colie12189

i_hope_that
For many of us, the holidays can be kind of rough. If you're searching for a network of understanding friends, this ultra-nurturing community encourages you to express your heartfelt wishes and offer other members encouragement and acceptance. Not for the terminally snarky or emotionally-challenged, this is a good-spirited place to lend comfort and support.

diygifts
Feeling crafty? If you've got a few last folks on your holiday gift list, this is a great place to seed your creativity and generosity. You'll also discover wonderful DIY tips to decorate your home and entertain guests. Offering a no-frills-no-skills attitude that welcomes the cash-challenged and arts-phobic, you're sure to get ideas and make friends in the process.

cooking_club
A fun and friendly community dedicated to those who love to cook, whether you're a meat-and-potatoes type, an aspiring gourmand, and/or a vegan. In search of a brilliant dish to use up those weekly leftovers? Post your ingredients and you'll be whipping up a feast by dinner. You can also share favorite recipes. For Type A chefs, you can spice up your culinary repertoire with exciting cooking challenges.

The sun refracts off the snow, hindering my sight. I raise my hand to shield my fragile eyes from the light, and I inhale the cold, dry air.
He is smiling, and happy to see me.
I am tense.
This man has done so much for me in my eighteen years of life, and yet he is a stranger.
Careful not to slip on the snow-covered path, I stride over to the massive, black van he loves to drive for some inexplicable reason.
“Hey sweetie, how are you?”
He is very warm, and genuine. I know he loves me, and would do anything to make me happy, so I smile.
I am willing to fake happiness in order to please him. After all, I have caused a significant amount of the pain he bears.
As I listen to him give the latest details of his work in Uganda (Uganda gives him the most pleasure out of life), I work for an opening to shift the subject. I have so much to tell him, but the opportunity never comes.
We make our necessary stops: the guitar shop for Emma’s birthday present; K-Mart; Wal-Mart (when K-Mart fails to have a bread maker). Our conversation is light-hearted and pleasant. He takes me back to my dorm building.
As I walk along the slippery sidewalk, I contemplate turning around, and asking him to stay and listen. I can hear the van idling as he watches me walk away, but I don’t go back.
My writing has caused him pain, and I want nothing more than to tell him how sorry I am, and make him understand the meaning of my work from my perspective.
For years, I have desired to be a writer. Writing remains the one constant in my life; the one thing I am able to lean on. I never thought of writing as my enemy until I hurt my father. I have never doubted my love for writing, or the fact that I want to be a writer, prior to our dispute.
I can tell you that I am positive I am meant to be a writer because of my love for it. I hold the high hope that someday I will inspire someone with my writing as I have been inspired by other writers.
I can affirm that I have an unstoppable passion for the art; still, I am aware of the risks. The simple truth that I may hurt the ones I love most could be enough to thwart my writing.
Currently, I am torn: do I write because I want to despite the fact that I will inevitably hurt someone I love, or do I pursue a career that I am not happy in?
For now, I will continue my writing. I have a duty to expose the truth, and I plan on doing so. Some may consider it selfish, but I will write for my own happiness. I will never exploit an individual in an untrue or indecent manner, but I will tell the truth as I interpret it.

stepstomarrow
When granddaughter, Jada, was born with leukemia, a donor-match was located and Jada made a miraculous recovery. In honor of her grandaughter's health, Jeanna has decided to walk across the country (in the dead of winter) to raise awareness and build support for the bone marrow registry (all that's required is a cheek swab). Follow Jeanna's remarkable journey as she travels the United States by foot.

I walk around on tiptoe a lot, afraid I’m breaking a rule someone forgot to tell me. I pretend to be full after one small helping when I could really eat a whole horse, raw, because I don’t want anyone to resent me for eating their food. If someone offers me something, I say, “No thank you, I’m fine,” even if I’m not.

When I’m in a foster home, I hate doing things other people don’t even think about enough to take for granted, like walk out of whatever room has been designated mine for the time being and go to the bathroom, or get a glass of water. I feel like someone is going to “catch” me and say, “What are you doing out here?”

Being in foster care means constantly feeling grateful to someone. When I’m staying in a foster parent’s home, I constantly say “please” and “thank you” and I’m always on my best behavior. When I walk in the door, I know these people are doing something amazing by opening up their home to me, to other kids who, like me, come from bad backgrounds, who might come in their homes and steal their things or disrespect them or something like that. I know these people are just wonderful and that I should just be so gosh darn grateful to them for just existing.

But I’m not.

Instead, I’m pissed that I’m there. I’m pissed that my own mom didn’t make the cut. I’m pissed that I have to put on my polite face and be on my best behavior at all times because I don’t want these people to have any reason to resent opening up their home to me. I’m sick and tired of meeting new people and memorizing faces, names, locations of bathrooms, cupboards where the bowls are, cupboards where the glasses are, drawers where the spoons are, drawers where the spatulas are, what goes on top in the dishwasher, what goes on bottom in the dishwasher, how much laundry detergent to put in the washer, how long to turn the dryer on for, and exactly which location to turn the faucet in the shower to so I neither burn nor freeze my ass off.

The worst part of being in foster care? The look. It’s the look people give you when they realize you’re in foster care. I don’t get the look much from people I encounter in my every-day life, at college or at my job. Mostly, I get the look when I’m on outings with my foster care group. Sometimes, we’ll go bowling, or putt-putting, or something, and the guy handing me my dirty, smelly bowling shoes that pinch my feet because he gave me the wrong size will give me the look.

Now, the look comes in two variations. I either get the “I’m sorry your parents didn’t love you and now you’re a burden on the State of New York and I have to pay for your education through increased taxes” look, or I get the “Please don’t jump over the counter and shank me when I’m not looking so you can steal the $37 in the cash register to buy heroin” look. Generally, women give me the “Please don’t shank me” look. Grumpy, balding, old men and teenage guys with attitude problems who think the taxes taken out of their minimum wage paychecks is really helping to pay my $40,000 a year education give me the “I’m sorry I’m paying your way through school” look.

I almost don’t blame them. When I’m on my own, I am anonymous. I go bowling at those exact same establishments and no one gives me a second look as they hand me my shoes (which always seem to fit better when I don’t go with my foster care group). When my foster care group goes bowling, soda and popcorn gets spilled and the other youth make no effort to clean it up, they purposely throw the ball extra-slow just so someone will have to walk down the lane to retrieve it from the gutter where it has stopped, motionless, and they pay for $1.75 nachos with all nickels and dimes because they’re saving the bills in their pockets their foster parents gave them for lunch to buy cigarettes with later.

I guess I’d give me the look, too if I didn’t know how it felt to burn with shame from the inside out from being on the receiving end of it.

"You don't master a story any more than you master a river. You feel lucky to canoe down it."

— Garrison Keillor in a 21 December 2009 interview in Time

taste_buds
Holidays provide a built-in excuse for indulgent entertaining. This all-purpose foodie community covers everything from homemade hangover cures to dinner party menus. Need quick advice? Get five-minute snack suggestions, low-fat ingredient substitutes, and even measurement conversions. Delicious recipes garnished with humorous advice. Yum.

naturesbeauty
Always on the lookout for compelling images, we were delighted to discover this flourishing community of artists who share a love of nature. Honoring the subject with photographs, paintings, sketches, prose, poetry, and other creative works, you'll be simultaneously riveted to your monitor and inspired to run helter skelter towards the nearest wooded dale.

backpacking
Want to embrace your wanderlust on the cheap? If you're tall on adventurous spirit, but short on funds, this community can help you plan a trip to anywhere. Offering plentiful tips on how to travel light, you can post about bargain hotels and hostels if you're into urban exploration or discuss camping gear and mosquito netting for the great outdoors. Hitch your backpack, pitch your tent, and carpe diem!

Just a quick note: Jared Van Dyke was accepted today to the MFA program at Goddard College (which is where I did mine).

The freshmen won't know who Jared is other than the mentions I've made of him this semester, but he graduated last year. I've been prodding him to apply to grad school for writing, and he finally got his materials sent out last month for the spring semester.

Some of you may have heard Jared's news already, but for those who hadn't, I figured it would be groovy to pass along word of his success. YOU can get there from here, too. Just keep writing!