I was assigned this sort of project in my second year of college, while I was in the creative writing program as my minor. It was actually a very good experience - she assigned a lot of prompts, but there were a lot of free entries as well. She went through at the end of the year and left a lot of comments, mostly…

No, but she does have an obsessive need to lick every inch of exposed skin. Does PetsMart carry food tailored for your favorite undead canine?

Salmon oil? Is that for the dry skin, by chance? One of my cats and my dog has that problem and I haven't been able to find a food yet that's helped.

Pet rag-to-riches stories are the best kind there are! That's so sweet. My parents have some stray cats they feed the best cat food to. When they were dumped in the neighborhood they were so starved that they had lost their fur and having trouble walking, so my mother started leaving them the expensive,…

I think I need to get into this business. I could think up some names for dog food that are more likely to attract Fido's attention. How about "Mommy's Laundry Drawer" in flavors of exotic "freshly-laundered panties" and "the roommate's socks"? They'd be molded in the form of tampons to mimic my dog's favorite…

My Malaysian friend has explained it thus: everyone's religion is registered. If you're Muslim, you're subject to the religious laws. If not, you're good to go. So say you're out kissing in public and you get stopped by the religious police - show your ID card that you're Hindu or Christian and you won't be…

I think it's more a case of an unchecked ego. "volunteer fireman" probably means "I sometimes helped at the firefighter's bake sales and have twisted that in my own mind so that I almost believe it now." If you're personally meek and laid-back, you probably don't exaggerate your achievements and tend to be honest…

That's nice. I'll wait. I'm still not paying for a dvd or movie ticket.

Okay, I got home and was able to watch the video with sound. I couldn't watch all of it. Seeing other people go through something similar to what I have is very stressful for me and stress triggers my disorder... so about halfway through I started feeling twitchy. I'm not sure what to think about the hand…

These symptoms seem to overlap so often with movement disorders... I got diagnosed with about three different disorders because they're all so similar. You know how they can diagnosis epilepsy by where it originates in the brain? It makes me wonder if all these movement disorders all originate in the same spot of…

There's a pretty wide range of movement disorders, so I'm leery of calling 'fake' on any of this just yet. Even if it is made up... I'd say that still means these girls need help. Personally, my movements start up when I'm idle, so if my mind is engaged by talking or typing or anything of the sorts I'm usually able…

I am so sorry for your daughter and I hope that they don't ever start up again. I get a lot of information from wemove.org about my own disorder, it might be worth a look. Having a condition that no one knows anything about is terrible - it just hits a point where you feel like you're screaming for help and no one…

I can't speak for these girls, but when my movement disorder is acting up it feels like a shudder. Like when someone drags their finger down your spine? Sort of like that, only much, much more so.

So. When I was 21 I got this rare movement disorder called PNKD. It's like... a combination of twitches, sort of this... writhing motion as the muscles contract... and can be easily mistaken for a seizure. I've had quite a few med students try and diagnosis it as Tourettes when the doctor sends them in to take my…

Blanchard is a very rural area, there's a lot of land and houses are pretty isolated once you're out of the tiny town center. And since it's so small I imagine they have very few cops to go around as well. I'm not sure how much this factors into it, but it's also extremely dark (at least to my standards) and the…

Oh jeez, she sounds like me as a little girl. Watch out. I grew up and joined a medieval reenactment group and learned to swordfight for real. That sounds like a good plan to wait though, I don't think I was that young when I was taught about guns either.

I'm trying to remember how old I was when we had that talk... I was older than ten, at the least. It was also a really good way for my dad and I to bond. My brother never showed an interest in those sorts of things, but I did, and so my dad would teach me all the stuff he'd been planning on teaching his son. When…

This is fantastic. At my first job I had coworkers that would walk away when my disorder was acting up, like they didn't want to look at me. Do I really need to say more about why this is making me all teary-eyed?

My mother's family is from Blanchard, I spent a lot of time visiting relatives there while growing up. It's very spread-out and there's a lot of land between houses once you leave the tiny town center. It's also extremely dark at night. That's the thing that always shocks me when I go home as an adult, just how…

It's a very rural area. There's a bit of a town area but once you're out of that, the houses can get pretty isolated with lots of land between people.