We mostly all live in a large part in the future, the elusive future, that upon some ill-appointed day holds for us a disappointing date with … well, you fill in your own notion of doom.

Yet, if we did not cast our sights upon tomorrow, if, instead, we chose only the very now to live, breathe, and move in, could we ever muster the enthusiasm, frolic in  the anticipation, or conjure the imagination to enjoy any date at all?

Take imminent birthdays, soon-to-be anniversaries, upcoming sports playoff events, or property rights to killer concert tickets.  The meaning, significance, “going-to-live-for” factor of any projected date at all disappears for those living only in the now.  And, yes, that special date with doom also disappears for those living in the moment.  Hence, the most accomplished masters of the immediate, the Zen masters themselves, never died but moved mysteriously and nirvanically beyond death through the discipline of now-focused heightened awareness.

But the Zen masters also never knew the stirrings of passion that approach, slam, and overwhelm a guy in having a hot date, either.  To say “It’s a date.”  with a beautiful girl does make it a date, doesn’t it?  But that’s not the same thing as “being on the date.”  Yet to “have a date” with a hot chick before actually “being on the date” with her is a hell of a lot more than just a calendrical projection.  Just as great foreplay usually precedes great sex, so the lead up, the build-up to a hot date, let’s call it the foredate, often matches with imagined anticipations the actual fun and excitement of the date itself.  We dream our finest dreams in expectation of what may be.  Who gazes upon the sunset and hopes tomorrow’s sunrise not to see?

That is, unless you are so cool.  Are you that cool?  Are you really that cool?  Are you Zen?

This is unfinished.  I’m too close to feeling and so not in the now being just-the-now.

Peep Abuse.  Are you guilty?  I am. 

Pre-born Peeps that stay wrapped intact within their primordial translucent gaud of aloof cellophanic undisturbability are so asking for it.  Take a look.

                             (click for closeup)

On the right, begging for defamation, mutilation and even annihilation under a squishing finger and iron grip, are the pitifully world-unhardened Peeps, metaphysical cousins to first 2 of the 3 Little Pigs (straw and sticks), taunting us as if to say: “Not by the sugar on my soft bellybutton!”

On the left, weighing in at a buff 8 grams, well-oxygenated now for weeks after their post-placental cellophonic birthing-rupture, and thoroughly hardened to the vicarious travesties that ever-swirl throughout this cruel, open-aired world of ours, are the Peeps Apparent, metaphysical cousins to the 3^rd Little Pig (bricks), standing stalwart as if to say to their neighboring still-sheathed pink punk uninitiates: “There are worse things out here than vampires.  Like what?    Like me.“

Of course, some of the purple Peeps are missing.  It happens.  Birth, that start of the journey to fulfill one’s destiny, does have its risks.  Some think that stale Peeps taste better.  Blame the Purple Peeper Eaters.  But if these exoskeletonically-enhanced Peeps avoid such cultish consumers, they are likely to end up in the rubbish, with a subsequent trip to the landfill, where, given their near ever-preserving potassium sorbate and carnauba wax composition, they will likely accompany plastic Pepsi and Coke bottles upon a journey into pseudo-immortality. 

Peep Abuse.  It is actually pretty kinky. (Hint: the soft ones make better sex toys.)

Ever-softly wrapping her body around mine -

curvaceously bending, descending, taking me right out of time.

Once in the hazy light of an ATM.  Once in lights flashing bright from a nearby stage.  Once when I was so drunk she had four boobs.  Once when I closed my eyes and fell simply to bliss.  Once when she looked in my eyes and said “Do you like this?”  Once when I looked in her eyes and then stole a kiss.  Once when the earth shook—no wait, that was us.  Once when she blew in my ear and I followed her yea.  Once when I grabbed her so tight I felt her bones grind.  Once when we had nothing else to do but laugh away hurts.   Once when I was romantically waxing in rhyme.  Once when we were both conniving to make dough on the Net.  Once when it felt like a crazy coaster ride.  Once when the cops were checking us out.  Once when I was sad and had started to pout.  Once when she was so hungry her stomach was growling.  Once when, so horny, like a wolf I was howling.  Once when we knew once would not be enough.  Once when I tried to show her how tough was my stuff.

Once upon, once upon, vanquishing time,

Ever so softly her body … and mine.

These are the thoughts I can never write—or, if written, never share. How could I ever admit that I’m crazed beyond control just by the imminence of feminine energy? No, not just sight—though women always make the scene, for the spectacle of femininity has no compare. Nor just touch, nor soothing voice, nor enchanting fragrance. Though just light accidental brushing against women can thrill me with chills, and a woman’s unexpected whisper too near to my ear can claim my mind, and a girl’s blossomed fragrance ever compels me to fantasize myself as Pacino playing the blind Lt. Colonel in Scent of a Woman. Of taste? Don’t get me started—I can’t dare talk about that. Yet not one of these alone, or even the compilation of all, ever approaches—or even constitutes—the mysterious allure that female energy has for me, in and of itself.

I’ve been on battlefields with spectacular histrionics, in fights of gallant kinetic involvement, awash in the ocean surf’s captivating and rippling rhythmics, at times soothingly intellectually massaged to my mind’s core. Immersed, engrossed, wrapped up, and absorbed in drugs, extreme sports, dark missions, far odysseys. No match. There’s no match throughout the abundance of all…to one moment of exposure to the vibrancy of a woman.

So what comprises the source of this captivation? This magnetism which can be even empirically meager? This essence disembodied yet pulsing from the incarnate? So am I driven and ensconced in endless reflection…but reflection, like Narcissus, merely shows me myself. What Echo is there that I now long to hear, the actualization of which was clearly once near…but dispelled and now latent in reverberation’s valleys?

Ah! Valley Girls, I muse (in response to myself). Probably as close with this answer as with anything else.

Well, you never know.  Or do ya?!

One evening as the sun went down
and the jungle fire was burning
Down the track came a hobo hiking
and he said boys I'm not turning
I'm headin for a land that's far away
beside the crystal fountains
So come with me we'll go and see
the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
there's a land that's fair and bright
Where the handouts grow on bushes
and you sleep out every night
Where the boxcars are all empty
and the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees
and the cigarette trees
Where the lemonade springs
where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

• About five weeks ago when I talked with John he mentioned that Xanga was coming out with some new and revolutionary SN (social networking) features.  I urged him to call any 'Friends' feature 'hook-ups' .  He thought that 'hook-ups' might have too much of a sexual connotation and so (as is now obvious) stayed with a safer 'Friends' interface.  In my mind, hook-ups are not at all sexual.  Now, sex-ups, those just might be sexual.
  
  
  
• There's a blogsite just for teenagers 13-18, that's right-you got to quit at 19, named yFly.com.  Of course, I'm only 16 so I can join and hang for a couple of years (looking for hook-ups).  Anyway, they are supposed to be "all about safety for youngsters".   Just listen: "Yfly is only for teens. That means if you are 12, you have to wait another year. Sorry. That also means if you are over nineteen you're not welcome either. We'll be watching for people who might be underage and for those who are older than they say. And we'll need your help too. You can report an underage user or someone you think is an adult posing as a teen at our abuse report page. If we find an adult using our site without our okay, we'll report them to Parry Aftab and WiredSafety.org. She may report them to the cops. We're serious about this. You're worth it."
  
  
  
• Y yFly.com has a SN feature called "Pimp My Pages".  wtf?!  They have "Pimp My Pages" and we only got "Nudges" and "Friends".    Xanga!!!????
  
  
  
• Parry Aftab.  WiredSafety.org.  Calling the cops.  Could she be the Nemesis that compelled Xanga to shutdown its pro forma  underage sites without warning?  John says: "I cannot go into details here other than to say that it was something we had to do."  Yeah, I even wrote John and he wouldn't spill the beans to me.  Damn it, John, it's your longest-time antagonist, nfp, and you can't spill the beans?  Could you, maybe, just knock 'em over accidentally?  Sounds like Xanga's under a court order to remain mum.  I wonder if they were threatened with a civil suit and taking the action they took and remaining mum on the terms of agreement was part of the settlement they made to avoid the lawsuit?

numanga is right: TheTheologiansCafe is the loudest voice on the block outing Xanga's social networking beta.

At this point, I think Xanga should say something about the SN beta.  Keeping it quasi-private (that is, without any official PR) is probably going to rub some people who don't chance upon it (one way or another) or chance upon it the wrong way, the wrong way.

The emails announcing invitations are becoming annoying.  Xanga has an opt-out for it, but I also think they may be re-thinking email notifications for invitations altogether.

My thought is that having more SN features on Xanga may diminish true blogging activity as some people will more naturally embrace those features to express themselves.  But that's fine with me because those who will blog less and network more are probably almost all crappy, boring bloggers to start with.

Goodbye, crappy bloggers.  Go Nudge yourselves.

Word is out.  One of Xanga's more extensively read bloggers, numanga,  published the link for Xanga's early beta of new Social Networking features.  So I imagine that within days it will be rampant as common knowledge throughout the realm.

I know the beta isn't prime time yet.  I've been testing it for about a week and sending bug reports and some of my impressions about it to John.    I sure hope too many people don't embrace it now without understanding that there are still some serious big-time bugs in it and other functions that will likely be changed/enhanced before the 'official release'.

Personally, once is goes mainstream, I won't be using the new SN features at all (just in it to help test the beta).

Currently: studying Chinese along with attending to my daily work responsibilities ( I work, I glance at the text, I work, I glance at the text, etc.); will attempt to get a run in at Dreamland later; just got this from a co-worker I did a favor for:

I cannot truly fathom 'forever'.  That's why I almost always referrent 'one day short of forever'.  Truth is, today is one day short of forever.  And tomorrow will soon again become today.

Today is the last day of Winter. One day short of a forever frigidness that luckily eludes us.   I assured you (yes, click here for my vision, duly completed) that we’d make it this far.  Those of you who have ridden on my shoulders on incessant 7-mile jogs through the blizzardly wintertime of Dreamland (the cemetery) may now dismount.  Spring Eve and life scuffles out of the shadows and prepares to parade about.  And the most amazing things yet—us—are about to prance the vernal strut and join the carnal dance.  For, when faces called flowers…

 
float out of the ground
and breathing is wishing and wishing is having-
but keeping is downward and doubting and never
-it's april(yes,april;my darling)it's spring!
yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly
yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be
(yes the mountains are dancing together)

when every leaf opens without any sound
and wishing is having and having is giving-
but keeping is doting and nothing and nonsense
-alive;we're alive,dear:it's(kiss me now)spring!
now the pretty birds hover so she and so he
now the little fish quiver so you and so i
(now the mountains are dancing, the mountains)

when more than was lost has been found has been found
and having is giving and giving is living-
but keeping is darkness and winter and cringing
-it's spring(all our night becomes day)o,it's spring!
all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky
all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea
(all the mountains are dancing;are dancing)
    - e.e.cummings 

okay, it’s still March (madness. badness, resist the sadness).  But the mountains are dancing, nonethe(maddening).  (will we do less; will we do us?)

oh yes: Dreamland update. 19 miles covered by the quick-of-foot over the last three days (by me, lessthenone).  Grueling.  Exquisite.  Anticipating you.   And upon this very evening I risked getting locked in Dreamland (as in, gothic gates closing and spending the entire night with the dusty remnants of the once living/loving)  to assist two vagrant, incognizant wandering tourists intoxicated with this Sun-spelled Eve of Spring and apparently unawares of the shafting of the lock.  I am a hero!  (but just for two vagrants, and just for one day).

My mind is sex and I’m becoming more intelligent.  It’s true.  It’s the most sex thing within my grasp.  And I’m finding a renewed and revamped capacity to learn, (a capacity of the order that I’ve not commanded since my teenage years), entirely fascinating, involving, engaging, engorging.

Carrot.  I just closed my eyes and saw a carrot floating in the darkness.  ha!

On the agenda: Relearn the names of all the stars I’ve forgotten and their place in the sky.  Then learn of more I’ve not heard of before and would never know if my mind weren’t sex.

On the agenda: Learn to speak Chinese in the shower once again.  Learn to say in fluent Mandarin – “Are there any delicate French misses wandering through Tianamen Square harboring carrots?”                                           

On the agenda: Explore the controversy, from both the botanical and culinary perspective, of what is a real nut, and what, often referred to as a nut, just isn’t.  (Hint: the key distinction has to do with a fused ovary wall – more sex.)        

On the agenda: Fathom all the possible scenarios that could ensue in the Iran nuclear eventuality and embrace the least Dr. Strangeloveliest.   Don’t be misled by the cries of political opportunism and self-aggrandizement. Insist.  Insist.  Insist.

On the agenda: Invent a rollercoaster with a multiplicity of randomized switches to alternate track paths during the ride so that the chance of ever riding the exact same ride is about 1 in 1000.

On the agenda:  Finish my ghost-written prophetic memoirs featuring the totally timeless Rumya and myself as an intellectual protagonist.  Get past the sex scene.  Or maybe end with the sex scene.

On the agenda: Write a best-seller called “The World Without Chicken”.  Destined to be a hit after the bird flu pandemic sweeps.

On the agenda: Find a cure for bird flu.  Stop the pandemic before it starts.  Suffer tremendous financial loss as a result of the book “The World Without Chicken” being an unsold laughingstock.  Laugh all the way to the bank since a huge investment was made in KFC just before releasing the cure when the future of poultry was just abysmally b(l)eak .

Off the agenda:  Any more preoccupations with getting sex.  Damn, my mind is a wonderful thing.                           

 A compliment to just1moreReason for guiding me to properly deserving uses of the trans-expressionistic descriptor – sex.       

I've never put music on my blog before, but the X-Files Theme song has been constantly coursing in my head for the last day and my hope is that if I externalize here that I will cease to internalize it "here": *sticks finger in mouth and gestures as if pulling a trigger*

It all started yesterday while running 7 miles in Dreamland and feeling more alone than I have felt, well, since forever.  While thus running and about halfway through, I started to reflect on all the good things in my life that nurture me, keep me alive, and found: so little.  "How can that be?" I wondered.  We're all nurtured, aren't we?  But the short list that screamed at me was: 'the Sun, nature-weather, my daughter's daughterly love, and a non-descript alien energy form.'  What the fuck?  What is 'a non-descript alien energy form'?  And that's when I realized that the X-Files theme had been saturating me subliminally for at least the entire run.  Just then becaming liminal and remaining so since.

After the run, the distinct feeling of being a Roman soldier, a general, took hold of me.  I surveyed the cemetery hill I was upon, found a tree in the sunlight, and took under it laying down in the Sun, closing my eyes...letting the Sun nurture me, feeling truly ancient and mystery-bound, while continuing to listen, to listen, ... listen.

A part of life apart from life:
I am a warrior-watcher awaiting.
If my destiny goes unfulfilled, the world will be a better place  - since I was born to lead in the endgame.
Like the Maytag repairman, should I grow old, discarded and idle, it will signify that all of creation yet avoided a meltdown - a very good thing, indeed!
Can I remain still until my moment for action?

15.
[They] ...  were subtle, mysterious, profound, responsive.
The depth of their knowledge is unfathomable.
Because it is unfathomable,
All we can do is describe their appearance.
Watchful, like men crossing a winter stream.
Alert, like men aware of danger.
Courteous, like visiting guests.
Yielding like ice about to melt.
Simple, like uncarved blocks of wood.
Hollow, like caves.
Opaque, like muddy pools.

Who can wait quietly while the mud settles?
Who can remain still until the moment of action?
Observers of the Tao do not seek fulfillment.
Not seeking fulfillment, they are not swayed by desire for change.

 I feel ridiculously yet immensely and life-alteringly betrayed.  An immediate Now.  That was after a Before.  That was after another Before.  That was before a Before perhaps dating back to the stars in the constellations of the sky deciding my horoscope at birth.

There have been exceptions.  The exceptions have been ... what else? ...exceptional!

Thank all of you exceptions.  The tryst of your soul as it sojourned with mine has set me sailing forth with my heart beating to the end of time..

Now... back to the moment. 

I'm fine.

Just unbelieving that the female psyche seeks anything else but self-serving disruption and chaos upon this earth anymore.

Bitter?  No.  No more than if you eat just the almond meat and chew not on the almond shell or its embracing, encompassing sheathings.

 Just immensely observant.

Just rumors? 
If Xanga sold out, would you miss the old xangagods?

Monday Newspaper Review - Irish Business News and International ... FinFacts Ireland, Ireland - 4 hours ago ... Others in the category that are eliciting interest include Xanga.com, a community of online diaries that had 7.2 million visitors in February, comScore said ...

I wandered into a local neighborhood bar called the Croatian Tavern last night where, to my surprise, there was a local sketch comedy and improvisation group call The Public Squares performing.  Being improv, throughout their skits they solicited suggestions from the audience in terms of topics, or notions, or single words. 

My contributions, from a stool where I was sucking down Coronas (with lime), were:

1) “Does any one have a favorite adjective?”   nfp: “Intrepid.”

2) “Give me one of those unforgettable sayings you learned, for instance, from your momma, when you were young.”   nfp: “Learn of Die.”

3) “Name an activity of profound interest to you.”   nfp: “Blogging.”

I think, on the whole, my contributions were not entirely appreciated by the troupe.

The first (1) response they used, along with a series of other volunteered words, in a half-spoken, half-pantomined charades-sort of scenario.  Whereas, some of the other contributions, “vomiting”, “amusement park”, etc., took them but seconds to act out, “intrepid” took them practically 5 minutes to stumble upon.  Trouble.

The second response, “Learn of Die”, they used merely as a spoken fill-the-empty-slot phrase in another skit.  Actually, as inserted, it was so off-the-wall that it drew almost unanimous laughter from the crowd of about 100.

But the third response, “Blogging”, was the one that chilled the troupe.  One on the comedians was supposed to run with the topic and just quip about it everything he knew.  Trouble was, he and his compatriots didn’t seem to know much about “blogging”. 

The first sign of discomfort was that he tried to turn “blogging” into “logging” and talk bout Paul Bunyan.  I didn’t let him get away with that and vocally restated: “Blogging.  Blah-blah-blah-blogging.”

Eventually, he and his comrades did address “blogging” but only in terms of “sexual predators seeking teenage-girls on MySpace.com”.  Yep. that’s what blogging reduces to when it sails into the currents of offline pop culture.  Trouble is, although I “got it” and found it hilarious because I was able to reinsert their parody into a broader context, I bet that for a lot of the ever-so-quiet audience that this was either their first  exposure to the notion of “blogging” or just a becoming-familiar reiteration of what they’ve heard about blogging in the news.

God, that troupe must hate me.   I can imagine them bemoaning me as that "damned blogger."  But, truth is, I pay next to no attention to the blogs of teenage girls.  (I like older ... )

Wearing sunglasses today in the office at work.

They are related to the three drugs I took yesterday before running around in Dreamland Cemetery. I’ve run for 5 of the last 6 days there (about 20 miles), yesterday conceiving of myself as ‘the Rundertaker’. It started to rain chillingly and I didn’t complete the 4 miles I had envisioned. I ran only 2 and then drank a beer instead. Oh, that made it 4 drugs. Decided to curtail my visit, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open on the ride home from the cemetery. Though not tired or fatigued, I actually had to keep the eyelids of my left eye manually-held open to see. Didn’t even bother with my right eye since it was swelling shut. Got home and went to bed early. Got up in the middle of the night, could open my eyes, but didn’t dare since I had, in the sleeping meantime, developed an ultra-sensitivity to light. Even looking at a dim nightlight felt like a stab in the head. That experience provided me an empathetic appreciation of what a vampire must feel like caught out in the rising of the Sun.

I'm wearing sunglasses today in the office at work. Oh yeah, I already said that.  (Must be repetition for effect then.)

There’s still some minor light hypersensitivity. Swelling is gone, but the right eye looks horny-red in the mirror. Lucky I don’t have a hot date tonight or I’d be sure to freak the girl out - she wondering why I’m only half-horny.

Today I called the doc and described the side effects of the drugs he prescribed me. He was amazed and considered my experience rather strange. Just goes to support what I’ve always maintained: almost all drugs affect me rather differently than most people. I’d surely trip psychedelically on grass and just get the munchies on LSD; caffeine is my mind-numbing aphrodisiac; alcohol my mental stimulant, and love the ayahuasca I’m always thinking of.

years ago, instead of busting a passed-out Army private discovered with a baggie-full of Panama Red in pocket, confiscated the stash instead.

at the end of that 24-hour stint as charge-of-quarters, changed out of the sergeantly uniform, and got into running shirt and shorts with baggie in hand.

headed hard-paced out of barracks, down nether roads and up a jungled hillside.

heard the monkeys howl and spread the Red ( so many seeds, so many seeds) about, upon the tropical (Panama) lush jungle floorbed.

wonder now: how tall the plants, how high the monkeys are?

Growing healthier daily.  And it feels like there’s no end to it.  At this rate, gonna be a legitimate god-challenger by year’s end.  Well, yeah, maybe that’s overboard. 

Actually, may not be getting healthier at all.  Probably just feeling better because the days are getting longer and the Sun’s sitting ever higher in the sky. 

Being a rabid dog of Ra howling at the rays. 

If could be the first, would jump off the Earth and plunge into the Solar core. (How’s that for seeking a niche in the Guinness World Record book?) 

With the onset of rapidly intensifying insolation,  feeling like a flower preparing to bloom.

Curse upon you vampirish darklings who have clung to winter’s shadowy gloom. 

Still stretching more, running more, working more, drinking less beer, and losing weight. 

Advice, if you want to take it out: Agitate and let your pheromones drift and hover seducingly  about.

Meet at sunrise.  Hold hands at sunset.  Dancing in the earthshine and frolicking in the moonglow.  Till tomorrow.  And tomorrow's morrow...  even unto one day short of forever.

Victory now lies within.
Cagier.  Stronger.
I shall not lose this moment, any moment
of genuinely becoming
again.

Palm bruised, knuckles bruised.  The downtown buildings I've been pounding on my walk to work lately have been taking a beating.  Screw the infrastructure. My hands need love.  Need to touch, hold, caress more than marble, granite, thongless statuettes. 

Female magma.  I yearn for her eruption.  That earth-shakin' where I trembling fall, for dear life grip core, and succumb to warm tongues of moltenness lapping, lapping, lapping...

Do you disapprove of the Buddha now hewn out of stone with a persisting smirk of cryptic bliss?   Her moltenness frozen forever upon his lips?  I feel like I've already committed myself to the fallout of that same everlasting impress.  Let's just call it a kiss.  Ravaged by a phreatic tongue breaching a metaphor of lips and rendering crystalline teeth willingly defenseless.

This has to be the easiet photoshare album to setup and use.  Entirely ajax, for those of you hookd-up with the latest trendy techphrases.

TechCrunch describes it so: "Toronto-based online photo sharing BubbleShare is just wonderful, and ridiculously easy to use. Their interface team deserves a gold star or something, because I don’t think I’ve ever used a site’s full functionality without consulting a single FAQ or other instruction."

Sexiest features:

• 
  
  click on any photo and get a 3X Digital BubbleZoom tool to inspect the photo; most of my pics are not high res so this tool's advantages are not that well-demo'd with my pics
  
  
• 
  
  add audio captions (up to 30 secs.) to each pic; I haven't tried this yet for lack of a mic hookup at hand.
  
  
• 
  
  add a slideshow to your blog; exactly what you see above - it's much too easy: even a caveman could do it.

"Who thought that a bunch of Asian kids in the southwest US could bootstrap a phenomenon and cause Xanga to get big?"
  - What Went Wrong

John, Bob, and crew - are just "a bunch of Asian kids".  ha.

"People thought Blogger was hot, until Xanga came from nowhere, and then Spaces blew past it in a few months. Today it's all about MySpace and YouTube."
  - What Went Wrong

But could it be 'all about' Xanga again?  Not likely unless Xanga radically innovates.

"People hang out at a physical place, because it's the place they expect to find the people they want to hang with. Same with social spaces. And when a particular hangout gets old, that's all there is to it. You can try your best to make your space "sticky", to reward loyalty, but the other space is working just as hard to make it easy for people to transfer. If you track hot restaurants or party spots in any city, you already know this. It's a terrible idea to think that a hot place will always be hot, that it's hot because of some specific strategy that you can own, or that you can sink even more money into it to make it hotter."
  - What Went Wrong

'notforprophet' used to be stickier.  Way stickier.   But so was 'fairestc' and 'Lyssa' (the first to popularly do 'TheTheologiansCafe' kind-of question thingie) and "VeryModern' and 'James', etc.  Never heard of them?  Or never hear much anymore?  That's because . . .

being popular on Xanga, as typified by making it to the top of Featured Content, is a predictably fickle and passing thing.  I'm about 99.99% confident that everybody  hitting consistently at one of the 'top 10' spots on Featured Content now  won't be there two years from now.  Even if they are still around.  Even if their content has gotten better.  It's the law of Blog Humble:  An online social network like Xanga absolutely requires ever-shifting faces in popularity.   Or it itself will die (sooner than later).  Queen for a Day.  Yep, all you FC brighties today ain't nothing more than Queens for a Day.  Step up, get popular, and shine, shine, shine.  Then prepare yourself, if you stick around, to return to the pack.