*shrugs* I think you rock bro.

your also the winner in both situations.

Dude, while M.P. is a big swimming champ, have you ever noticed that he has Will Smith type ears as well as a severe underbite?

You crack me up man. I read the site every chance I get.

You need to get put up in the blocks on the bottom.

Keep on writing.

And screw those who are scared or unaware.

You're fine the way you are.

Fucking swimmer. Like you can parlay that into anything other than banging chicks and getting on a Wheaties box. I read a few of your stories and enjoy them. Come check out my blog if you want. And the trach tube isn't your color. Have you considered an upbeat pastel?

You've heard of Plato's cave. If not go search it and read (even a simple premise/distillation will do).

So now here you are...or should I say, "here I am" since my life is hampered by its many disabilities, also. So you're watching these acts unfold in your dreams...and it's with the same mind that watches the real world unfold. And you watch it from a very different throne than does someone else...for example, Michael Phelps. And that's the difference, each of us is bolted to our the throne of our own circumstances which is where Plato's Cave comes in. We all have access to the story played out in the cave but some of us can get up and partake or leave to go out in the sun. Others of us have to sit and watch it with only a secondhand knowledge of what it must be like, perhaps even meager slivers of those acts because at some point and time we were capable enough to "do what Phelps did" if only in some fractional manner. But winning is winning and losing is losing so it doesn't matter how fractional the each of the losses in the string are that we have to live, we still have to experience it. So imagine now that you are not "you" but the very material that is the throne you've been viewing life from this whole time. Some are stone, others are wood, others still are reeds that bend. Consider yourself a static, immoveable element of the forest and that you may have functions other than a deerbuck or falcon. Mushrooms, fern, moss, and vines have their own lives, too. They're just less anthropomorphicly desirable. Realize they may not seem to have value, but they do have structure; a structure different and incomparable to that of the lives of others. Find ways to understand your structure and where in between your personal floor and ceiling there are ways to love, enjoy, and succeed. Fuck Phelps. He didn't do it on his own, self-created merit. Much in the same way that you -didn't- choose your problems. So blindlingly many factors converge into any one person for them to take credit for much that happens in their life. Think about it; if a leg can be different between two people, so too can something less concrete...like self-motivation. Both are created by so many blindingly many factors not of your doing to create who you are and all of your circumstances. Continue to move away from what you aren't and move into what you are and want to have and do from the platform of your own existence.

HW: You are most wise. Thank you.

you are an inspiration, and your raw honesty is humbling. i wish i could be as honest in my own writing, even if my subjects are a bit more trifling.

it is a few days late, but have you ever thought of joining nablopomo - www.nablopomo.ning.com? post every day for the month of november. pretty easy, right? that's what i thought last year, but i think it would be a great way for you to meet people interested in you - friends - even if you've never met them in person.