Five Star Friday's 134th Edition Is Brought to You By Flann O'Brien

This Five Star Friday roundup is brought to you by an abusive parent, grief, potty training, volcanoes, mental illness, Joan of Arc, a calendar, marriage, the domestic trenches, sweetness, a deeply lacking mental health system, fat talk, frustration, productivity, and Flann O'Brien:

Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression. I reflected on the subject of my spare-time literary activities. One beginning and one ending for a book was a thing I did not agree with.

     — Flann O'Brien

If you'd like to share your own excellent writing, leave urls in the comments and spread the good reading.

Happy Friday!

"January 7th" from Whiskey In My Sippy Cup:

The barometric pressure is dropping all around you. There isn't enough air in this room for the both of you. One of you isn't going to make it out of here whole.

And one of us didn't.

"Wednesdays On Writing: The Enemy" from Planting Dandelions

"Unmoored" from EarnestGirl: WestCoast Chronicles

"Running Toward the Gunshots: A Few Words About Joan of Arc" from Tiger Beatdown:

But what a lot of people don't realize — what I didn't realize, until I read up on it — is that they didn't actually kill her for heresy. Her answers, when they tried to trip her up and make her say or confess something heretical, were typically-yet-shockingly smart and charismatic and convincing; she did so well, and won so many people over, that they had to stop questioning her in front of an audience. What they killed her for was cross-dressing.

"3/365" from Tatyanna's Hope

"Fearless Creativity" by daniellexo at Etsy Blog

"A Marriage" from The Middle Ages:

Today I am celebrating my anniversary without my husband who is physically three thousand miles away, but emotionally tucked right into the heart of me. Right now I am sitting in the palliative care ward of Princess Margaret hospital in Toronto on this the second day of a loving vigil. I am here because of my darling friend Sheila and her wonderful husband Pete. Pete we are told, is in the last days of his life and the panic to grasp it is welling up in my already full heart.

"This One Is For All the Single Ladies" from Ministry So Fabulous!

"Back In Plato's Bullshit Cave Again" from I, Asshole

"Do Unto Others" from No Points for Style:

In the shrill conversation that's ensued since Jared Lee Loughner opened fire, we've heard again and again, "How could this happen?" How do we, who are living at the whims of the mental health care system, get the point across that this is typical. People who need care, especially the most desperate, don't get it. The difference here is that Jared Lee Loughner didn't just hurt himself and his family; he hurt strangers, "normal: people, "innocent" people.

I'm having a hard time with the fact that the death of "normal" people is what it took to get this issue onto the public agenda.

"Natural Disaster" from Ordinary Art

"Note to Self" from Leviathan Amours

"Fats Out of the Bag & Post Edit" from C. Jane Enjoy It:

I heard a voice say, "So what if you're fat?"

And I thought about it. Fat has always been so scary to me. The word, the way it flings out of the mouth when you say it, the way it sticks when it lands. FAT. The Devil's own word to sum up everything that isn't right. I am fat has a thousand meanings, the least being unhealthy, the most being unimportant. I have lived in fear of fat for so long, it eats me furious and terribly and leaves me heavier than any number on the scale.

But here was a thought, holding up a mirror to say, here's fat. So what?

"What I Believe to Be the Real Tragedy" from Journey to Blissville

"The Top 5 New Rules of Productivity" from Chief Happiness Officer

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Comments

[Kyran]

Thanks for including my post in Five Star Friday! Always an honor.

[Barbara@TheMiddleAges]

Thanks for linking this post, schmutzie! Since I didn't write it (it was my writing partner), I can say that I honestly think it's one of our best posts ever! mwah.

[TJ]

A huge thanks for pointing me to Whiskey In My Sippy Cup--naked, pained, beautiful.

[Abigail]

Aw, thanks so much for including my little two-sentence post. :)