of Kindness
What would you do if you were walking down the street minding your own business when a little old man started to chase you down the sidewalk with a tomato in one hand and a wedge of cheese in the other shouting, “Tomat and chez! Tomat and chez!”
Okay…How about if you were walking back to your car after exiting the grocery store and a woman driving a mini-van full of stuffed animals began chasing you in an attempt to wave you over to her?
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Filed under Friendship, Inspirational, Life Lessons, Random Acts of Kindness
I Am a Rape Survivor
You too may be like me, a rape survivor, essentially a member of a club that no one ever really plans on joining. As you probably know, this club is not all that elite, as one in every six women has been sexually assaulted. If you’ve successfully survived this ordeal, perhaps you identify with the dictionary’s definition of survivor, one who continues “to function or prosper in spite of opposition, hardship, or setbacks.” For me, this wasn’t always the case.
Filed under Healing, Inspirational, Sexual Assault
My Fascination with Frida
The dreariness of my high school’s art studio was enhanced by the pea green walls and matching green and white checkered floor tiles, clearly décor left over from the sixties or seventies. Whenever my art teacher was particular back logged, she would torture us with some droning educational video on the life of an artist. Most of the time if she wasn’t looking, we’d sleep through them, taking little interest in art’s making. Most of the artists on these tapes were white men, European or American. Then one day she put in a video about a Mexican woman I’d never heard of: Frida Kalho.
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Filed under Art, Inspirational
Get Busy Living
Years ago when I was waffling through my own misspent youth, my father quoted me a line from his favorite move, “The Shawshank Redemption.” The film itself is about a wrongly imprisoned man who spends two decades chiseling a hole in his cell wall that eventually leads him to his freedom. This movie is very insightful; the plot alone metaphorically serves as an example for the persistence and human spirit it takes to reach a goal without breaking, no matter how impossible. The movie quote really did change my life, and I’ve thought of it through the years whenever I became hopeless.
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Filed under Inspirational, Life Lessons
Prevention of Animal Cruelty Month
It seems to me that not being cruel to animals should be a no-brainer , but given the fact that April is officially titled “Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month” I am obviously wrong. Animal abuse is a common practice that comes in many forms, from animal testing, to “fake fur” production. Each year between 25 to 100 million animals including chimpanzees, monkeys, beagles, dogs, cats, rabbits, rats, birds, farm animals, are used for experimentation in the U.S. alone. Every year roughly 2 million dogs and cats are killed to produce “fake” fur coats. While many other “fur producing” animals are skinned alive.
Filed under Animal Rights, Vegetarianism
Evaluated
Throughout my lifetime, I can recall the instances in which I got the look. It was typically given to me by what I can most tersely describe as “left-brained people.” They’ve squinted their eyes, raised their eyebrows, and scrunched-up their noses at me without even attempting to hide that they were questioning my sanity. However, in my youth I’d existed in a blissful ignorance, never suspecting anyone of doing this to me until one day….
Filed under Healing, Inspirational, Life Lessons
Sea Glass: My Newest Obsession
For years I’ve picked up pieces of sea glass as I walked along the Connecticut shore. Not all beaches have it. Though the beach I go to in Rhode Island is full of gorgeous smooth beach stones, I have yet to find a single spec of sea glass there. Of the Florida beaches I’ve visited, shells were the only impressive beach treasures I found.
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Filed under Art, By the Sea, Sea Glass