Five Star Friday's 116th Edition Is Brought to You By Michael Caine

Be like a duck, my mother used to tell me. Remain calm on the surface and paddle like hell underneath.

— Michael Caine

This Five Star Friday roundup is brought to you by a dress, divorce, ladybugs, shoes, an explosion, real beauty, post partum depression, being absent, life blogging, making a family, in flight insanity, the internet, censorship, and assumptions about the way technology works.

Please paste urls to your own good weblog writing in the comments and share it with us.

Happy Friday!

"I Have a Funeral Dress" from Fever:

You don't cry in church? I do. You should. Churches are so full of despair and sadness and lost souls and desperation and loneliness and helplessness and terrible heavy-hearted remnants of people who weren't sure where else to go. And they are also full of hope. That's why I cry. Plus no one thinks you are crazy. They think you are wonderfully spiritual and in possession of a direct line with God. They bow an apology while they leave you to be. It's quite refreshing.

"They Were Strangers to You" from Oh, the Joys

"From Forever to the Sea" from Honea Express

"After the Explosion" from B. Hockey J.:

After the explosion it’s quiet for awhile. More quiet than that. Everything holds its breath. The furniture. The books on their shelves. The photographs hanging on the walls. None of them move. Well. I suppose they never move, but now they move less. Everything holds its breath.

"Judged: Sisterhood of the Traveling Louboutins" from Califmom

"A Rose has the Beauty of a Rose because It's Never Watched a Gardening Show" from Serendipity

"Giving PPD a Face, a Name, a Story" from Issa's Crazy World:

I can’t write to the science of Postpartum Depression. I am not a scientist. I can’t write about the chemicals in your brain when you have it. I am not a chemist. I can’t tell you what a shrink would say. I am not a shrink. I can not tell you about anyone else’s PPD or how they should deal with it.

What I can tell you, is about me. My story. How postpartum depression changed my life. That I can tell you.

"And In the Dark... I Tried to Find the Sun" from Dysfunction Junction

"Why I Do What I Do" from Mommy Wants Vodka

"Pregnant" from Is There Any Mommy Out There?:

Mystical thinking doesn't appeal to me. I'm a realist. A science geek. A facts girl. But mystery enhances life. I can accept that there is "science" I can't comprehend. Powers of the mind I can't fathom. Intuition. Foresight. Are these just a mystic's words for the secret language of hormones, whispered to synapses and sheaths and neurons in the brain? It isn't all that removed from the shaman chanting in the night. Merely renamed.

"Long Live the Crazies!!!" from Jenny Simmons

"An Elephant Never Forgets" from Outing My Inner Geek by Wendy Peters

"More Obscenities" from Kate Hansen Art's The Artful Mother:

The dumbing down process involves removing any material deemed "offensive," a rather obscure definition which seems to mean anything that doesn't fit facebook's standards of mainstream, bland culture. Material such as women breastfeeding, women giving birth, and gay sexuality are removed, because they do not follow the heterosexual/male culture which we're accustomed to seeing. Big bosoms in bikinis= fine, woman giving birth = offensive seems to be the formula. What bothers me about this formula is that we have become so accustomed to seeing everything through this hetero-male lens that we are pretty ready to accept these censorships as "just the way things are," really without questioning their motives.

"What's Wrong With 'X Is Dead'" by Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic

"1 Min Reading: Killing Our Dreams" from Paulo Coelho's Blog

Please come back and share good writing with us over the coming week to be featured on the next Five Star Friday. If you have read a really good piece on someone else's weblog, submit it by Thursday at midnight CST to have it featured on Five Star Friday.

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Comments

[califmom]

Wow! Thank you for including me this week.

[Aunt Becky]

Thank you so freaking much for including me. I will now commence drinking to YOU.

[Dysfunction Junction]

I am totally blown away. Thank you so much for including me in this week's edition!!

HOLY CRAP

[Kate Hansen]

Thank you so much for including me in your line up. I went through these and read them all and I am SO honoured to be included with such wonderful writers.

[Whit]

Thanks to you and whatever crazy person nominated me!

Great stuff this week (as always)!

[Nance]

B Hockey J's post had the blogosphere stumbling over its mouse to get to the comments form. He was already on the map; now he's his own municipality. Smart choice.