TheListServe Blog

I’ve been dreading this since the day I joined the Listserve – that fateful day when the email would come telling me I was selected. I’ve been wracking my brain thinking about anything to write and I hope I’m writing something that will benefit someone – anyone, really. Even myself. When I got that email I had two thoughts: The first one was, “oh, two listserves in one day? Weird!” then, upon figuring out what the email actually was, I said out loud (and in the middle of a meeting, mind you), “Oh! No way!!” I guess that kind of brings me to the theme of what I wanted to talk about – but first! – a quick shout out to my “bestie” Julia - the Juice - who introduced me to the ListServe a while back and we’ve been addicted to it ever since. So why was I looking at my email during a meeting? Because I hate my job. Well, not really my job as much as my career path. I’ve always been in Management Consulting but I’ve never ACTUALLY liked it. I enjoyed the concept of traveling, talking to people...

Mary Kathryn was born on All Saints Day in 1955. She never went by Mary, her mother always called her Kathy after the character in Wuthering Heights. Why her mother did no simply name her Kathy to begin with is one of those great unanswerable questions. Kathy grew up in Florida just down the road from the Kennedy Space Center and watched man’s quest for the Moon first hand. Her mother was a secretary for NASA and shared exciting stories about the astronauts and scientists she worked with. When Kathy was seventeen she joined the Navy and became a nurse. She served during the end of the Vietnam War and was stationed in Cuba when she met her future husband. He was a Marine pilot and the two fell in love, got married and moved to the El Toro Marine Base in Orange County, California. Kathy went back to school on the GI Bill and became a psychologist, alongside her husband. They opened a practice together and had a baby girl, who they named Kathryn, after her mother. (Side note: Two ultrasou...

Hi guys. Let me get right to it. I'm not going to give any sage advice here. Let's get to know each other before we start dispensing recommendations on how to live life. So let me introduce myself. I'm a 35-year old real estate broker and entrepreneur living in New York City. I love it here. Sometimes life here is a bit too fast-paced, but overall, everything is within reach so it’s worth it. If you come visit (or if you already live here), feel free to reach out to meet, ask questions, or get a recommendation on where to eat. NYC has amazing food options everywhere. Let’s grab a bite! Some of my interests include: cooking, photography, kung fu (I practice at a school called Bo Law Kung Fu), the stock market, real estate, startups, technology, travel, and meeting interesting people. Oh, and chocolate chip cookies! I've always played things on the safe side. But no longer. I am currently planning to open a restaurant. Crazy, right? One of my passions has always been food...

“She tried to think extra hard about being alive so as to forget that she would not be alive forever. But it was impossible. As soon as she concentrated on being alive now, the thought of dying also came into her mind. The same thing happened the other way around: only by conjuring up an intense feeling of one day being dead could she appreciate how terribly good it was to be alive. It was like two sides of a coin that she kept turning over and over. And the bigger and clearer one side of the coin became, the bigger and clearer the other side became too.” - Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World I wonder hourly where the world comes from. I am in a perpetual state of existential crisis trying my hardest to quench my fears of death and lack of purpose by reading everything from quantum physics to philosophy to young adult fiction (I recommend "The Fault in our Stars" by John Green). I don't understand how anyone can have absolute faith in religion, but I at the same time don...

First, some background music. I recommend "Disparate Youth" by Santigold, "Settling It Off" by Peter Wolf Crier, or "Die Slow" by Health. All are on YouTube and Spotify. But really, just pick a song that inspires you. It's cool, I can wait... OK, ready? Set. Go. You might find that life will take you on some unexpected paths. Life is going to throw you curveballs. Serious curveballs. Plans will be destroyed. Hopes and dreams quashed. I don't mean for this to depress or scare you. I mean for it to prepare you. To inspire courage in you when the proverbial ish hits the fan in your life. Because it's inevitable. What isn't inevitable is how you react. You can curl into a ball and let life kick your ass, or you can fight back. I highly suggest the latter. You might find yourself abandoned and isolated in the dead of winter, with nobody returning your phone calls, curled into a ball on the floor of an empty house, in a city you despise, with not...

A bit rushed but, hello world!! Life is a funny little thing. You try your hardest for something, but don't get it. You can get angry, cry, be frustrated and it will never happen. You don't expect it, and it shows up on your doorstep. The thing you never sought to pursue is all yours. It could be as simple as a smile from a stranger. As rough as an argument. A struggle in your journey. The memories of the past. Life brings people together. In the most strangest of ways. One day they are there, and the next day they are gone. And then they come back again, in a new light, and better than ever. It could be the start of something, or the realisation that there is something better. Life is about the moments. The smiles, the laughs. The moments of butterflies and the moments of deep despair. It is about the roller-coaster we experience as we lean in for our first kiss, the pit in our stomach as we walk away. The way they feel when we run into their arms, when we see our children, w...

Some thoughts from the other side of 50 . . . . - If it smells bad, it probably is bad. - There are people who have never seen "The Princess Bride." This is inconceivable. - It makes no sense to exceed the speed limit in an urban area. Those stop signs and red lights even everything out. - When cooking chili, lose the lid. - To tie a bow tie, close your eyes and think "shoelace." Unless you still tie your shoelaces via the "bunny ears" method. Then you really need to buy a pre-tied bow tie. - With a cargo bike you can do 80 percent of what you would otherwise do with a car. Hills in your town? Get a bike with an electric assist. - Listen to people with whom you disagree. Challenge your own beliefs. - When somebody behind you honks their horn at you, it is not a good idea to put your car in park, get out, and angrily confront them by yelling "CAN I HELP YOU WITH SOMETHING?" at their window. There are very few scenarios where this turns out...

Writing The Listserve is a humbling task akin to standing naked in a room full of strangers, some nervously peeking through their fingers, others turning their head away while a few look on, riveted. This exercise is not unlike the last two years of my life, two years dedicated to pushing through the frequent discomfort of being in order to connect with others. What if you were stuck on an island in the middle of the ocean – hours away from the nearest landmass – and felt that life was passing you by? What if you were always surrounded by people yet completely alone despite your linguistic efforts? What if your only survival tool was words, your one belief kindness and your one wish love? What would you do? Two years ago, this was me. I was 35, had spent the best part of a decade and a half looking for love in all the wrong places but I still longed for companionship besides that of words. Words, those little bricks I was still trying to build a livelihood out of as a freelance journal...

In any life, there are periods of having to rely on others for all of one's needs. When I was 36 years old, I needed all the help my loved ones had to give. My family, my husband's family and all our friends gathered around use when I gave birth to our daughter, Lily, on August 4th, 2005. Everything was going well, and I never could have expected the hardships to come. I went back to my full-time job soon after Lily was born, but my health suddenly worsened. I started losing five to seven pounds per week, and I felt fatigued and out of breath all the time. I thought it might have been related to being a new mother, but to be safe, I went to a doctor. Lots of tests were run until we found what was wrong. It was November 21, 2005, only 3 1/2 months after I gave birth to my daughter, when doctors diagnosed me with malignant pleural mesothelioma , which affects the lining of the lungs and is usually caused by asbestos exposure. Without knowing it, I had apparently been expos...

Simple rules to live by: 1. Tell the Truth 2. Be optimistic - You'll live longer, be happier and potentially make more. If you're not optimistic fake it 'till you are. 3. (Generally) Don't make assumptions For 2 years now I've been a single parent. Nothing has shaped me more than learning to parent alone. The first year was grueling as learning to be mr. mom was never part of my life plan. I kept at it and in time, found peace and a deeper connection with my daughter as a result of the work I put in. Simple parenting rules that have helped me: 1. Play is a powerful tool. Learn to play with your kids and use it to teach them lessons. 2. Kids f'in love choices. Give them an option a or option b vs. do a now! I live in Seattle and am always looking for interesting people to meet. Drop me a line if you're around. Also, my best and I are planning a trip to Barcelona this summer. If any LIstservers are out there, please reach out! Jimmy Gambier jimmygambier[AT]g...

This listserv has caught me at one of the busiest and chaotic points of my life. With only one more semester of university ahead of me it's hard to know what to write. Should I talk about what brought me to where I am today? About how the last few years of my life have changed me? Or maybe my plans for the future. No, instead I want to talk about right now, partially because none of those things are particularly interesting, partially because just thinking about the future enough to make me anxious. Right now I'm reading A Memory of Light, the 14th and final book in the Wheel of Time series. I've been reading this series since I was 13 and my time with the world and characters includes my entire adolescence. I'm sad that the story is ending, it feels like I am saying goodbye to an old friend. More goodbyes lurk on the horizon. At the end of this semester I'll be saying goodbyes to friends both old and new. I will have to say au revoir to the city, adieu to my school...

I've worked with the public my entire adult life. Nearly 8 years as an assistant manager in a convenience store/gas station. Two years at Wal-Mart. The last 16 years in the veterinary field. I've spent a lot of time sharing my experiences with said public. On many occasions I've been told I should "Write all that shit down!" That it would "Make a great book!" Having always enjoyed putting pen to paper I have toyed with the idea for years. Now I have the chance to ask: Is there a book inside? My words are limited here so rather than go into great detail, I thought I would list a partial cast of characters...and characters they were. These are just fine folks from the convenience store. Let's just say the people of wal mart site is pretty accurate. I'd need way more than 600 words just to get started on that job. Ron.Mid 30's. Addicted to paint and glue. Face and shoes constantly dotted with evidence to back that up. Would do anything for a ...

I really wanted to write some big, deep retrospective on challenge and perseverance for my Listserve contribution. That kind of thing is kind of my thing. Well, it was. It's what I did, when I started my blog, The Broke-Ass Bride, which grew into one of the top blogs in the wedding industry. It earned me a deal with a major publishing house to write a book about using creativity as currency to rock bad-ass weddings without breaking the bank. (coming this December!) Born as a coping skill for life’s imperfections, my chronic auto-immune disease, financial struggles and artistic stagnation, I developed a reputation for my ability to spin obstacle into opportunity creatively and with a trademark cheeky irreverence. It seemed like nothing could keep me down. But I guess the universe watched me leap life's hurdles on my triumphant unicorn of resilience, turning piles of strugglesome shit into rainbows with my magical brand of fairy dust, and decided (in its infinite wisdom) to up th...

As with many before me, the Listserve email came as an unexpected surprise. What the heck do I have to write about? I'll just share some of the thoughts that often cross my mind: I think about how I am but one of 7 billion members of my species, all crammed onto a tiny planet orbiting just one of over 200 billion stars in just one of the hundreds of billions of galaxies in our known universe. This makes me feel incredibly insignificant. I think about how I experience the world, and how my understanding of it is encoded in some 100 Billion neurons, and how rapid waves of impulses interact to form an emergent pattern that we call consciousness. I marvel at the fact that some clever molecules combined and evolved over billions of years to form the immensely complicated structures of life, and how each of those molecules are comprised of atoms that were forged in the heart of a dying star. This makes me feel incredibly special. Even though we are insignificant in the face of the greate...

Recently a close friend of mine passed away at his own hand. His suicide has haunted me in the past couple weeks. Today I write to you not on the subject I would like, but rather a burden on my heart since I heard of my friend’s passing. Suicide is not a common discussion in society, nor is it a cheery subject to talk about. However, it is a discussion that needs to occur. Increasing suicide awareness and recognizing the warning signs can prevent grief and sorrow. Worldwide, suicide is one of the top three leading causes of death among people ranging in the age from 15-44. Suicide rates are climbing and are the highest rate in fifteen years. In the United States alone there were 38,364 suicide deaths in 2010. Ninety percent of those who commit suicide have a diagnosable and treatable condition. We need to recognize that suicidal thoughts not a character defect, but are typically a sign of a mental condition. Fifty to Seventy Five percent of people contemplating suicide give some sort ...

This listserv has caught me at one of the busiest and chaotic points of my life. With only one more semester of university ahead of me it's hard to know what to write. Should I talk about what brought me to where I am today? About how the last few years of my life have changed me? Or maybe my plans for the future. No, instead I want to talk about right now, partially because none of those things are particularly interesting, partially because just thinking about the future enough to make me anxious. Right now I'm reading A Memory of Light, the 14th and final book in the Wheel of Time series. I've been reading this series since I was 13 and my time with the world and characters includes my entire adolescence. I'm sad that the story is ending, it feels like I am saying goodbye to an old friend. More goodbyes lurk on the horizon. At the end of this semester I'll be saying goodbyes to friends both old and new. I will have to say au revoir to the city, adieu to my school...

I was caught unawares by the mail that I’ve won the Listserve Lottery. I’m working for a deadline next Tuesday and I am quite stressed as an architecture student. But I realized this is a rare chance to broaden my worldview. So please feel free to comment on my mail and point out where I’m wrong. I have a thirst for knowledge. I read a few books every month and try to discuss them with peers. Every interesting subject I come across leaves me knowing less about the world and wanting to know more. I am in a position to do something, brought up in one of the wealthiest countries in this world, and I am grateful for this. I don’t know if grateful would be a correct word, because for me thankful feels hypocrite, thanks I have it better than some kid in the slums. I want to do something about that. What is your vision of the future? Can you back-cast such a future? Imagine a future and think about what you need to do now for that specific future. Is it naïve to think about green roofs and ...

Hello out there.. My name is Jerry, and I’ve been on the internet since it was just a series of tubes. I teach a bit, (Computers and Programming) and enjoy technology the way you might think. As an “Early Adopter”, I still have my Compaq “Luggable” that runs the CPM operating system. (Google it..) I just returned from the Consumer Electronics Show, (C.E.S.) and was able to see many exciting new products, most priced above my pay grade. (Way above in some cases.) That being said, I have found over the years that anything you want can be achieved if you focus on it. So I guess my topic is, “Live Your Dreams, and They Will Come True”. This email arrived by way of my “Spam Box” even though the regular Listserve emails arrive unscathed. I’m not a bitter guy, so I still responded to this “Winners” email even though it’s past the 48 hour window. Best to you and yours. Jerry Dixon Hollywierd, CA. jdmeister[AT]dslextreme.com

We don’t have time to think. Yet you are searching for answers here. Good for you. Many of you have no time to read this. But this edition is on sale. It’s limited and you may get a prize. Check your spam inbox if you have Gmail. I found out I won the Listserve lottery there. Did you know that spam is used to send secret messages in some factions? An anagram for Listserve is: Evil Rests. Each time we open these messages, it seems 'tis is true. Angry internet sleeps. Relax and breathe when you read these emails. QUIT SKIMMING! Or unsubscribe! Connect. 1,2,3,4. Let’s stop staring at these screens all the time. They are everywhere! Look at the cosmos. And how about neglected family members? It is frustrating watching people whom actively seek and learn more about celebrities rather than keeping in touch and finding out about their own families and friends. Then I realized I know Robin Lehner’s save percentage in Binghamton. ;) 23 and me. Why not try that service in lieu of my youthful...

I'm constantly amazed what I can learn from other people. My 15 month son taught me to have a good time, all you need is graham crackers and a plastic spatula, my grandpa taught me that crunchy peanut butter is good for your golf swing (I'm still trying to verify that claim), and my wife taught me that life is too short for bad coffee or light beer. However, the most humbling and inspiring lesson someone has ever taught me was in 2011 when my brother was diagnosed with cancer. Faced with this overwhelming situation, he did the most amazing thing: he laughed at it, he made jokes about it. It would have been so easy for him get lost in self pity, but he chose to make the best of it. I've always been drawn to comedy and jokes (which is ironic, since anybody close to me will tell you that I'm tragically not funny), but after witnessing my brother's experience with cancer, I realized how essential they actually are. What makes you laugh? How has humor changed your life? ...

Hi Everyone, I originally joined the list serve as I wanted the opportunity to maybe one day promote my own business, BUT, my view of the list serve purpose has changed immensely! I love receiving and reading about all of the different experiences, places and people everyday. So here's what I have decided to share - Follow your dreams, we live one life, make it count. Pay it forward and practice random acts of kindness. I have always thought you need to have a 9-5 job and be sensible, stable and a hard worker, only then will you have a 'good' life. Well, I have lived like that for most of my life, (only 34 years so far!), but I have decided I don't want a 'good life', I want a GREAT life! I have been with the man of my dreams for almost 5 years and we have a beautiful little boy. I want my son to grow up with amazing experiences and the knowledge he could be and do great things if he chooses to. That doesn't mean an exciting job or doing dangerous thin...

Every once in a while an idea floats to the front of your lobe and deserves further exploration. For me, it was using comedic talents to entertain a local audience in the Ozarks. Normally known as flyover country little old Springfield, Missouri has been recognized with artistic endeavors for over 50 years with contributions to music, film, and stage. My personal contribution over the past 4 years is a local satire news publication called Fair City News, which you can visit online. Simple idea really, take local news and put a creative & funny spin to it. Which I find to be an enormous amount of fun. Local community supports it, people who move to town find it as a cultural guide and folks who move away use it as a resource to keep in touch. What do you love to do? What can you do that is different? How can you present an old idea in a new way? That's my challenge to you. Find what you love, twist it to make it new. Have fun and make a little profit. Who knows, it could blow u...

I want to write about the funniest conversation I have participated in to date. My sister entertains when she doesn’t even mean to. With aspergers syndrome, she is always literal, serious, and takes things exactly as you say them. My sarcastic family doesn’t make life easy for her and yes, I might get a little carried away from time to time, but she has no idea how her unintentional humor lights up our lives. She had just gotten back from her favorite yearly activity – StarFest, where self-proclaimed dorks and geeks gather in a convention style hotel while wearing their favorite fantasy-inspired costume and participate in well, I went once for moral support and I couldn’t really tell you. I’ll relive that if I get this Listserve opportunity again. She was pooped. And cranky. Her whole life she has worn exhaustion on her sleeve like a sweater and her bitchiness was apparent right off the bat that afternoon. (Disclaimer – Mitch, name changed, is her now fiancé) Mom – “Honey did you not g...

My mother is from an island called Brac in Croatia. It is truly a remarkably beautiful place. She didn't own a pair of shoes until she was maybe 8 years old. She told me that for Christmas they may, if they were good, get an apple or a fig as a present. Her father was a simple man, favouring the communist party and not terribly in favour of the catholic church. He worked the land and grew olives, figs and grapes. He wasn't a man that showed affection to either his wife or children and although he put the fear of God in all of them, my mother speaks of him very fondly. My grandmother was a Catholic and a kind and gentle woman as I remember her. That doesn't mean she wasn't afraid to scold any one of her 11 children and although my mother speaks of her with the greatest love and respect, she tells me there were times that she knew very well she wasn't in the good books. They lived through 2 wars, never had any wealth to speak of and worked hard on the land. My grandm...

Hello world:) I don't have some special story for you so I just share you some thoughts, which help me to live and understand this crazy planet. 1. Boys! Don't be afraid to do something crazy for your girls. If you do something for woman, you will never look foolish in her eyes. 2. If you want make someone think that he is in love with you, do something scary together. Adrenaline hormones look like love (science proves it). 3. If you want to hug or kiss someone – do it. I don’t mean strangers on the street;) 4. Be careful at office parties. Don’t drink a lot. 5. If you want to do something, but you are waiting for a good moment – you will wait forever. Every moment is good and bad at the same time, start as soon as possible. 6. Don’t save things for a special case/events/etc. Wear good dress, eat good food. Who knows what will happen tomorrow. 7. It is easier to get forgiveness than permission. Sorry, mommies:) 8. Travel as much as you can. Even ...

My New Year's resolution for 2013 is to read 52 books in 2013 - one book every week. I have only picked the first book so far: "Winter's Tale" by Mark Helprin. It is my favourite book, but I have only read it in German. Now I want to read it in English for the first time. For the remaining 51 books I would like for people on this list to send me their favourite books along with a short description. I'll start: Winter's Tale is set in a fantastic version of New York City around the 20th century. There is a great wall of clouds, in which time and space seem to work differently. There is a white horse, which jumps so far that it starts to fly. A beautiful but terminally ill girl which has uncovered the secret formulas of the universe. And a thief who is on the run from his gang, which he betrayed. All their fates are interwined in this magical story spanning a whole century. Please feel free to send me suggestio...

When I first received the email saying I won the Listserve lottery, I honestly had no idea what to do. I’ll admit I initially joined the Listserve quite selfishly because I just wanted to read the stories of others. Having read every email that came in, and seeing all the life lessons and creativity pouring from every single one of them, I was left quite dismayed. What could I write about? What could I possibly put into words that others would want to read? I've probably started this about 12 times but I think I know what to say now. My name is Keegan. I am a 4th year college student pursuing a BS degree in Chemistry, graduating in May, 21 years old, caught somewhere between a woman and a girl, and currently writing to you all in the comfort of a blanket fort. You see, I've had kind of a terrible day today. It started out by dropping someone very dear to me off at the airport and, as I’m sure most of you know, that leads to quite the difficult day. Especially when things have b...

Hi there to everyone on the listserve! A little bit about me – I live in New York City, work for an internet startup (Hi, Chartbeat!), and have a Great Dane named Lucy (Lucyfur when she’s bad). What you won’t get in this email: 1) Wide ranging life advice. Hell, I can’t even figure my out my own life. 2) The first chapter of my unpublished novel. I can barely finish this email. 3) A list of platitudes. Instead, let’s just go with the flow. ;-) What you will get: 1) Random life advice. I can do random! 2) Photos of every situation I mention below. If you go to bit (dot) ly (slash) dawnlistserve or go to flickr and search for the user “dawnlistserve” you can see a picture of everything I talk about below. 3) I’m not sure there is a #3, to be honest. Good karma? Great Dane kisses? Anyway, here goes: I weigh 105 pounds. My dog weighs 120. Here are some questions you shouldn’t ask a big dog owner: - Does he come with a saddle? - Are you walking him or is he walking you? - How do...

My name is John. I am a computer programmer living in NYC working with close friends at a startup fashion company called StyleSays.com. Looking back, my life has constantly evolved and changed; I was born in South Korea and I've lived everywhere from North Carolina to Australia. Growing up I was very self aware, especially when entering new schools and making new friends. I constantly wondered, "who am I?" I know that my name is John and I like pizza but what actually makes up the person that I am when I wake up each morning? As I grew older, my thoughts focused first on school and then work, and I lost my awareness. Two days ago I woke to a message saying I had been selected for the Listserve. I was both ecstatic and terrified. It took me a few hours to remember the question I grew up pondering: who am I? To answer that question, I defined the elements of life that make up who I am. I broke it down into three areas, though you may have more or less and I'd love to he...

This is a story of the Kobayashi Maru I pulled in 9th grade Earth Science class, circa 1988. It is among my finest accomplishments. There we sat. Jean jackets and mullets. Acne and ennui. Begrudgingly studying the many spheres: biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, whateversphere. This day concerned a simpler sphere – a ball – and the effect of the earth upon it. We were learning about gravity. The teacher – nice guy but stern – explained that, thanks to the nature of gravity, and potential and kinetic energy, a ball cannot bounce as high as the height from which it's dropped. You've seen this countless times. Each bounce has a successively lower apex until the thing peters out and comes to rest. As he explained this, a magnificent thought took shape in my mind. I was 14 with a chip on my shoulder. I didn't like rules. And here before me, all around me, was one big fat whopper of a rule. An irrefutable, fundamental fact of the universe: GRAVITY. I raised my hand ...

I'm going to get straight to the point. I'm 13 and I've created a petition; it's an issue I feel strongly about and my target is to reach 100 signatures. So far I have ninety nine... if I could get 1 person out of 20,000 of you to sign then it would be a success. Unfortunately, I can't give you a link or the HTML but if you google search "stop the return of bullfighting to TV" and click on the first link you'll have reached your destination. I created it via Avaaz community petitions but anyone can sign. Thank you for your time. Lily Limmer lilylimmer[AT]yahoo.co.uk Crewkerne, Somerset

"DISOBEY, v.t. To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command." ~ Ambrose Bierce Today, be a blasphemer. Hug a heretic. After you read this, go slay some sacred cows. But, get this right, you're not to pick the easy ones - not the fat, bow-legged, short-sighted cows, the thick fillets-on-four-legs already cosying up to the butcher. The ones you want to hunt down will be trim, lively, prize-specimen sacred cows. Hell, slaughter a farm of them. Skin them, roast them over a low fire and let them cook through. Turn out a line of leather jackets. You have much choice. Religions are of course bountiful hunting grounds, but today you'll want to pursue the more unsuspecting of cherished beliefs. Plumb the depths of your community's moral presumptions, find a principle too valuable to question and turn it on its head, renounce it, cut it up. Be analytical or be brash, subtle or vulgar. Will this make you feel happy or inspired? Unlikely. Will it give ...

I want to share a short story with all of you. A short fantasy story with a true heart and message, written by myself many a year ago, when my life was much more complicated, restless and chaotic. I wrote this one for a close friend who needed a positive message at the time, but now, looking back at it all, I think I could've just as easily have written it for myself. Since then, you should know, my state of being has been transformed from being unsure, insecure and unaware, to being genuinely happy, secure, cognizant and reasonably untroubled. How, you might ask? Well, it turned out to be fairly simply / incredibly difficult: by finding true love and by finding (part of) my true self... ******** Chacaroc’hcracha-cocrochy lived in an old abandoned gnome dwelling at the foot of a ridiculously gigantic and, in addition, awfully ancient oak tree, covered in strange smelling dark greenish mold. Chacaroc’hcracha-cocrochy (I’m really terribly sorry, but that’s just what she was called) l...