Five Star Friday's 232nd Edition Is Brought to You By Junot Diaz

This week's Five Star Friday is brought to you by a failure who can't stop winning, a child of gay parents, the war between shame and empathy, a past that lives in the present, enjoying your own successes, racism and patriarchy, a fight for real democracy, getting sober, discovering where happiness lies, and Junot Diaz:


photo credit: Christopher Peterson

A writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view, a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.

     — Junot Diaz, O Magazine, November 2009

Happy Friday!

"Failed Derby Girl" by Eden Riley at Edenland:

Failed Derby Girl shares the secrets of the mothers of the superheroes, the givers of milk.

There's more to everything, and worlds within worlds.

"The Children of Gays... Exist" by Maggie Wells at Tales of Sierra Madre:

While all are entitled to their opinions, no one is entitled to say I'm not a person. Or that I’m not a decent person. No one is entitled to lie and make shit up just to suit his fears.

"Public Shaming Is a Better Example of "If it feels good - do it" Than Teen Pregnancy" by Brené Brown at BreneBrown.com:

Shame diminishes our capacity for empathy.

Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.

You can’t depend on empathetic connection to make a campaign effective, then crush the needed empathy with shame.

"Protect the Airway" by Tanis Miller at TanisMiller.com:

For years, since my son died suddenly and unexplainably in the middle of the night, I have told anyone and myself I wasn't afraid of dying because I'd already lived through hell.

Turns out, when it's 3:35 am and I can't breathe, I'm damn scared of dying.

"The Crime of Outshining" by Andrea Scher at Superhero Life:

Sometimes we have to do a big re-wiring job on our brains. We have to first notice those limiting beliefs — the ones that hold us back from being our true selves, our deepest selves + our shiniest selves. And then we have to say, No more! That belief no longer serves me. It no longer keeps me safe, it actually keeps me down.

"Patriarchy and Racism Give Birth to Rape Culture, Not a Drunk Woman or Her Miniskirt" by Sandhu Bhamra at SandhuBhamra.com:

We keep shifting our framework of understanding rape culture — first to women for being drunk, or skimpily dressed or being out at night, then to a specific culture and if all else fails, to the security system of a nation. I am not saying nations are not responsible for the safety of their women (and men). They need to make tough legislation and more importantly, find ways to stringently implement the law. But we need to expand and correct the framework as well, as there is an inherent danger in understanding rape in the framework of culture and nationality rather than the actual reasons of maintaining a patriarchal order and plain discrimination resulting from racism.

"Marriage Equality: I Can’t Be Switzerland Anymore" by Robin O'Bryant at Robin's Chicks:

We need to remind ourselves that this issue isn’t being put before the church. It’s being put before the Supreme Court and I, for one, am thankful that our country was founded in a way that how someone else feels or believes, doesn’t affect my right to live my life the way I choose.

"Does This Sobriety Make My Butt Look Big?" by Leslie Marinelli at In the Powder Room:

From my first glass at age thirteen, alcohol helped me feel more comfortable in my own skin. Being a little numb helped me fit in and feel less awkward and insecure.

But alcoholism is a progressive, insidious disease.

"Is Happiness a Thing" by Hannah Curious at The Ideal Wife Giveaway:

Like the faithful who believe happiness lies in the divine delivery of some miracle or other, objectifying happiness has made time-traveling automatons out of most of us. Depending on our bank balance, we either live in a past when we had stuff or in a future when we will, negating the present and all the mindfulness, contentment and gratitude that would probably come with it if only we stopped wanting for just a moment.

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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Five Star Friday's 231st Edition Is Brought to You By Kurt Vonnegut

This week's Five Star Friday is brought to you by the love of a father, teaching our sons not to rape, losing a mother, defining women as people and not possessions, a career change, a discussion of what makes up rape culture, American Exceptionalism, and Kurt Vonnegut:


photo credit: davitydave

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

     — Kurt Vonnegut

Happy Friday!

"My Father’s Horniness" by Dax Shepard at Don't Try:

On my last trip home, just before Christmas, I took him on his final jailbreak. I threw him in a wheelchair and rolled him through 20 degree weather to his favorite restaurant, where I watched him pick at his waffles and bacon. He couldn't have had more than four bites over the course of an hour. It was a very clear signal to me that the end was near. I took him, for the last time, to his house. I gave him his percocet and sat him in front of the TV. He held the remote in his right hand like a six-shooter, splitting his attention between the TV, the view of the lake through the sliding glass door, and me. It was wonderful. We sat that way for over three hours.

"A Letter to My Sons About Stopping Rape" by Magda Pecsenye at Ask Moxie:

We have been practicing for this for a long time, for being the ones who help. Remember when we were in the middle of the knife fight on the subway and we got the other mom and kid out of the way? Remember when we helped my friend move away from her scary husband? Remember all those times we took pictures of those freaky dudes staring at the little kids at the playground? We've been practicing to step in and help someone else. You can do it. I have faith in you.

"One Thousand Goodbyes" by Leslie Fandrich at LeslieFandrich.com:

My kids said goodbye just the same way they did every other day and I didn’t emphasize to them that it was the last one. I know the significance though, and my heart breaks at the thought that they won't get to spend time with her again. I was happy that just before we left, the kids sat quietly in chairs next to her bed and talked with her more calmly than they had all week. Maybe they did know, in [their] own way, after all. In the car, after we left, Chris said, “So, is that it?” and for him, it was.

"I Am Not Your Wife, Sister or Daughter. I Am A Person." by Anne Thériault at The Belle Jar:

This device, which Obama has used on more than one occasion, is reductive as hell. It defines women by their relationships to other people, rather than as people themselves. It says that women are only important when they are married to, have given birth to, or have been fathered by other people. It says that women are only important because of who they belong to.

"Why I Left News" by Allyson Bird at Sticky Valentines:

The flip side to the excitement is the burnout. You're exhausted, and you’re never really "off." You get called out of a sound sleep to drive out to a crime scene and try to talk with surviving relatives. You wake up at 3 a.m. in a cold sweat, realizing you've misspelled a city councilman's name. You spend nights and weekends chipping away at the enterprise stories that you never have time to write on the clock.

Everyone works so hard for so long and for such little compensation. The results are dangerous.

"So You're Tired of Hearing About "Rape Culture"?" by Lauren Nelson at Rage Against the Random:

Someone asked me today, "What is 'rape culture' anyway? I'm tired of hearing about it."

Yeah, I hear ya. I'm tired of talking about it. But I'm going to keep talking about it because people like you keep asking that question.

"The Retro Husband" by Ruth Fowler at The World Breaks Everyone:

The fastest growing religious movement in the United States is American Exceptionalism. It's easy to see the appeal. The belief that a country founded on Imperialism, Racism, Slavery and Civil War is actually the greatest democratic country on earth and given Divine Right to be so, that America has absolutely no responsibility to history, and thus has no obligation to address deep inequality, is an alluring one.

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.

And because you are a fan of finding good new writing on the internet:

• Subscribe — Subscribe to this website to keep up with us every week.
• Show your pride — Take one of our badges for your website and spread the word.

Five Star Friday's 230th Edition Is Brought to You By Elizabeth Madox Roberts

This week's Five Star Friday is brought to you by a lesson in etiquette, travelling in the footsteps of great explorers, learning to feel love and gratitude, the joys of blending breakfast, an incredibly important PSA about what constitutes a bullshit writing contract, new loves, being a grownup at mommy-and-me classes, the lack of proper health care for mental illness, the relief of mom guilt, learning to nurture, and Elizabeth Madox Roberts:

Does the devil know he is a devil?

     — Elizabeth Madox Roberts

Happy Friday!

"Tips for Having a Conversation with a Persion with a Visible Difference or Disability" from Tune In to Radio Carly:

Disability and visible difference can be confronting because people are not used to seeing and experiencing relationships with disabled and visibly different people. They see visible difference and disability in the media and assume hero status, or a life to be pitied (like in those awful Facebook one like = one prayer memes), or worse — a villain status (think Harvey Dent's disfigurement in The Dark Knight). And too often, people without disabilities are playing characters with disabilities — 'spacking up' as Stella Young puts it. (Just writing that term has put the Fleetwood Mac song You Can Go Your Own Way in my head forever.) We just don't see enough real disabilities and visible differences (without scar makeup, I mean) in the media, so there's no fair representation of disability in society.

"Seven" from Nerd's Eye View:

I am much luckier to be born curious and to a somewhat open globe, a time when the infrastructure exists in such a way that I can stand looking at Charcot’s badly chosen anchorage and a week or so later, sit on my couch in Seattle writing about it.

"The Deep Spiritual Practice Of Not Giving A Sh*t" from Body Love Wellness:

You’ve been taught that if someone thinks you’re too fat, or too loud, or too smart, or too dumb, or too whatever, or not enough whatever, that they get to have a say in how you feel about yourself.

So I’d like to introduce you to the deep spiritual practice of

Not Giving A Shit.

"The Disturbance In the Force Martha Stewart Feels Every Day Is Just Me Waking Up" from MeanLouise.com:

This morning I decided to make a green tea fruit smoothie because I had a large quantity of frozen fruit. This is not rocket surgery. You put fruit, green tea, honey and lime juice in a blender. Then you paint the ceiling with the smoothie when you accidentally turn the blender back on after Husband removes the lid.

"A Contract from Alibi" from Whatever:

I want to be clear: I can say, without reservation, that this is the worst book contract I have ever personally encountered. Not only would I never sign it — which should be obvious at this point — I can't imagine why anyone whose forebrain has not been staved in by an errant bowling ball would ever sign it. Indeed, if my worst enemy in the world was presented with it and had a pen poised to scratch his signature on it, I would smack the pen out of his hand and say to him, "I hate you, but I don't hate you this much."

"I've Never Been Wrong About That Feeling" by Elis Bradshaw at Cowbird:

Now I've made my way back onto land and we're tumbling down the rabbit hole of new relationships, marveling at the little things we never knew to miss. A hand extended, breakfast left warming in the oven, an accidental integration of lives.

"When Parenting Starts to Feel Like Junior High" by Jordana Horn at Raising Kvell:

There’s music class again this week. And lady, I'm going to say hi, like it or not. And I'm going to smile. And I'm going to be friendly.

And if you don’t say hi back, I’m not going to think about punching you in the face and it’s all going to be okay.

"A Dislocation of Mind" from No Points for Style:

I sure am glad the doctor who "treated" my daughter the other night got to protect his ethics. Now how about we get busy protecting people’s lives? How about we talk about systemic ethics? How about we talk about treating suffering that originates in the brain the same way we treat suffering that originates in the heart, the liver, and the bones?

"It's Okay to Ignore Your Children and Read This" from Suburban Snapshots:

Moms, the kids are all right. It's the people trying to convince us otherwise who are in desperate need of attention.

"Remake" from What We're Doing While We're Here:

I was surprised to realize I had forgotten about myself. In a way it's good to know that I can step up and nurture if needed. In another way it’s scary that I could morph so quickly into someone for whom self-care becomes news. If I was a nurse I would be the chain-smoking, tequila-drinking kind. The pill-popping kind who is fine, fine, until she isn't. What happened?

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.

And because you are a fan of finding good new writing on the internet:

• Subscribe — Subscribe to this website to keep up with us every week.
• Show your pride — Take one of our badges for your website and spread the word.