"One Sentence is an experiment in brevity. Most of the best stories that we tell from our lives have one really, really good part that make the rest of the boring story worth it.
This is about that one line.
This is about telling the most interesting or poignant story possible in the least amount of words.
This is about small bite-sized pieces of extraordinary lives and ordinary lives alike... the happy, the sad, the funny, the depressing."
they keep quite an extensive archive (all the way back to may of 2006) and some of these sentences are simply phenomenal. i am amazed at how a few well-crafted words can carry such an amazingly strong, elemental feeling to them. some have made me laugh until i nearly soiled myself, some have made me cry because i knew the feeling expressed more intimately than i would have thought, but all of them brought me comfort and appreciation that there are still those among us that can effectively use the english language with a sense of poetry and not as just a means of communication. some of my favorites are:
Suspicious
Lesson Learned: "Open Relationship" = "I'm already seeing someone else."
tags: love cheating bullshit [add]
2009-02-17
how fucking true is that?! i laughed until i remembered my own experience with it, and then, well... i didn't laugh so much anymore.
Fly
The day I moved out of my apartment was the day I discovered the bathroom mirror was actually the door to a medicine cabinet.
tags: humor moving that would have been handy [add]
2009-02-04
i've done this too, and on more than one occasion. i'm glad i'm not the only one that's done this. i laughed when i read it and felt a camaraderie with whomever wrote this.
(katie)
The worst part about the rape is the way it's made the rest of my life about that one night.
tags: sadness regret anger rape [add]
2009-02-02
my heart sank when i read this, and i felt such an overwhelming sense of compassion for this person whom i will never know. my mind traveled up and down the possible timestream of her life, witnessing her days from then on linked to that one night. i hope she develops the strength to move past her suffering and evolve further because of it. this one sentence carries with it so much more emotion than if she wrote about it in greater detail.
I shake my head & smile
You know your adult son is home visiting when you find an empty beer can in your shower.
tags: humor visiting beer adult son mother [add]
2009-01-30
this was just damn funny, and that one sentence just developed this entire character study of this kid in my mind. i started to imagine him like a slightly older version of ferris bueller.
Nate
It took the internet to find out about my uncle's successful career in porn.
tags: porn uncle internet [add]
2009-01-29
i just wondered if the uncle was hot, and nate too, for that matter.
Sorcha
When the strange man wouldn't quit staring at me while I nursed my baby, I finally lost it and asked him if he wanted some for his coffee.
tags: humor breastfeeding staring coffee [add]
2009-01-28
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!!
FUCKING BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!
KPL
When my Chinese host family told me, "no rice until you finish your beer," I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
tags: China rice beer [add]
2009-01-28
there isn't anything i could say that could make this sentence any clearer.
Tim
Before I had a three year old child, I never imagined I'd discuss whether turtles have eyebrows.
tags: humor parenthood turtles [add]
2009-01-28
i really wish i was a part of that conversation. the way kids' minds work are just facinating. how do they come up with these questions?...and when did i apparently lose my ability to see the world like that? i don't think i would be so jaded if i could. i guess i've found myself a new hero in this anonymous three-year old master.
My only regret.
One of my best friends in high school killed himself after the only girl he ever asked out turned him down at the risk of being less popular, which is a shame because he would have been the best first boyfriend I ever had.
tags: regrets sucide sad boyfriends love best friends high school nerd popularity first love 2009-01-05
i related to the boy and this brought back a whole flood of memories that i didn't realize i had, but i'm still alive. my heart went out to the girl, who now seems to have seen the tremendous error she made. but, such a high cost. this entry then triggered a retrospection of things i regret in my life. i've been inundated with the phrase'"no regrets" just as much as anyone, but i've never been like that. i've regretted so many things in my life, but as i look back on some of these painful memories, i find that they aren't as painful anymore.
don't get me wrong, these memories are still intense, but in a more neutral way. i suppose the best way to differentiate is to say that, although these memories are painful, i do not suffer over them as much. pain may not be an option, but the added burden of suffering is. may whoever contributed this entry learn that difference and become stronger and more compassionate from it.
Tenth
Three were raped, one abused, one is forever unsatisfied with who she is, two, maybe three are cutters, one truly believes she's a slut by nature, one is seventeen with the mind of a ten year old, one is an orphan, one is as mental as I am, and I wouldn't trade any of them for all the perfect friends in the world.
tags: friends sympathy affection friendship [add]
2008-10-13
yup. seems to have described most of the mutant misfits that were my beloved friends too. i miss those people. the people i live amongst now are so.... normal. agh! now i'm sad.
i could go on and on with the site, but you really should check it out for yourself. it will quickly find its way onto your bookmarked list. i can't help but check this site daily, and i'm a bit envious with the wordcrafting skill of some of the site's contributors.
...but wait! there's more......
the second site i adore even more than one sentence has to be http://www.dearoldlove.tumblr.com/ because, being a bit more focused in the area of love/hate, it elicits a very strong response in me. again, in the site's own words:
"Dear Old Love" is short notes to people we've loved (or at least liked). Requited or unrequited.
The ex-husband in Grace Paley's short story "Wants" says to his ex-wife, "I attribute the dissolution of our marriage to the fact that you never invited the Bertrams to dinner." If you're bitter, that's the way to express it here.
Please email pithy, specific "Dear Old Love" notes to dearoldlove(at)gmail.com. Posted submissions will be anonymous, and all submissions will be held in confidence. I would never sell or give away your email. (I wouldn't even know how.) If privacy is a concern, use an account with a pseudonym."
and thus begins one of the best ongoing art collaborations i have ever encountered.
this site isn't as old as onesentence.org, but it hasn't diminished its potency. their archieves only go back to september 2008, but there are contributions that hit home a bit too hard for me personally. there are several contributions i wish i wrote, because it's certainly what i've felt before.
here's a sample of some of the brilliance. wear sunglasses.
Dress Code
You taught me: if he dresses like a douchebag, he’s probably a douchebag.
Oct 17 2008
Permalink
this seems to just be a universal axiom. of course, some of them can be trained, but then i've found you end up with just a well-dressed douchebag.
Spoils
I am still furious you got all the good friends in the breakup.
Oct 21 2008
Permalink
isn't THAT true....
Rest in Peace
I always preferred your pillow. Now that it’s mine I don’t like it so much.
Oct 22 2008
Permalink
there are just some things that don't need commentary.
Stung
I can’t believe you’re becoming the type of guy who stays cute. Couldn’t you have followed Robert Redford instead of Paul Newman—more Sundance, less kid?
Oct 22 2008
Permalink
and i'm thinking of you matthew, wherever you are, you hot jerk.
A More Civilized Age
It both cheers and saddens me to think that glow-in-the-dark condoms plus lightsaber sound effects comprised the high point of our relationship.
Nov 5 2008
Permalink
this one is just funny to visualize. ah, star wars geeks, gotta love 'em.
Fun Scale
Being with you was fun, but fantasizing about you is funner.
Nov 9 2008
Permalink
i've even had the experience of fantasizing about someone as we were having sex together. how screwed up is that?
anyway, there are several others worth looking at. there really is no sense to just publish my favorites when the experience of seeing the site is so much better. you should really check it out.
so what is the point of it all? i thought about it and realized that the primary reason why i am so drawn to these sites is the same reason why i read as much as i do, to know that i am not alone. i was amazed at how some of the contributors to these sites encapsulated so much of what i have been feeling for so long that just knowing someone else also has felt this way makes my experience more bearable. it establishes an anchor into a greater collective humanity, and it lets me know that i'm doing okay, even if i don't think so.
thanks for reading this far. cheers.
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