Category Archives: Uncategorised

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, essays, short stories, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

A Winter’s Walk via LoraHughes7. This is one of those links that works best if you don’t know anything about it when you start reading.

If We Run and They Kill Us, So Be It. But We Have to Run Now. True stories from some of the girls who were captured by Boko Haram and escaped.

Romance Endings and Compulsory Monogamy – Is There Room for Something New? via lavinia_collins. One of the reasons why I refused to read romance novels for so many years is that I find the “which person should I pick?” trope incredibly irritating. It would be really cool to read more books that allow the protagonist to pick both (or neither!) of their love interests.

Why Kids Don’t Need a Mommy and a Daddy via Hans_Hirschi. To piggyback on the above link, I once read a science fiction novel about a society where every child had three parents. Babies were grown in artificial incubators and then two of their three parents were given injections to make them lactate. (The gender of the lactating parents didn’t matter. Anyone could do it). The parents weren’t romantically involved with one another. All they focused on was raising the child together. I still have no desire to be a mom, but this sort of arrangement makes a lot more sense to me than expecting just one or two people to take on such a huge job.

Why I Am Not a Maker. This is really good stuff.

From Foreknowledge:

I stare out over my pregnant belly, feeling awkward. Feeling irritable. “Why wouldn’t I want to know?”

“Some parents don’t want to know,” Dr. Anders says. “And we respect that.”

“It’s right there on your clipboard, right?” I point to the clipboard, and he holds it infinitesimally closer to his chest. As if he’s hiding the results from me.

“Yes,” Dr. Anders says. “Both the sex and cause of death of your unborn child are right here.”

Small: Life and Death on the Front Lines of Paediatric Surgery wasn’t exactly what I was expecting.

I assumed that the entire book would discuss the kinds of patients the author has seen over the years. While this was part of the plot, Ms. Musemeche also spent a great deal of time talking about how much medicine has changed over the years. There are many types of birth defects, injuries, and diseases that used to be certain death sentences.

This is slowly changing thanks to new treatments, better equipment, and more effective medicine. It makes me wonder what we’ll come up with next.

What have you been reading?

Here is this week’s list of blog posts and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Global Indicators Database. How does the rest of the world really view the U.S.? Click on this link to learn the answer to this question as well as to many more questions.

Dramatic Mouse. Sometimes I share thought-provoking, educational links on Suggestion Saturday, and sometimes I show you an adorably dramatic little mouse. 😉

Food Morality and Marketing via dietitianblog. There’s a lot of truth to this.

Marginalized. I’d do the same thing in this situation. Would you?

From Such a Hypocrite via swbigvoice:

In fact I have come to realise that, shocking as it is, I am not always right and I don’t always make the best decisions. Even more shocking is the fact that that this is OK.

From The Honeyed Siphon:

For most of its history, diabetes has been about piss, death, and shame. Especially piss. Things are marginally different now, because now the primary metrics and metaphors of diabetic life turn around blood. Blood as number or proportion. Blood as an occasion for sugar. Blood over the long term. Blood to be tested and slowly placed at the heart of all affect, like a concept. Blood that gets everywhere.

I’d recommend Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend to animals lovers and history buffs alike. It tells the true story of where Rin Tin Tin came from, how he got his name, and why he became such a famous dog beginning in the 1920s.

This isn’t a topic I’ve ever studied before. To be honest, I barely even knew who Rin Tin Tin was before picking up this book. Longterm readers know how much I like true animal stories, though, so it didn’t take long to convince me to give it a try.

If you are familiar with the original Rin Tin Tin’s life, I’d love to hear your opinion on this telling of it.

What have you been reading?

This is fascinating. It was well worth the 5 minutes of time I spent watching it.

Waiting or Earl to Die and other stories is finally officially available.

I’d like to thank Daphne Purpus and my husband, Drew, for reading early drafts of my stories. Their beta reading and proofreading skills were greatly appreciated.

This is so exciting.

I hope you all enjoy it.

Photo by Roger and Renate Rössing.

My old friend, Bruce, is having surgery today. He and his family are waiting to hear if some of his most recent health problems are caused by an incurable form of cancer or by something that could potentially be treated.

Everyone who knows him is waiting to hear what the doctors say as well.

I think it’s safe to say that most of us on this side of the globe are waiting for spring. We’re rapidly approaching the time of year when it feels as though winter will last for eternity.

There are other people I know who are waiting for things that only they have the right to discuss online. The list felt incomplete without mentioning this, but that’s all I’m going to say about it.

Overall, though, it feels like a lot of us are in standby mode. The clock is ticking, but it’s not yet time to stand up.

On a lighter note, I’m counting down the days until Waiting for Earl to Die and other stories is released. There are only two more to go.

What are you waiting for today?

Here is this week’s list of blog posts and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Why I am Raising My Child to be a Feminist and Why I think You Should Too via danarel. Readers who have raised or who are raising kids, I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this article. Did or are you consciously raising your kids to identify as [fill-in-the-blank]?

Bare Necessities via XplodingUnicorn. Ha!

If Only Once, If Only for a Little While. This is a tearjerker. I’ll leave it up to my readers to discover why.

In Transition to Independent Living, the “Dignity of Risk” for the Mentally Ill. I don’t actually think this is a good idea, but it was intriguing to see how a man living with a severe mental illness coped with his newfound independence.

Why I Blog About Mental Illness via ChristyBarongan.  A nice addendum to the link above.

From Ashes in My Pine Tree:

This morning my doorbell rang and I found an old woman on my porch who announced herself with the phrase “Good morning, I’m about to ask you the strangest question you’ll be asked all day.”

Just for the record, if you’re trying to spark my interest that intro is a pretty damn good way to do it.

She then proceeding to hold up a big ziploc baggie full of ashes and asked if I would mind if she laid her mother to rest in my front yard. Yes, you heard me right, she wanted to spread her dead mother’s ashes on my seldom mowed lawn.

I am a Bacha Posh: My Life as a Woman Living as a Man in Afghanistan was a heartbreaking read.

Sometimes girls living in Afghanistan assume a temporary male identity so they can work to support their families. Their hair is cut, their names and clothes are changed, and for a few years they are thought of as boys because girls in their culture have so little freedom.

The problem is that eventually they are forced into living with the same heavy restrictions that apply to all of the other women and girls. It’s incredibly difficult to transition from all of the freedom they experienced as children to having so many limitations placed upon them at puberty.

Some women fight back against it. This is the story of one woman who did just that. I think all of my readers will really enjoy it.

What have you been reading?

Source: Deutsche Fotothek.

I’m on a short Internet hiatus.

They say that if you tilt your screen at exactly the right angle, you might be able to see what these girls have spotted.

Let me know in the comment section what it is you think might be out there. I can sleep easily now that I know all of you have something to occupy your minds. 😛

As promised, here is the sneak peak of the cover for Waiting for Earl to Die and other stories.

The book will be out on January 28. I’ll share the purchase information next week!