In lieu of fuller, coherent thought let me shower you with short ideas that have sprung from things I've seen around and about the internet in the last couple of weeks.
One of Tomato Nation's sponsors is Candy.com. Candy. Sometimes in bulk. There's a Natural and Organic section! They sell Lara Bars and Cliff bars and Luna bars. Ooo, I didn't check for Jr. Mints. Must do that. There's lots of good stuff and I think it's testament to my extremely awesome self control that I did not order $500 worth of assorted sweetness this morning.
At Blogher 2010 I attended an extraordinary panel about blogging one's grief, moderated by Cecily Kellogg. All the panel members approached the talk as though we knew about their experiences because most of the attendees did. I didn't know them all but got the gist and that was fine. I loved the panel so much in fact that I've been paralyzed about writing it for over a year now. Maybe before Blogher 2012 I'll manage it. I knew that Cecily's twins had died but I didn't know the details. Due to the magic of Twitter I've gotten to know her writing a little better since then and today read her annual memorial post about her boys. It's a powerful post in and of itself but it also touches on women's health, which Cecily is blogging about all month, and Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day, which is Saturday.
Do you know anyone who has had a parent come out as gay? This post from Aiming Low made me want to get all those people together. Well, it made me want to write the book that the blogger requests but neither of my parents is gay so I think I'd be a poor mouthpiece for the subject. I hope others with that experience can get together and make it less lonely for the coming generations.
Foster Dogs NYC posted a wonderfully comprehensive check list for prospective dog havers. If I'd had a list like this I probably wouldn't ever have had a dog. On the other hand it's such a useful tool because there are so many little things that are easy to forget when your brain is screaming, "PUPPY CYOOOOOOOT!!!!" I ran into a neighbor last night with her new 5 month old puppy. While she didn't have buyer's remorse she did seem to be suffering from a severe urge to sue someone for false advertising. Of course the advertiser was her so suing would be unproductive. Luckily her puppy is SO CYOOOOOOT!!! And my dog didn't try to play Marry, Fuck, Kill with it.
Which reminds me of a photo I saw on Facebook the other day. I can't find it now. It's got one picture of, I think, 3 Republicans doing a press conference and it's repeated twice. The first one is captioned (and I paraphrase): "Before Occupy Wall Street, 'Americans Need More Jobs!'" and the second one is captioned: "After Occupy Wall Street, 'Why Don't All These Protesters Get Jobs!'" Stop the hypocrisy Republican voters! Please. Either there are no jobs and we need the government to fix it even if we have to speak loudly to make that happen or there are jobs and so there's no need to spank the President about it. Either we want very small government that leaves citizens alone or we want a government large and comprehensive enough that it can legislate the usage of a citizen's body. You can't have both so sit quietly until you've made a choice (CHOICE!) and get back to us when you're sure.
I don't know a lot about bone marrow donation. I know it can be painful but not excruciating. I know that finding a match can be an enormous challenge. Aaryn wrote a while ago about a young friend who had cancer and was battling valiantly. That friend, Kia, was in remission for some time but now is in need of a bone marrow transplant. Specifically Aaryn describes it this way, "The National Bone Marrow Registry matches people based on a 10-point scale, and Kia needs the surf-skipping, corn-rowed Bo Derek of matches. Kia needs a 10, and, currently, not one person in the entire registry is a 10." For my part, I'm prohibited from donating because I spent more than 3 months in the UK during the outbreak of Mad Cow in the 1990s. I am not prohibited from asking you to register, though. It's only a cheek swab! Non-invasive! You know you want to! Please?
Possibly the most powerful post I've read in weeks is Suebob's one about perspective. She says, in part, "What if none of my stories about what people did to me were true? Or what if there was just no way of knowing if they were true?" I can't begin to express how devastating I found the idea. Not because it's new to me but because it's so old and I still have not even begun to master the skill of accepting it. I am forever trying to make up both sides of the story and find the one, true answer and, there isn't one. I know I could be greatly improved if I could give up my stance but...it's hard. I'll keep working on it but I sure hope there isn't a pop quiz on this particular skill any time soon.
There was a day recently in honor of women in science. I'm afraid I don't remember even the name of the scientist used in the title of the day. Here's a little Tumblr link about 10 women scientists we all ought to know, though. I'll add an 11th, our own Elephant Soap. 'Cause knowledge, like charity, begins at home.
This link about Topeka, KS decriminalizing domestic violence is from yesterday. I know via Twitter that there's been some shakedown on the subject since this was posted but I'm not sure where it's ended up. My crude understanding is that the local government voted to decriminalize domestic violence because they felt that prosecuting it was an unfair financial burden in which the state was not participating. They thought that their decriminalization would force the state to prosecute, and therefore pay for the prosecution of, the crimes since domestic violence remains illegal on the state level. It is unclear how the state will respond. The upshot is that people, largely poor women, are being used as pawns in a political struggle. Again. It's so ridiculous it ought to be laughable except that people, largely poor women, will likely die as a result. Nice work, Topeka.
Did you ever watch Whose Line Is It Anyway? I did and I loved it, which is weird because improv usually makes me uncomfortable. Do you remember the piano player, Laura Hall? I loved her. Never less than the sunniest smile as Wayne Brady embarrassed another audience member. Well, she and Bridget Straub wrote a musical for kids and they announced their plans for it over at Sanemoms. You should check it out and if you have a couple of sheckles to donate to their kickstarter it would be great.
I have some more links and yet, here we are on a high note. I think it'd be good to end on that, don't you? I thought so. What are you reading out there in the great, wide internet?
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my parents had one of those clocks LOL!
ReplyDeleteMy mom has one of those clocks.
ReplyDeleteMy mom has one of those clocks, too. I think I gave it to her.
ReplyDeleteSo funny that everyone's commenting on the clocks after all those interesting links you gave us - and I'm included in "everyone"!
ReplyDeleteI had no idea those clocks scared you! You had to have come over to the old apartment when there were 2 of them, one 1/2 hour off so we'd get a bird every half hour (the clocks had different birds). Sorry for scraring you ...
I thought I'd actually learn which song went with which bird from the clocks, but I didn't.
For anyone who reads this who doesn't have one, they do go off when the lights are off, and if they lights are dim they're quieter.
That blog entry in the link was hilarious! And your other links were quite interesting. Thanks!