Five Star Friday's 117th Edition Is Brought to You By Mel Brooks

Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him.

     — Mel Brooks

This Five Star Friday roundup is brought to you by firsts, divorce, letting go, the Dukes of Hazzard, ancestry, life lessons, running, teenagers, more running, cancer, a birthday, coffee and donuts, an irritating yoga class, respite, PPD, life unexpected, rape, and the darker side of ADD.

If you would like to share your own good weblog writing in the comments, we'd love to see it.

Happy Friday!

"Firsts" from Mr London Street:

And I remember lying there afterwards, in that single bed, when I was young enough to think that sharing a single bed with a woman was a luxury and not a form of torture, and wondering what I was missing about the whole thing. The suburban Parisian night breathed impatiently outside through the open window, as if it too felt cheated by how little had really transpired within. But never mind; I could always say I’d finally done it and best of all I could say I’d done it abroad, which at the time held some sort of glamorous appeal. It may have been a drab reality just like my house back home, but it was a French drab reality, and that made it all better.

"Just'a Good Old Boy" from Origami Hour With Henry Silva

"Flying Pacifiers" from ShaunaGlenn.com

"Taking Care" from sweet juniper!:

Think about it. You are standing on the shoulders of thousands. Immense have been the preparations for you. Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd you. An immigrant bricklayer. A homesteading widow. A long line of hard-working farmers. Schoolteachers. Shopkeepers. Fearful refugees. Persecuted Huguenots. Soldiers who survived wars and soldiers who did not. A devout carpenter. A thrifty newsboy. An auto-body man. Hordes of Vikings. A famous inventor. A murdered Sheriff. Adoptive uncles. An engineer. A golfing postman. A cinnamon merchant. Bakers. Fishermen. Daughters of the American Revolution. Revolutionaries. Highlanders. Low country peasants. Irish Catholics. Prussian seamstresses. Pennsylvanians. Metalworkers. Midshipmen. Deer hunters. Berry gatherers. Drovers. Ancient chieftains. Common slaves. And yes: at least two lawyers. They all dreamed about you.

All of them survivors. All of them surviving, to this day, in you.

You are the direct result of many millions of tiny miracles, an endless stream of fortune good enough to bring you out into the sun. What incredible people you are, already.

"I Was Told Javier Bardem Would Be Here" from When The Flames Go Up

"Lessons to Teach My Sisters" from The (Not So) Small Things

"The Bridge" from Anna Maria Horner:

I'm not sure what I was expecting. Taking her to school. I should have guessed what would have drummed up inside me ready to spill everywhere, leaving a trail of years and memories between here and Brooklyn. But I didn't see it coming, not all of it. I am very used to living in the present, but was shot out of a canon to the past. So many times over this past summer. Just shot towards her birth and the beginnings of all of us, the beginnings of Jeff and me. But being hurled past it in a rush of memories it is so hard to see it all the way you saw it then. You think it will last forever, and some days even wish away the difficult parts. Humans just don't know the blur it will become. I believe this to be by design. Inherent in our making. We couldn't handle the frailty of ourselves walking around, if we knew how fast.

"Obsession" from Jodifur

"The Significance of Today" from Wicked Girls Think It, Do You?

"I Still Remember Running" from Health, Interrupted:

I've heard that people who lose limbs still have occasional phantom sensations: an itch, a twinge of pain, the sense of hot or cold. Running is my phantom sensation. When I face the window and close my eyes tightly, I can still feel it. I can feel the miracle of my nerves making my muscles contract when I want them to, and feel the impact of the ground beneath my feet. When I open my eyes this memory knocks the breath out of me, and it's all I can do to remind myself, in a totally different context, that I can do this and I will do this. But there are no words: it is so damn hard.

"A Birthday Card of Sorts" from The Joy Circus

"Catching Up" from No Points For Style

"In Which I Address the Participants of my Monday Night Hatha Yoga Class" from Typical Type 1:

So if you’ll all excuse me, I need to be going. I don’t think I’ve ever left a yoga class this much angrier than I was when I arrived, and I really hope it never happens again. To you five or six relatively normal people I see every week, I’m looking forward to setting my mat down next to yours next Monday. To everyone else, I’m begging: keep your shirts on, take more showers, learn to exhale without moaning, and never, ever do anything with your sphincters in public unless it’s solely your choice.

Namaste, bitches — I’ve got a decent-smelling husband and an Amy’s Margherita Pizza waiting for me at home.

"No Free Donuts" from Issa's Crazy World

"Darkness Falls Across the Land" from The Feminist Breeder

"A Supposedly Fun Thing I Would Do Again in a Second" from Caissie's Thing:

By the time I got to E., he was in a hospital bed with a professional watcher sitting outside his door paging through a fucking gossip magazine like the world was still right side-up. A nurse came in and quietly reprimanded her for not removing his wastebasket. He looked hollow and humiliated and small. People always say someone looks small in a hospital bed, because they’ve been somehow reduced by their sickness. My boy looked small because he was ten years old.

"Araki San" from Cafe Yamashita

Trigger warning: this article discusses rape and addresses rape jokes –
" Actually Breaking It Down: Penny Arcade's Rape Comic" by Denis Farr at The Border House

"The Closest Thing I Have to a St. Christopher Medallion" from Whoopee:

Before I go to bed in a minute, I'm going to go back in there and whisper big hairy bumholes. in his ear, because the Universe cannot possibly take him from me, knowing those were the last words I ever said to him.

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

[jodifur]

Oh wow, I'm honored and thrilled to be included in this list.

[Headless Mom]

Thanks to whomever sent Jodifur's post in. It is excellent!

[TheFeministBreeder]

Thank you so much for including me.

[Jennie]

I really love Five Star Friday and finding new writers to read. Thanks :)

[Kate Hansen]

"Firsts" by Mr. London Street is the best bit of writing I've read online YET pretty much. Good job!

[philip]

just found this site - good work - thank you
Philip