(They may never be clicked or read or considered, but I’m doing a disservice every time I don’t use my own public forum to spread words I find inspiring, motivational or simply, worth the read.)
I found Fran Varian’s words for the first time in It’s So You: 35 Women Write About Personal Expression Through Fashion and Style. Though I finished the book a week ago, I looked her up today for more, more, more.
At hipmama.com, I found this: Teeth
Fran put words to the death of a young boy who didn’t have the insurance coverage to remove an abcessed tooth. For this, he died. She talks about the passion with which abortion is fought against and the contrasting lack of passion to help the children we already have.
A 12 year-old boy died this past Sunday from poverty, in the United States of America. It’s not as uncommon as it might seem.
Deamonte Driver had a right to life. He had the right to finish the 7th grade and do whatever 12 year-old boys do in the summer these days. His mother wanted this child so much she harbored him inside of her uterus for forty weeks. I believe she had a right to watch him grow up. I believe that every Mother has the right to watch her child grow up.
…
I would join your protests over this boy’s death but I doubt you’ll organize any. Somehow I can’t see you aiming your bullhorns at Maryland in one collective outcry of anger and grief the same way you flocked to Florida and wailed outside the window of a grown woman who wanted to die.
Somewhere in South Dakota there’s a terrified 19 year-old girl with a toilet full of morning sickness, no boyfriend and no money.
Let us pray.
-CJ
This needed to be said and the connotations associated with choice need to be recognized.
From Tranifesto:
I just finished watching a new indie gay and lesbian film that had an interesting premise, but I felt like I was back in the ’70s, with the word “homosexual” being thrown around all the time, even by the gay and lesbian characters, and this little gem coming from one of the young lesbian characters when talking to her father:
“I didn’t choose to be this way. I’ve always been this way. I’d be straight if I could. My life would be so much easier.”
I get really tired of this argument, which makes straight the default — and the desirable — way to be, and gay or lesbian the undesirable and unchosen way to be — a way that was forced on certain unfortunate people as a mistake of birth. After all, who wouldn’t want to be straight if they could?
I don’t know anyone who would prefer their sexuality be anything other than what it is, but I have heard this statement in a broad, assuming sense and I’m not sure the speaker realized their implications. Sometimes someone else has to explain something in such a way (as above) for one to rethink.
-CJ
My friend Ashley supplies an almost constant flow of entertainment from her post in Wyoming. Example: World’s Best Relationship Tips
If you were ever going to learn a thing or two about yourself and your sig-o, let it be from an instructional featuring such images as:
(Note tiny caption: Kee-f*cking-yai, motherf*cker)
Probably the best way to combat jealousy is with macaroni art. Everyone loves macaroni art. It is a symbol for good intentions, thoughtfulness and love. And if you use enough glitter, she’ll forget she ever felt anything less than unadulterated adoration for you.
YES.
“I DIED, and then laughed myself into a second death.” –Ashley
Thank you, love.
-CJ
My adamant refusal to allow this week to suck was aided so much by the eighteen second video at the end of this post: http://dooce.com/2010/05/06/baby-bird
Sound is unnecessary. The expression around 16 seconds has guaranteed me a happy thirty-six hours, solid.
If you don’t squeal or wiggle or express your joy with some immature bodily sound or movement, clearly you’re insensitive. My being easily pleased almost every day of the week has absolutely nothing to do with this.
-CJ
a break down of the John Mayer interview that I’m sure you’ve heard something about
The best part? This comment from Kandeezie:
“I just sold my tickets to his Valentine’s Day concert in Toronto (yeah, laugh, I was one of those girls who loved him to death!). Yay for “preferences” but when you make a sweeping statement about black women – essentially that we’re cute but not high enough of the social hierarchy to date, then it’s Craigslist for me and my tickets! The other 5 million fails in this interview just blow my mind. Really.”
I’m all for brutal honesty, even when it bites. Half of the quotes I actually giggled at. I don’t take from this that Mayer is racist, just really shitty at averting stupid questions with open answers that wouldn’t alienate a huge percentage of his fan base.
“My dick is sort of like a white supremacist.”
That’s sick, dude.
Offensive statements are spewed daily by all walks. But when you’re saying this many of them for print? Watch your fuckin’ mouth.
-CJ
…and have been since October of last year but I kind of forgot.
http://ingalagringa.com/womanifestos/calamityJill.html
This certainly doesn’t make me special – I think anything you submit can be shared including crap on a log (pending confirmation) but it is pretty nice to see my literary hero alongside my pseudonym in an URL that I didn’t make up.
-CJ
I don’t watch award shows because for every one award whose winner I might actually care about, there’s three and half hours of filler and six horribly matched duets. Sitting through them makes my brain hurt.
I tweet’d a thought this morning: “There’s gotta be a way I can turn the upcoming Grammys into a drinking game.”
The suggestions were stellar.
- Take a shot every time someone thanks the gee oh dee.
- Take a shot every time someone says Beyonce or Michael Jackson.
- Take two shots every time Taylor Swift or Lady GAGa are mentioned.
Not only will I watch it this time, but I’m excited to. Who’s coming?
-CJ
PS, you can always depend on my lovely friend Misty over at Handbags & Handguns for the most kick ass recaps.
Alice Bradley was recently published in The Sun Magazine. Rather, her article, Eighteen Attempts At Writing About A Miscarriage, was published in The Sun.
I read it, as well as this post on her blog, from the perspective of a young, accidental mother with no desire for more children, at least in the next several years. I’ve never felt that it was selfish to not want more or to not want to give my daughter a sibling. I cannot tolerate people who think it’s selfish not to have children at all and I froth at the mouth with unwanted lectures of personal fulfillment and overpopulation, anyway!
I don’t even know where I’m going with this except to say that her emotional posts have given me a deep, deep appreciation for what I do have, what I probably never deserved but got anyway. I’m not sure I knew just how completely and totally fulfilled my daughter makes me. All fifty pounds of that kid, scrawny and bright, are more than enough.
That whole ‘kids as gifts from heaven’ is cliché and holds no meaning to an atheist but I kinda think that if Kiddo had come wrapped in a big glittery bow… it might have just been appropriate, is all.
-CJ
Again, this girl gets the win for awesome.
http://kittenhiccups.tumblr.com/post/240724768/fuck-i-am-so-fucking-sick-of-the-obsession-with
Ditto and amen and high five.
-CJ
A friend just unknowingly hooked me on yes means yes. They’re the kind of posts that make me want to scream, jump, hug and punch simultaneously. (ie impossible to comment on.) So I just push my glasses further up my nose and keep reading.
-CJ
