July 1, 2009

Governor Sanford

Governor’s Mansion

Columbia, South Carolina 29211

Dear Governor Sanford,

I read with alarm your wife’s statement : “Gay marriage wrecked my marriage” and I would like to apologize to you and Jenny for breaking up your marriage.

You see, I and my same-sex partner innocently enough got married last October. We thought we were just experiencing marital bliss and enjoying some, but not all the benefits and all of the responsibilities that married couples enjoy. We had no idea we were actually destroying your marriage! We are so sorry.

We feel especially sorry for the kids and want you to know that we don’t have any children and don’t plan on having any or adopting any. I’m sure if we did we would hear of other prominent upstanding couples breaking up over it.

We’re not quite sure what we did to break up your marriage. Perhaps it was the thought of hot man on man sex that drove you to seek release outside of your marriage.

Perhaps it was that we try to be role models by being able to cook, sew, keep house, raise children (or sometimes beloved pets), enjoy musical theatre, fashion, interior decorating and all with great panache. In our drive to be role models, have we inadvertantly set the bar too high for straight couples. I bet Jenny often complained that you’re not as good as the gay couple up the street.

We also enjoy strolls on the beach and  long walks up the Appalachian Trail.

Best of all , we can have a boy’s night out and take our spouse along. I’m sure that that put a damper on your marriage. I’m so so sorry.

Sincerely,

Steve  and Gary Zink-Young

The Big Read thinks the average adult has only read six of the top 100 books they've printed below. Look at the list and...
1) Bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ.

3) I'm strikethroughing the ones I've read part of, given up on or may yet try again.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. The Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. The Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. A Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24. War and Peace - Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. The Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney-- John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LMMontgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert (the original set - not the stuff by his son)
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time -- Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession – A.S. Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web – E.B. White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection –Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

101. Time and Again - Jack Finney
102. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
103. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
104. Battlefield Earth - Old L. Ron
105. Contact - Carl Sagan
105a. Anal Pleasure & Health ^-*

Thanks to <lj user=showmeonthedoll> for helping me find necessary changes.

What is the point

                     A villanelle by Steven M. Zink Copyright 4/9/2008

What is the point of living out our days?

Pleasant enough: April through September

Must we endure winter’s harsher ways?

The sun’s fire sets our souls ablaze.

And to live is easier than to remember

What is the point of living out our days?

The spring brings flowers’ colorful arrays.

Where are these blossoms come November.

Must we endure winter’s harsher ways?

Sometimes we are lost running through our maze.

Our lives burn bright then fade to an ember.

What is the point of living out our days?

Some seek answers in God’s praise.

Or take refuge as a congregation member.

Must we endure winter’s harsher ways?

Autumn’s bright leaves strewn across our pathways

Darkness  returns with the snows of December.

What is the point of living out our days?

Must we endure winter’s harsher ways?

You are The Sun

Happiness, Content, Joy.

The meanings for the Sun are fairly simple and consistent.

Young, healthy, new, fresh. The brain is working, things that were muddled come clear, everything falls into place, and everything seems to go your way.

The Sun is ruled by the Sun, of course. This is the light that comes after the long dark night, Apollo to the Moon's Diana. A positive card, it promises you your day in the sun. Glory, gain, triumph, pleasure, truth, success. As the moon symbolized inspiration from the unconscious, from dreams, this card symbolizes discoveries made fully consciousness and wide awake. You have an understanding and enjoyment of science and math, beautifully constructed music, carefully reasoned philosophy. It is a card of intellect, clarity of mind, and feelings of youthful energy.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.