Wolf
by Alessandra Lynch

My owl was
a deadened petal. My moon
a leadweight hat.

Sinewy and sidelong, I
slowly circled, tail
bruised yellow,
a mouthful of splinters,
and skittery gunshy eyes

that met the skulking bullet
one spring and couldn't
fix again, didn't want to feed—

my brittle haunch arched thin, made
space for rattlesnake to rise.
My shifty flank-bones,
driftwood in tired water.

Under the familiar
plummeting clouds,
in the vast, vulture-slow
terrain

(all west, all sinking)

I stopped claiming
the light

and hunkered off with rag-tag wing,
blood matting my chin, the dead croon
deep in my throat, the body
beside the point.

15 icons I made for smashingart - all Joshua Jackson

5 - Dawson's Creek
5 - Fringe
5 - Joshua's photoshoots





Here at tempted_grafix

Trigger warning for suicide, bullying
( Read more... )
Source: http://www.freep.com/article/20120525/NEWS01/205250449/7-year-old-s-suicide-shocks-community

OP Says: Tears. Just... tears. That poor family. That poor girl. That poor boy.

TW: transphobia, mentions of suicide/self harm

If you've never seen the hammer throw up close, especially during a New England winter, the most arresting part of every heave is the conclusion: how hardened earth erupts when the metal comet splits the ground. Weighing nearly nine pounds with a four-foot wire tail, the stainless-steel ball is menacing enough that airports ban it from carry-on luggage. And on a brisk February morning in Williamstown, Mass., every toss by Keelin Godsey offers further proof of its violence.

At 5'9" and 186 pounds, Godsey is tautly muscular. He wears glasses and is dressed in black from his sneakers to his knit cap, which sheathes his blond, spiky hair. Over and over, from in front of a chain-link backstop, he grips the hammer's handle and whirls in accelerating circles until it's no longer clear whether he is spinning the ball or the ball is spinning him. His target distance, 226'4½", is out on a gravel path beyond the frost-covered craters. That's the qualifying standard for the London Games—a mark Godsey finally surpassed last month (with a throw of 227'8") at a meet in Walnut, Calif. With a top three finish at the trials in Eugene, Ore., in June, he will realize his lifelong dream: to make the U.S. women's Olympic team.

For transgender men and women, the physiological traits that distinguish them as male or female don't conform to how they feel about themselves. Some have undergone sex reassignment surgery or hormone therapy to make their biological and gender identities match. Others, such as the 28-year-old Godsey, have not: He was born as a female and therefore competes as a female, but he identifies as male. Imagine a body, especially one as finely tuned as an elite athlete's, feeling inescapably foreign—as if it were intended for the opposite sex. "I take a lot of pride in the fact that I have a good amount of muscle mass, and I've done it naturally," says Godsey. "But in some ways, this is the last body I would ever want."

A physical therapist who was known as Kelly until his senior year of college, in 2005, Godsey is the first American Olympic contender in any sport to openly identify as transgender. When not competing he dresses and lives as a man, renting a ground-floor duplex in North Adams, Mass., with Melanie Hebert, his fiancée of three years. "I'm a female when I compete," Godsey says. "Every day I have to sweat, stress and freak out. How do I look? What is someone going to think of me? Is someone going to say something at a track meet?"

( Consider something as simple as going to the bathroom. )

Source
NPR

A surprisingly good article from Sports Illustrated.

HOUSTON—A judge threw a 17-year-old 11th grade honor student from Willis High School in jail after she missed school again.

Judge Lanny Moriarty said last month Diane Tran was in his Justice of the Peace court for truancy and he warned her then to stop missing school. But she recently missed classes again so Wednesday he issued a summons and had her arrested in open court when she appeared.

Tran said she works a full-time job, a part-time job and takes advanced placement and dual credit college level courses. She said she is often too exhausted to wake up in time for school. Sometimes she misses the entire day, she said. Sometimes she arrives after attendance has been taken.

The judge ordered Tran to spend 24 hours in jail and pay a $100 fine. Judge Moriarty admitted that he wants to make an example of Tran.

“If you let one (truant student) run loose, what are you gonna’ do with the rest of ‘em? Let them go too?” Judge Moriarty asked.

Tran said she is working so hard because she is helping to support an older brother who attends Texas A&M University and a baby sister who lives with relatives in Houston. Tran said her parents divorced “out of the blue” and both moved away, leaving her in Willis. Her mother lives in Georgia, she said.

“I always thought our family was happy,” the teen said tearfully.

Tran lives with the family of one of her employers. They own a wedding venue. She works at the Vineyard of Waverly Manor on weekends and at a dry cleaners full time.

“She goes from job to job, from school she stays up ‘til 7 o’clock in the morning,” said her friend, co-worker and classmate Devin Hill.

There's also a video at the source

Credit goes to layweed for sharing the article.

A political debate over whether to enshrine Russian as an official language in much of Ukraine brought lawmakers to fisticuffs this week, playing on enduring divisions in the country over cultural identity.

The scuffle, caught on tape Thursday, was followed Friday by lawmakers blocking the podium to prevent the start of a parliament session. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside, and the spat even led the head of the Ukrainian parliament to call for dissolving the body and holding early elections, Ukrainian news reports said as the furor stretched into a second day.

The Russian tongue has been a sensitive subject in Ukraine sincein gained its independence just over two decades ago, said Damon Wilson, executive vice president of the Atlantic Council. For some Ukrainians, the push to protect their language has become enmeshed with protecting the nation.
( more under cut )

Source has video of the fight.

Child of Fear:
by Alessandra Lynch

By the bed that lies square
By the sky that lies shapeless

In a wrecked yellow forest
she is studying holes.

The bullet of solitude,
that faceless instructor,

bores through her skin, forming
dark portals from whatever it touches.

Under its tutelage, she is sister to wood-bee,
drilling dank shingles to dust.

Her tiny punctures make eye-
sockets for rain.

She takes an oath against plans,
outstacks cedar with absence-of.

The gypsy moth is her hoodlum leader—
together they infiltrate the grove.

(In thin air, the little dunes of debris
pile, whispering unintelligibly.)

There are endless parades of holes, the sky
is humming with holes, the earth collapsing
to dirt-frittered lace, as she

writes the book of unmaking.

....has anyone written the Avengers fic where Steve has to adjust to 21st century attitudes towards women? I mean, he is in the 1940s after all?

This entry was originally posted at http://tptigger.dreamwidth.org/600433.html. You can comment there using OpenID, subject lines, and a senible interface. (Also I have codes.:)

[20] Caroline Forbes (The Vampire Diaries) icons
[20] Fred & George Weasley (Harry Potter) icons



All here at my journal.

made by theyslayedthedragon

Poll #1842674
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 76

Who are you cheering for in the Finals

Well, I guess it's time to pay attention to baseball.

*sigh*

This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/468750.html. people have commented there.

I used to detest the use of emoticons in web-conversation with all the poisonous passion of the snobby block of ice-tea that passes for my heart.

But then i realized that :) is a smile!
And there are so many wonderfully varied meanings to a smile.

Now I love emoticons and Odin loves you!.

And remember - only Ron Paul offer a true alternative!

My coworker is getting married in September. We work in the IT department so she and I, plus one other older woman, are the only females in the group. The rest are guys. (Not your typical anti-social computer geeks - they're incredibly smart and witty but absolutely HILARIOUS. It's like working with clowns sometimes.)

We're a close-knit group so I want to organize something unique and fun for a bridal shower, and since we're mostly guys, I don't want to do something really girly. She's already having a private bridal shower that her maid of honor is throwing her, which is a surprise party (I'm also invited to this).

So for our own little group, what are some fun and "different" ideas? We'll obviously get some food and drinks and I'll ask everyone to chip in some money for a gift card, but what else can we do for a work "bridal shower"?

A Dominican dancer who says she was present at Silvio Berlusconi's now-infamous "bunga bunga" sex parties testified in court today that the former Italian prime minster had her dress up as a "burlesque version" of President Barack Obama, and dance around.

Marysthell Garcia Polanco, who is a member of the all-girl group Muñecas con Clase (Dolls with Class), told the court she would also masquerade as a sultry simulacrum of the trial's prosecutor, Ilda "the Red" Boccassini.

"I dressed up as Boccassini with a toga to make him laugh, and also as Obama," the 28-year-old said.

Berlusconi, who is being tried for allegedly paying then-underage Moroccan-born prostitute Karima El Mahroug for sex in 2010 and abusing his power in securing her release from jail, maintains that the parties were "elegant dinners" that involved "burlesque games" as a form of entertainment.

Polanco appeared to agree, testifying that the parties were "innocent fun," and the burlesque was not pornographic.

source: has half naked pictures. probably not work safe

Harley-Davidson motorcycle swept away by Japan tsunami to be preserved in museum

A Japanese man’s Harley-Davidson motorcycle that washed up on the shores of western Canada more than a year after it was swept away by the devastating tsunami will be preserved in a Harley museum in the U.S.

The 2004 FXSTB Softail Night Train motorcycle will be permanently housed in the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, Wis., as a memorial to the victims of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which swamped several coastal towns in northeastern Japan and left more than 15,000 people dead.

“It is truly amazing that my Harley-Davidson motorcycle was recovered in Canada after drifting for more than a year,” said the bike’s owner, Ikuo Yokoyama, in a press release issued Friday by Deeley Harley-Davidson, the Canadian distributor of Harleys. “I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt appreciation to Peter Mark, the finder of my motorcycle. Due to circumstances caused by the disaster, I have been so far unable to visit him in Canada to convey my gratitude.”

( I would be delighted if it could be preserved in its current condition and exhibited to the many visitors to the Harley Davidson Museum as a memorial to a tragedy that claimed thousands of lives. )

[ 42 Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back icons ]



the force is with you, young Skywalker