Six Words, Six Months to Come up with Them

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How lovely. Six word memoirs.

I know. Me, too.

Had to be a crappy ad gimmick or college drinking game, but it’s not. It’s addictive and sadly beautiful when not slyly sexy or funny or enigmatic. The good kind of enigmatic, not the annoying kind usually meant just to show off.

From SMITH magazine, bathroom reading that may spoil us all for the dreck we usually settle for in…you know…there. No one can resist the challenge. Check this and this and this and this….

I’ll never sleep again until I pull this off. And realize I’m depressed by the truth I’ve managed to tell on myself. Here’s a taste (from Ron Rosenbaum’s site, above):

Explained Hitler, Shakespeare. Couldn’t explain self.

But there were so many efforts I admired more, ranging from the humorous:

Maybe you had to be there.

—Roy Blount Jr.

to the meditatively profound (I think):

Melancholy marvel at how everything connects

—Lawrence Wechsler

to the sly and sexy:

Catholic girl. Jersey. It’s all true.

—Mary Elizabeth Williams

to the shamelessly smug:

I always suffered fools fairly well.

—Richard Ford

to the sadly romantic:

I waste time looking for love

—Sean Gannett

to the rueful:

Left Aruba for Maryland. Pretty dumb.

—Barbara Phillpis-Seitz

to the self effacing:

Well, I thought it was funny.

—Stephen Colbert

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Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do. That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

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