These are the three writeups I suggested to Lord Brawl for
inclusion on the Lost Gems of Yesteryear master list. They were added
and linked in his most recent daylog, so I will now do my very best to
persuade you to read them, enjoy them and, one hopes, get as much out
of them as I have. Two will very likely be recognized by avid noders.
The third is less well known, despite being one of my personal
favourites.
- jessicapierce's Do you remember how small
your body was when you were five? is not an underlooked writeup by any
stretch of the imagination. When I asked for it to be added to the
master list, it had already been C!ed 28 times. Its reputation is well
into the triple digits. It is easily one of the most heartwrenching and
well-written pieces on E2, yet, until I submitted it for inclusion in
this quest, it hadn't been C!ed in at least six months. I can't imagine
what it must have been like to go through this. I don't work with kids
and don't have any real contact with young children very often. I do
have friends who have had experiences with parents and adults who have
been abusive in one way or another. It touches me for so many reasons.
- kthejoker's
Ghosts I have known was one of the first writeups I C!ed when I hit
level 4. As some of my earlier daylogs attest, I have been deeply
affected by my maternal grandmother's -- the woman who gave up her
retirement home in the country so she could take care of me when my
mother's maternity leave ended -- health failures and severe memory
loss. I originally came across this writeup when I was writing those
daylogs, during the days when we first had to move my grandmother to a
nursing home after she broke her hip in a nasty fall and my grandfather
just couldn't take care of her anymore. Whenever I saw her from that
point on she was speaking convincingly of family and friends long dead as though they were really
there. This writeup was a great comfort to me because I understand, and
broke my heart because I wish I didn't.
- KokiriKid's
girl geek has been one of my favourites for years, but it certainly
needs some more recognition. The writeup describes a lady geek, someone
who relates better to men than to women and eventually becomes "one of
the guys," as it were. I always felt like that, particularly in high
school. I liked computers and progrock; I
could rattle off obscure Monty Python and The Simpsons references
at any given time. I was never, in the eyes of my equally geeky
friends, seen as a girl. This went on for years, and I never really
realized it was happening until I read this writeup. Years later, when
I started dating my
boyfriend, he once called me his "geek princess" and I realized it was
the first time I'd been recognized as a "girl geek" rather than one of
the guys. I thought of this writeup then, of the girl geek who sits
sadly in the computer lab and tries to pretend that her geek friends'
inability to see her as both a girl and a geek isn't breaking her
heart. There is hope.
Those were the three I chose
to submit, but since other people are suggesting other lost gems for
your reading pleasure, so shall I:
- Have you read
bewilderbeast's And would you do this thing for me? Land softly,
yeah, land softly? Well, you should. I would say more about it but I
don't want to spoil it for you. Just go, already. Then read Panty
Regents of the Planet Vajj. I believe it may well be the first
(possibly only, and almost certainly the best) writeup on E2 that
employs the phrase "quantum dildo."
- SharQ's To what
degree does a journalism education benefit a career in print
journalism? is an epic -- not only because it clocks in at a whopping
8,800 words, but because it argues that you don't need to go to
journalism school in order to be a journalist. This was the fourth
writeup I ever C!ed (the first was SharQ's similarly themed
journalism, which is also worth a read). It is the ultimate node your homework writeup.
- There is no
E2 song parody greater than "We Didn't Stir the Nodegel" by
Timeshredder (and possibly by Billy Joel. A little). I was
flattered to make an appearance (in the first line of the last verse,
right after bewilderbeast). I had a different username then, of
course, but fortunately the old one has the same number of syllables as
the new one -- so up-to-date drunken renditions of the song should not
be aversely affected.
- dannye's Queen Jane Approximately. To say anything else about it would only detract from it.
- Finally,
Adam Walker's If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you is
funny. Also funny: he and I became acquainted on E2 because we went to
the same university, then were in an Elizabethan English history course
together for an entire term and only realized it right before the exam.
Life's strange like that.