panamaus's New Writeups

March 15, 2008 (personal)

2008-03-15T00:57:16Z

Wore a green shirt today. Decided that everything is okay!

leap day (fiction)

2008-02-29T18:34:03Z

Ever since she was a little girl in preschool, Merry had always been of two minds about her name. The other kids were always of two kinds: the kind of heart and warm of spirit, who would laugh and fall in love with her at first meeting; all the others, who would laugh a different kind of laugh, and whose taunts would follow in the next breath. With a surname like Christmas, it was a sure bet that even with all other considerations aside, she was going to make an impression on everyone she ever met.

By age eight, Merry was an embodiment of her given name. No brighter star shone down from the heavens that could outlast Merry's smile and cheerful demeanor. Even in the grey suburbs of muddy Seattle, she left a swath of rainbows in her path everywhere she trod. To all who were blessed to know her, Merry's presence was the sunshine in their hearts and her name the song on their lips. Such a bright and outgoing third grader, she was…

Brad Renfro (person)

2008-02-13T04:16:53Z

Brad Renfro (July 25, 1982 — January 15, 2008) was an acclaimed American film actor whose promising childhood career was eventually overshadowed by a serious substance abuse problem that eventually took his life at the age of 25.

Born Bradley Barron Renfro in Knoxville, Tennessee to parents Mark Renfro and Angel Olson, his early life in southern Appalachia was filled with familial chaos and strife. His blue collar father and his mother separated when he was still a toddler, and at the age of five when his parents divorced he came into the custody of his paternal grandmother, Joanne Barron Renfro. A homemaker and church secretary, Joanne raised Brad in her home and accompanied him regularly in his travels during his early acting career. She died less than two weeks after his passing, at the age of 76, from what local officials described as "natural causes".

Brad's childhood in rural eastern Tennessee was fraught with drama…

April 5, 2007 (essay)

2007-04-04T22:45:10Z

Hello again, gentle noder. You may remember me from a few daylogs I wrote a couple of weeks ago. I have been watching the reaction to them unfold in waves across the nodegel, and thinking a lot about what has been said and done in response. Last night I dreamt about it all and processed it in a way that only the subconscious mind can do, and lucky for me I was lucid enough to remember the conclusions that I drew from the dream. And wouldn't you know it? I feel compelled to try and articulate them, which is what I've written below.

This daylog is about Everything2 and time.

In her daylog from April 3, 2007, my beloved graceness wrote out some words to try and express the frustration that I believe she and I share with a lot of the people who have participated in building this database and the community that grew out of it many years ago. They were her own words, and one line in particular — The trouble I'm…

March 17, 2007 (essay)

2007-03-16T21:57:21Z

Part I · Part II

Based on the feedback I've received from yesterday's daylog, I decided I would address some of the assumptions at work, both mine and those of others, surrounding my stated beliefs and to speak to the volumes of commentary that they have provoked in the chatterbox from the established citizens of today's E2. No "makes an ass of you and me" jokes, kthx.

First, I began my anniversary daylog by stating that I had been largely inactive on E2 for the past two years. Looking around, I don't see that a whole lot has changed since I last frequented the site. My assumption is that things are essentially the same, with the probable exception that everything that's been in place is even more entrenched and established due to the simple passage of time. This may not be the case. There may be some major substantive changes that have taken place in the way that E2 works and the kind of dynamic that…

March 16, 2007 (essay)

2007-03-16T03:19:22Z

Part I · Part III

I want to say a few more things about the subjects I covered in yesterday's daylog, and to explain why it is that I keep coming back here and posting these musings on my anniversary. If your mindset is such that you feel you would be upset or irritated by reading what follows, I would respectfully ask that you not read it.

First, it should be fairly evident that I still care about Everything2. In spite of the reasons I might have not to, this web site has changed my life immeasurably as have the hundreds of people I have met through it. In some ways, I view myself in terms of who I was before I found E2 and who I became after. If I genuinely hated this place and everything about it, I would not bother ever writing anything here ever again, and more than likely, I'd just never log back in. Somehow though, I just can't help it. I can't stop caring. I can't become a "fled noder", no matter how I…