Links of the Week – April 17, 2015
* 18 Puppies On Their Way To Their New Homes!
* The Great Garden Gnome Massacre
* Long Exposure Light Photos – (Gorgeous!)
* Doctors To University: Fire That ‘Quack’ Dr. Oz
* Defeating Polio: The Disease That Paralyzed America
* Anne Lamott Shares All That She Knows: ‘Everyone Is Screwed Up, Broken, Clingy And Scared’
* MLB Teams Boost Mental Health Support Systems
* Love Is Not Supposed To Hurt… Then Why?
* New Study Says Tylenol Numbs Emotions – (Rushes to weekly grocery list…)
* 7 Things To Do When Your Kid Points Out Someone’s Differences – (Great stuff!)
* Hidden Cameras Reveal Airport Workers Stealing From Luggage – (Why are people so sorry?)
* Yogi Berra, Ready For The Game!
* Mindfulness Meditation Can Help Relieve Anxiety And Depression
* What Self-Love Means: 20+ Ways To Be Good To Yourself
* Anne Lamott – Becoming The Person You’re Supposed To Be: Where To Start
* How To Get To Know Yourself In 5 Fool-Proof Steps
* Baddest Mother Ever: Ten Signs I’ve Found The Right Biscuit Joint – (Link of the week!)
* A Boy and Her Dog: Owning My Shame – (I feel so much of this.)
* Fisticuffs And Shenanigans: Pride, You Made Me Proud
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“You can only go halfway into the darkest forest; then you’re coming out the other side.”
— Chinese proverb
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Links of the Week – April 10, 2015
Bike lane – Roberto Clemente Bridge – Pittsburgh
* Study: People Who Love Grilled Cheese Have More Sex, Are More Charitable
* This Dog Was Adopted After Five Years Of Waiting When His Photo Went Crazy On Facebook
* Longtime Couple Found That Clothes Didn’t Make The Man
* Gay Boy Scout Leader Hired In New York: “We said yes to him irrespective of his sexual orientation”
* White House Says It Supports Efforts To Ban Gay Conversion Therapy
* Gay Conversion Therapists Claim Most Patients Fully Straight By The Time They Commit Suicide
* Now Who’s The Moral Majority?
How I feel this week. Thanks, pollen!
* If Single People Honestly Updated Their Facebook
* Everybody Hit Somebody – (A season with the Carolina Phoenix women’s football team)
* Houston Astros Sweater – (Gorgeous!)
* Philadelphia Phillies 1915-1919 Cap – (This will be mine. Oh yes!)
* John Hart May Never Make A Better Trade – (See ya’, Melvin!)
* Reeses Chocolate Peanut Butter Tart
* FLOTUS Michelle Obama Says Malia And Sasha Are Not Influential And I Love It
* We Need Star Trek Back On TV
* Shout Out To T’Pring’s Hairdo
* When My Friend Is Obsessing Over Her Crush Even Though He Clearly Doesn’t Like Her
* Obsessed
* Seven Big Signs You May Be Too Clingy
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“I’ve come to realize that what I always thought was my feeling of falling in love, feels very much like my feeling of anxiety.”
– Deanna Dennis
“[Y]our life is yours and no one else’s.”
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Links of the Week – April 3, 2015
* Shatner Pays Tribute To Nimoy
* Astros Unveil The Eat-On-The-Go Chicken And Waffle Cone
* We Need A Middle Class President
* 5 Charts That Show How The Middle Class Is Disappearing
* Can We Guess What Your Reading Habits Say About Your Love Life? – (Mine was FRIGHTENINGLY correct.)
* How Old Do You Actually Act? – (I got 5-years-old. *sigh*)
* What My Zodiac Sign Says About Me – (Again, correct.)
* “I Thought I Was Bipolar” Shirt – (Need)
* PostSecret: I Feel Like A Hostage
* Monkey Meets Puppies For The First Time, Wants To Snuggle Them As Badly As Anyone Else – (Ow! My heart just exploded!)
* Tim Cook: Pro-Discrimination ‘Religious Freedom’ Laws Are Dangerous
* Moist Chocolate Cupcakes with Ganache Filling – (Proof that God loves us. He’d love me more if he’d magic these to my house.)
* The Problem With Cars And Self-Absorption
* The Spirit Of Atlanta: A Quest For Context Of 1920’s Atlanta – (Awesome old pictures of the city!)
* The Scandal Of A Crucified God (A Good Friday Reflection)
* The Importance Of Doubt (A Holy Saturday Reflection)
* When The Right To Discriminate Collides With The Rites Of Holy Week
* The Right’s Made Up God: How Bigots Created A White Supremacist Jesus
* How ‘One Nation’ Didn’t Become ‘Under God’ Until The 50s Religious Revival – (My favorite read of the week!)
* You Don’t Have To Go To Work On Opening Day Because The Brewers Wrote You An Excuse Note
* Watch Guys Attempt To Explain How Periods Work – (Hysterical. And a little sad. 🙂 )
* What The Hell Is That Tribble Doing?
* Rape Suspect Had Burns At Court Appearance – (I would get on a plane right now, given the opportunity, and go to Ohio and beat this fucker to death with my double wall Miken. PLEASE let me do it!)
* Transgender Elders Show Us The Meaning Of Survival
* ‘Child Abuse’ For A Girl To Dress Like A Boy? – (Sigh…)
* Man Thinking About Just Packing Up And Making Exact Same Mistakes Someplace Far Away
* What To Do When You Hate Yourself
* It’s All About Falling In Love With Yourself…
* The Girl Who Struck Out Babe Ruth And Lou Gehrig
* Girls Baseball Team Wins Championship At Boys’ Tournament – (Not just a little local tournament, a USSSA NATIONAL tournament!)
* Menswear Dog: The Most Stylish Dog In The World – (THIS! Blog of the Week!!!)
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“And when she is done, she will head for town, center, she will board the first bus she sees. Find a seat by a window, ride to the end of town.
And then? She stops. She does not know. She has not thought this part through. But it occurs to her then she can just keep on riding. It is possible, yes. She will just stay on the bus and ride. To some other place, some other town. She will look for it out all the windows. And when she sees it at last, she will know.”
– Some Other Town, Elizabeth Collison
“Death will get us all. Moreover, astrophysicists tell us, even the earth and the solar system will one day be destroyed as the sun explodes in its dying gasp. On a more finite level, life is filled with threats to our existence: accidents, disease, violence, unemployment, poverty. Life easily looks threatening.
If we do see reality this way, how will we respond to life? In a word, defensively. We will seek to build systems of security and self-protection to fend off the hostile powers as long as possible.”
– The Heart of Christianity, Marcus J. Borg
“It’s less embarrassing for people to think I look stupid when I intentionally look like a boy, than for them to think I look stupid when I’m trying my best to actually look like a woman.”
“I am also learning how to feel. I’m learning that it can be safe to experience emotions. Running away – literally and figuratively – only temporarily removed me from the pain I was feeling. In order to exercise in a healthy way, I had to learn how to feel without searching for a way to self-destruct. It’s been a massive struggle to learn to accept myself. I’ve had to work to believe that I am OK exactly the way that I am, that nothing needs to be ‘beaten’ out of me.”
– Kenzi Rome, http://twloha.com/blog/making-my-workouts-work-me
“[L]ook more closely at the hard things in life: They’re trying to tell you something if you’ll listen.”
– Tomboy, Liz Prince
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Links of the Week – March 20, 2015
* Justice System to 13-Year-Old Girl: It’s Not Rape Because You Have Curves – (Women, if you’re not enraged yet, you’re not paying attention.)
* Cops On An 11-Year-Old Who Says She Was Raped: “Child’s Promiscuous Behavior Caused This”
* Pope Francis’s Pledge Of Zero Tolerance For Child Abusers Being Tested In Chile
* Alpha Males And Sexual Abuse Of Women
* Understanding Abusers: There Is No Stereotype For Offenders
* “I Am Called A Whore”: Ashley Judd Unloads On The Internet’s Grossest Trolls
* “Son Of A Bitch!” Jon Stewart Hammers “Disingenuous” GOP And “Dumb-Ass” Dems Over Anti-Sex Trafficking Fiasco – (As he should. Fuckers.)
* National Organization Of Women – (Stand up for women! God doesn’t seem to be helping.)
* Behold The Unexpected Awesomeness Of The Taco Doughnut
* Racist Oklahoma Video A Sign Of Regression In Race Relations In America
* Millennials Are More Racist Than They Think
* PostSecret: If Jesus Were Here – (He does…)
* Find A Death: The Death Of Jeanine Deckers: The Singing Nun – (“It took fourteen years for Jeannine to give up the ‘friend’ thing and sip from the furry cup and join the Order of the Practical Shoes.” And then I died! 😀 )
* Find A Death: The Death of Greg Plitt – (Leg day! 😀 )
* For When You Think That No One Will Ever Love You
* Disenchanted With Losing, Andy Landers Calls It Quits After 36 Years Of Coaching The Lady Dogs – (A pioneer in women’s basketball, and the only Lady Dog coach I’ve ever known.)
* Psalm 37: How To Receive The Desires Of Your Heart – (As long as God decides it’s OK. And he doesn’t have anything better to do. And he really exists. Now does that really sound like granting the desires of MY heart? No. It does not.)
* A Boy And Her Dog: Mail Is Not A Gender
* A Boy And Her Dog: Topless In The Locker Room
* A Womanonymous: Wild Offering – (Post of the Week)
* Black Bear Lodge Adventure Therapy – (I wonder how much this costs…)
* Workplace Suicide Rates Rise Sharply
* 21 Harsh Truths No One Tells Teens
* 5 Reasons To Suspect That Jesus Never Existed
* Catcher David Ross’ Approach To Game Anything But Routine – (Oh, Rossy! My favorite!)
* Contributions Of David Ross Go Beyond The Numbers
* Joe Maddon Is Binge-Watching ‘The Office’ At Cubs’ Spring Training – (Oh, Joe! My favorite!)
* Largest Group Of U.S. Presbyterian Churches Allows Same-Sex Marriages – (OK, Methodists. We’re starting to look like backward-ass snake handlers now! Left behind, indeed!)
* From Patrick Stewart’s Birthday Party – (Can I get these guys to come to my birthday party?!?)
* When People Ask Me About My Job
* For The Bodybuilder/Weightlifter/Harry Potter Fan In Your Life
* Sheetcake Arrives At Banquet Saying “Stewardshit” – (Also, DAVID TENNANT!)
* Fake Self-Help Books – (!!!)
* “Life’s Lil Pleasures” Mini Book – (The. BEST! ❤ ❤ ❤ )
* Nine Handy Curses Appropriate For Modern Life – (“May your coffee always be decaf.”)
* Creekside Cabin: Pet Friendly Cabin On The Creek – (It may be time to plan a vacation week…)
* You Can Now Anonymously Send A “Bag Of Dicks” To Your Enemies (Or Your Friends?)
* Awesomely Luvvie: “Pastor” Creflo Dollar Is Trying To Raise $65 Millon For A Plane
* Awesomely Luvvie: Dear Fellow Christians, About This Christ Crutch We Use To Justify Foolery…
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“Humans will always place our trust in things that will fail us. We will always insist on giving pieces of our heart to things that simply cannot love us back.”
– Nadia Bolz-Weber, “A Sermon On Addiction…”
“How come if you don’t give up on the person you love, the Hallmark Channel calls that ‘romance;” but on the Lifetime Network, if you don’t give up on the person you love, they call it ‘stalking?”’
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Dreaming Of Going Pro
Literally every night for the last two weeks I’ve dreamed that I and another woman or two have broken down the sex barrier in baseball and made a professional team. Every dream is different. The settings are different. The teams are different. The people are different. Each dream also usually includes a man I know from real life, who isn’t a baseball player in the waking world, but in the dream is also on the team with me.
Last night’s dream had me trying out for the Cincinnati Reds as a catcher. This is the first time in the dreams that I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through final cuts and actually make the team. Andy, who I worked with for a week last year on a youth retreat to Hinton Rural Life Center, was clearly going to be the starting catcher.
I usually have a softball dream or two this time of the year, a dream that I’m late for a game and stuff keeps happening to keep me from getting there. Stuff like needing to put in my contacts, but they’re the size of breast implants. Or I’m lost. Or a flood happens.
Softball season is imprinted in my brain after all this time, even though I haven’t played in six years. But I don’t remember having any baseball dreams before. And I’ve never had a dream that has recurred every night for weeks.
I wonder what this is all about. My brain is full of mysteries!
Links of the Week – February 27, 2015
* 10 Ways To Be Her True Life Superhero
* How I Feel About My Responsibilities
* Christianity Without The Cross
* 24 Times Your Favorite Kids’ Cartoons Suddenly Got Really Deep
* Fun With Kirk And Spock – (WHY do I not own this book?)
* 27 Times Tumblr Used Art History Perfectly To Make A Point
* How We Talk About Our Teachers – (Turns out we use different descriptors depending on if they’re male or female)
* Star Trek Spock With Ears Socks
* The “Golden Years” Are Gone: Why Retirement Is Hell For Women – (Oh good. Something else to look forward to.)
* How Much I Was Distressed During “Fox and the Hound”
* Game Day Program – Ohio State vs. Indiana – Thanksgiving Day 1903 – (So cool!)
* When I Hide In The Bathroom Stall Until I Hear My Coworker Leave So I Don’t Have To Make Small Talk With Them – (Every time.)
* Check Out Ambidextrous Pitcher Pat Vendittes’ Chthulu-Like Glove
* Adventure Time Oreo Necklaces
* Subway Riders Can Be Animals – (Awesome paintings!)
* You’re Not Happy Because You Never Learned To Be
* The Emory Wheel Editorial Board: Gender Neutral Pronouns Necessary For Inclusivity
* Just Let Them Kiss Already: Why Are TV Shows Are So Weird About Male Relationships?
* I Can Haz Cheezburger?: Extrovert vs. Introvert – (As illustrated by cats…)
* Why Each Sign Is Dangerous – (Scorpio)
* Stained Glass Backboards Are Completely Unnecessary And Beautiful
* 10 Things I Wish I Knew At The Beginning Of Sobriety
* 19 Anti-Social Motivational Posters That I Really Want To Hang In My Office
* Study: What Are The Most Addictive Foods? – (This is why I have frozen pizza six nights a week…)
* “My Mom Can Kick Your Ass” Kid’s T-Shirt
* After His Brother’s Suicide , Writer Seeks Comfort “In All The Wrong Places”
* Get The Picture: Stubborn Is As Stubborn Does – (You can only do so much)
* 19 Pictures That Will Hurt Your Fragile Soul – (Owwwwwwwwwww!)
* The Refuge: A Healing Place – Depression
* The Center: A Place For Hope
* Photos: Evan Gattis The Astro
* Unlocking “The Woman Code”: 4 Tips To Know Your Value
* Unexpressed Emotions, Rage And Depression
* NASA Sees “Bright Spots” On Dwarf Planet In Our Solar System – ( OoO )
* This Wondrous Dutch Light Installation Mimics The Northern Lights – ( ❤ ❤ ❤ )
* A Tortured Soul, Josh Hamilton’s Battle Was Never Over
* GPS In Shoulder Pads: Vanderbilt Goes High Tech
* The Frisco RoughRiders Have Your New Favorite Presidential MiLB Logo – (Must have a cap with Big Head Teddy!)
* Reviewing My 2015 Goals Thusfar – (11 out of 26. Eh.)
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“As other girls prayed for handsomeness in a lover, or for wealth, or for power, or for poetry, she had prayed fervently: let him be kind.”
– A Spy In The House Of Love, Anaïs Nin
“I turned over in bed and listened to the traffic in the rain. A few cold, clear truths rose one by one through my consciousness like a flock of birds: I wasn’t even remotely worthy of William and I wasn’t ever going to have him; I’d asked my mother to lend me money and she’d said no; I’d given all the change to the cabdriver; no one was going to pay off my debts; no one would save me from myself. I fell asleep to the soft beating of wings in my head.”
– In The Drink, Kate Christensen
“One fine spring morning I awoke in my own bed alone, with an ache in every orifice and a memory of bending over on the Christopher Street Pier at four in the morning with my drawers around my ankles while John stood behind me, holding my hips. As I gripped a piling to keep from tumbling into the Hudson, I gazed down into the filthy water and thought gaily to myself, Well, here I am, and this is me.”
– In The Drink, Kate Christensen
“Throughout these long afternoons outside with her, I was always conscious of being a speck at the bottom of a vast, ragged bowl of rock under the empty sky, buried in the silence and heat, surrounded by blank sand. The foothills, with their gray-green mesquite fur, rolled away to faraway mountains that sat sharp-spined on the horizon, unconnected to the valley floor, as if they’d been set down ready-made. The buttes and mesas to the west glowed deep red; veins of magenta and green spidered along rock formations shaped like tablets or giant hands, stacked in layers of cinnabar, crimson, brick. Masses of clouds echoed the rock shapes in their charcoal or ocher strata, wind-shaped crags so dense they looked mineral. The air was thick with the breath of sage and hot dust. At sunset the air hung low, striated like a weird plowed field of pigmented earth, backlighting the mountains with shirred, neon clouds, leaching all the color from the rocks, abstracting the bushes to dark cutouts. The wind moved like a huge hand through the valley, filling me with a restless, empty impatience I later identified as loneliness.”
– In The Drink, Kate Christensen
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Links of the Week – February 13, 2015
* Spock Riding An Alicorn Over A Rainbow
* PostSecret: Not My Fault – (Me too)
* PostSecret: Every Day – (Been there. Done that. Don’t forget your baseball cards.)
* Health Experts Recommend Standing Up At Desk, Leaving Office, Never Coming Back
* Mother Provides Adult Son With List Of Questions To Ask Doctor
* FISTICUFFSANDSHENANIGANS: I Shall Apply A Password To My Communication Medium Post Haste
* Chocolate Cheesecakes + Salted Caramel Sauce
* Chief Features Of Self Destruction
* 28 Ooey Gooey Cookies That Took It To The Next Level – (O!M!G!!!)
* 17 Terrible Valentines For People Who Are Dead Inside
* Grave Cages And Medical Murder: The Body-Snatching Era In Scotland
* Company To Experiment With Valuing Employees
* New Study Finds Majority Of God’s Blessings Burn Up On Entry Into The Atmosphere
* What Draco’s Father Will Hear About
* Running Helps Young Girls Cope With Pre-Teen Stress
* Down With The ‘Notorious R.B.G’ – (Who knew a Supreme Court Justice could have such a following?)
* Help Find The World’s ‘Loneliest Whale’ – (I literally had a sudden, stabbing pain in my heart when I read this.)
* Supreme Court Upholds Little Caesar’s Right To Feed Christian Employees To Lions
* 10 Reasons Jesus Would (Probably) Be An Outcast In Today’s Church
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“John is often afraid, but he doesn’t know it.”
“I am at the center of an immense system. I keep the planets in orbit around me. I keep everything in balance.
I am a perfect daughter, student, girlfriend, woman. I’m admired.
I have roles. I’m a social human. I follow the rules.
I easily follow rules.
Men want me. Right? They’ll want me more when I’m thinner.
I’ll be unstoppable.
Then, I will always be happy.”
“Some nights I stay awake expecting he’ll call me to say that he’s dead.”
– Binary Star, Sarah Gerard
“I had never intended to make such a mess of things. It had happened incrementally and gradually; every day, I’d felt the gap widen between me and that parallel universe that contained the life I’d meant to create for myself, that exciting, interesting whirl of travel and fabulous dinner parties and satisfying work. Over the years, I’d begun to take a perverse pleasure in seeing just how bad my life could get before the whole thing blew and, as an interesting corollary, just how severely I could punish myself for having been so arrogant as to think that my untapped potential and vague desire to succeed were of interest to anyone but me. Since I had run out of other options, this experiment served as a sort of substitute for ambition.
– In The Drink, Kate Christensen
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Links of the Week – February 6, 2015
* 21 Of The Universe’s Greatest Unsolved Mysteries
* 10 Reasons Christian Heaven Would Actually Be Hell
* The Super Bowl Was A Win For Feminism
* PostSecret: Gyrating – (Me too.)
* Bakerella: Groundhog Day Cupcakes – (Adorable!)
* Cats Are Looking For Love Online
* Julia: The…Ambivalent Samaritan
* The Fire On The 57 Bus In Oakland
* The Pioneer Woman: Knock You Naked Brownies
* The Pioneer Woman: Queso Fundido – (Lawdy mercy!)
* Brace Yourselves For The Andrew Jones MLB Comeback Story You’ve Always Wanted
* Man Brings Lunch From Home To Cut Down On Small Joys
* Pain And Suffering At Life’s End Getting Worse Not Better
* Why Cambodians Never Get ‘Depressed’ – (“the water in my heart has fallen”)
* Bitch Hoodie – (To wear to all my church committee meetings…)
* Scribbles & Crumbs: We’re All Messy People
* “Inspiration Porn Is Not OK”: Disability Activists Are Not Impressed With Feel-Good Super Bowl Ads
* delicious days: Green Onion Pancakes
* Serious Eats: How to Make Salted Dulce de Leche Brownies – (Here it comes!)
* The Gold Lining Girl: Buckeye Graham Crackers
* Woman Has Few Enough Friends To Consider Confiding In Sister
* Study Links Binge-Watching TV To Depression
* Sometimes I Feel Like Things Would Be Better Off If I Never Existed
* “Good” Children – At What Cost? The Secret Cost Of Shame
* Shame: The Disowned Part Of Self
* O Shame, Where Is Thy Secret Source?
* A Womanonymous: Day 1, part III – (She’s telling my life here.)
* A Womanonymous: Day 3, Three – Signals and voices – (And here too…)
* Self-Injurers And Their Common Personality Traits
* Some People Shouldn’t Be Allowed To Say The Grace When It’s Time To Eat – (Hysterical!)
* Hawks Starting Five Named NBA “Player” Of The Month
* 13 Habits Of Exceptionally Likeable People – (Uh. I think I do less than half of these. Maybe I’m not as likeable as I thought.)
Now Make This Into A Life
How do you add together all the things you love and turn it into a life?
And then, how do you subtract the things you hate from that and turn it into a life you can afford to live?
Suggestions?
I Love
* Outdoors
* Hiking
* Theology
* Helping People
* Running Sound
* Eating
* Writing
* Being Funny
* Animals
* Baseball
I Hate
* Offices
* Bosses
* Schedules
Maybe I can be a Christian comedian playing to wild animals and lugging my own PA. I could be a baseball writer who hangs out in the press box eating a lot of hot dogs. I could help people hike to restaurants where we discuss theology. I could start a baseball league for feral cats!
A Long Run 
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