Five Star Friday's 115th Edition Is Brought to You By Douglas Adams

A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about.

     — excerpt from Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams

This Five Star Friday roundup is brought to you by the atomic bomb, medical high jinx, a changed relationship, Craigslist, a negative work environment, social anxiety, speech therapy, dreaming, Mumbai, a dog, bike theft, rape, BlogHer, Momsie, feminism, and a childhood remembered.

Paste urls to your own good weblog writing in the comments. Don't be shy!

Happy Friday!

"The Fourth Dog" from Breed 'Em and Weep:

"I saw her, and I thought of you immediately," Nanette wrote. "Let me know if I should pull her." The photo attached was, of course, Fanny (who was initially called "Chippie" by the intake staff). She was terrified and cowering against the painted cinderblock backdrop of the Brooklyn Center for Animal Care and Control. Something vaguely collie-ish, yes, but the soul in those eyes is what got me. I began to cry, looking at the fear and the bewilderment there, in that face.

And she looked like a mix of Ferf and Nina and Eli genes. She was a dirty, grimy, broken mix of something very familiar, and very beautiful.

"That's my girl," I said before I knew I was saying it. "That's my girl."

Yes, I wrote. Yes. I could not have said no.

"Peace Festival" from Theresaurus

"Alone In a Crowd" from Miss Britt

"The Gift of Voice" from In These Small Moments:

Over the past 18 months, Lyndsey has become a part of our family. She is the person who knows Katie best aside from us. She is the one that I turn to who I know will understand the way I feel about this child. She feels it too.

"All Wand, No Magic" from Not Undecided

"Syncretic Shrines – II" from Wayfarers and Pathfinders

"Intira" from Mr London Street:

This isn’t about false sentiment. Intira wasn’t a nice woman and she and I would never have been friends, that would have been unthinkable. If I close my eyes and ignore the television blaring in the corner, I can almost still hear her barking incomprehensibly down the phone at someone, or cross-examining me with suspicion when I asked her whether she wanted something from the coffee machine. But sitting here now, with the benefit of nearly fifteen years of hindsight, I can’t help but find it a little sad that I wasted all that time back then ridiculing probably the only person in that whole office who fitted in even less than me.

"OK" from ShaunaGlenn.com

"My Dream, Our Dream" from My Tornado Alley

Trigger warning – this is a story of rape –
"UnSilenced" from Life On a Tightrope:

I didn’t say a word, just slipped through the window to safety.

Twenty years have passed.

Twenty. Years.

I have been silent for long enough.

"Massage This" from Dirty Hooker

"Justice In Brooklyn" from Whatever-Whenever

"Unsolicited" from Not Really:

I didn’t lean against the wall waiting for the right people to talk to me. I don’t even know who the right people are. The right people were the ones who stood and engaged with me about whatever fucking subject it was for however fucking long the conversation worked. And I’m sorry, truly sorry, if you didn’t find those people. They were there. They were everywhere. Wonderful, interesting, kick-ass women with valuable stories who were looking for you to get outside your own head, to get the fuck over yourself, and talk to them.

"I's the B'y That Catches the Fish" from cribchronicles.com

"Where Did Women Folk Get the Idea That Writing About Their Lives Might Be Interesting?" by Catherine Lacey at HTMLGIANT

"The Last Deposit" from Mom-101:

Funny how sometimes you feel the absence of a person more than you can feel a presence. It's like physics f*cking with you. A universal practical joke.

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 114th Edition Is Brought to You By E. M. Forster

How do I know what I think until I see what I say?

     — E.M. Forster

This Five Star Friday roundup is brought to you by sluttiness, busybodies, a lost cat, an anniversary, murder, Gmail, high art, positive thinking, bullying, a poem, forgiveness, anxiety, unintentional sexual innuendo, a funeral, a son, a third child, a pitch at a baseball game, specialness, homelessness, race and feminism, and Maureen Dowd.

Please feel free to share urls to your own weblog writing in the comments, because more good reading is good.

Happy Friday!

"My Sluthood, Myself." by Jaclyn at Feministe:

...sluthood saved me. Sluthood gave me the time and space to nurse a shattered heart. It gave me a place where I could exist in pieces, some of me craving touch, some of me still too tender to even expose to the light. Sluthood healed the part of me that felt my body and my desires were grotesque after two years in a libido-mismatched partnership. Now I felt hot, wanted, powerful. My desire and enthusiasm was an asset, not an unintended weapon. Even now, with more time passed, now, when I am actually ready for and wanting a more emotional connection, sluthood keeps me centered. It keeps me from confusing desire and affection with something deeper. It means I have another choice besides celibacy and settling. It means I won’t enter another committed relationship just to satisfy my basic need for sex and affection. It gives me more choices, it makes room for relationships to evolve organically, to take the shape they will before anyone defines them.

"Yeah, that's not what I was looking for at all" from 27b/6

"Disposable People" from No Points For Style

"Today Would Have Been Our Anniversary" from Beregond's Bar:

I’m not an easy man to live with. I’m not going to catalog my faults; I’m far more comfortable pretending I have enough virtues to offset them. But in the moments when I’m honest with myself I seriously doubt it. But she not only put up with me, but more. She loved me. It was either insanity or a miracle from God. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. The whole nine yards.

"An Open Letter to all Busybodies, Fussbudgets, Nosy Know-it-alls, Middle-aged Meddlers, Presumptuous Prattlers, and Impertinent Grannies" from sweet juniper!

"Mind Your Own Business, Gmail!" from Nanny Goats in Panties

"Forgiveness" from The Accidental Olympian:

The words I had told my friend, the reassurance, the positive outlook, the loving encouragement and reminders of her self worth were all things I have never once given myself.

Through my unemployment battle and subsequent year of employment striving to turn my position into the role it is today, I never once stepped in and told myself the hardships hadn't been my fault. I never let myself off the hook, told that scared girl inside that it would be ok, reminded myself that I truly was doing all I could, I never once pointed out to myself that I was actually making the best out of a horrible situation, and I never let myself accept the idea that I was doing everything I humanly could to survive.

The very words of encouragement and love that poured so easily out of my mouth for another had been impossible for me to give myself.

"The Disaster That Is Art, Part II" from We Are Amused

"Positive Superstition" from Gayleen Froese

"As Promised" from 2birds1blog:

Now, what I meant to say to him at this point was, "Yeah. These [meaning the wider envelopes with the opening along the long side] won't work because you need the hand jab thingy at the top. [Makes jabbing motion in the air like you're sliding your hand into a bag thateggrolls come in when you get chinese]"

However, what I actually said was: "Yeah. These won't work. You need a hand job. [Repetitively jabs hand in the air, back and forth.]

YOU NEED. A. HAND. JOB.

"Amanda's Attempt to Entertain Us this Month – Bullying" by Amanda at Birmingham Mommy

"Attempt 51" from scotch & cherry pie

"Singular, Multiplied" from Whiskey In My Sippy Cup:

She moves uninterrupted in front of the tv screen, around the laundry basket, beside the couch, dancing to her own rhythm in a space that has opened up for her. No one is telling her to ohmygodmoveyouareblockingthemovie, no one is snatching the toys out of her hand because they're not hers, no one is doing anything and she is wallowing in the silence. Her brothers have gone on vacation with their grandmother, and for the first time in her life, she isn't the third child…she is the only child.

"My mental disorder is named Joyce" by jenniefromthe603 at skirt!

"My Soul Speaks" by Paige Johnson at My Tornado Alley

"In Need of the Heimlich Manoeuvre" from Yarn Harlot:

It was at this point in the story that I took leave of my actual senses. Too many things had changed. I wasn't throwing 9m, I wasn't throwing to the mascot, I couldn't hear myself think because of the sound that panic makes in your head, and I... well. I don't know what happened next. There's a gap in my recollection. I know what didn't happen. I didn't run the checklist. I didn't hold the ball tightly, I didn't make a circle with the top cut off. I may have taken two steps, I may have taken twelve. I don't know. I definitely didn't release with my fingers pointing at him. I didn't do any of it. The world went black, everything I thought I knew checked out, and all I saw was 15 000 people and one pitcher and huge blue furry bird and I thought something along the lines of "this was a big mistake" and then... then. Oh then.

"I came here without a real plan" from Alphabet Junkie

"If Everyone’s Inherently Special, Then Aren’t We All the Same or Something?" from The Subtle Rudder

"Why I Am a Feminist, And Why I Will Shout It Loudly Into the Ears of Anyone That Will Listen" from Knotty Yarn:

White American women still hold a certain amount of power, whether they choose to exercise it or not. They are still the standard by which most of the modern world defines beauty. They are still at the center of the standard by which most of America bases their family models. Hearing a privileged, white, college-educated woman say that they are not a feminist is like hearing Prince Charles complain about which thoroughbred horse he should ride today: It stinks of the wealth of advantage.

"Why I Gave a Homeless Man $5 Today" from Chubby Mommy Running Club

"Not Enough" from No Pasa Nada

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 113th Edition Is Brought to You By John Gardner

The writer who cares more about words than about story – characters, action, setting, atmosphere – is unlikely to create a vivid and continuous dream; he gets in his own way too much; in his poetic drunkenness, he can't tell the cart – and its cargo – from the horse.

     — John Gardner

This Five Star Friday roundup is brought to you by artists and their works, blank paper, little moments, and more small moments, a nemesis, ageing, the future, Inception, wrongness, a mid-life crisis, BlogHer, heartbreak, seizures, and child molestation.

Share urls to your own good writing in the comments. For reals. We really like it when you do.

Happy Friday!

"The Big Questions: Should artists' lives or opinions affect how people perceive their art?" by Tasha Robinson at The A.V. Club:

Ultimately, if the art has value, if it speaks to people in anything but an ephemeral, of-its-immediate-era sort of way, it will likely be around longer than the artist will. It will reach more people than the artist’s interviews or personal life. And eventually, it’ll have to stand on its own. Irritating hiccups like George Lucas “enhancing” the original Star Warstrilogy aside, the artist changes over time, but the artwork stays the same, and part of its value comes out in whether it speaks to people outside its immediate era, and whether it outlasts the creator’s own commentary.

"Mixed Emotions" from 10% Fiction

"Moments. The Ones That Keep You Going." from Where Am I Going... And Why Am I In This Handbasket?

"My Enemy, Myself" from Wendi Aarons:

Ever since junior high, I’ve fantasized about having a sparring partner—the Alexis to my Krystle, if you will. And over the years, I’ve searched long and hard for someone with whom I can trade witty, pointed barbs. For someone who’ll make my blood boil until I smash my scotch glass against the wall of my luxurious alpine chateau. For someone who’ll spend countless hours plotting my downfall only to ultimately realize that my life force is just too strong and therefore her only option is to sell her mink stoles on Craigslist and move to a double-wide in Skokie, Illinois where her dead body will later be found by an unsuspecting Census taker with a sensitive sense of smell.

Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

"Points" from Words... Thoughts... Nonsense...

"Still Mine" from My Tornado Alley

"Inception Is Not Particularly Good, So Go See It" by Palinode at MamaPop:

Go see Inception, because it’s the first original action thriller I can remember in years. Because it’s not in 3D. Because the actors make a meal out of thin gruel. Go and make up your mind, because even flawed films like this are better another Chipmunks sequel. I believe that Nolan has better films than Inception in his future, and I will keep putting money down until he gets there.

"The Future" from The Aftermath of Rainbows and Unicorns

"Insane and Rising" from LaurieWrites

"I Give Up" from Fussy:

Mid-life crises are a tawdry cliche, and being in your forties means different things to different people. But it seems like a common thread that pierces everyone’s heart eventually is when you finally start to grasp the inevitability of your own demise.

" 2010 Blogher Conference FAQ: NYC edition" from Mom-101

"For Jessica" from Finding Your Voice

"At the Red Light" from cribchronicles.com:

my hands, though, flapped against the steering wheel uncertainly. i felt frozen, as if i’d stumbled upon someone masturbating, or taking a dump: some animal activity we are civilized into pretending none of us engage in. verboten!! my eyes screamed at me, and averted themselves. then i looked back. i could not stop looking. her open mouth – soundless but for the background noise of my local morning radio show – reminded me of my children’s faces, slack and gaping in their sleep.

"Ignore" from Caissie's Thing

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.