LaurieWrites

Gustav

Update: I volunteered to edit the Animal Rescue page on Andy Carvin's Gustav wiki. Please e-mail me at laurie@lauriewrites.com or find me on Twitter at @lauriewrites with any news you see about the pets and animals left behind in Louisiana and Mississippi. Thanks.

Hurricane Gustav is shaping up to be a Category 5 storm.

First of all, please God may it spare New Orleans.

Second of all, lots of people are blogging about it, with preparation and preemptive relief efforts. Please visit them and find a way to help, if you can. Even if you don't think you can because you're far away or don't have the means, even writing about it is very, very important. If anything was learned from Katrina (and my ignorance at the time was great, but not so much in the years since) it's that silence is a fatal action in this case.

Katrina recovery was a major theme of the early part of the week at the DNC and I find the timing of the RNC quite apt. If the world pays more attention to this than that event in St. Paul, it'll be a good thing whether the storm hits or not. And if it does hit, the question must be asked of the administration that this candidate is trying valiantly to distance himself from: WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO DO DIFFERENTLY THIS TIME? And of the candidate, I might ask: What in the hell would YOU do?

Here are some links:
Gustav Resource Center (via @waynesutton on Twitter.)

Excellent headlines and updates from @jazzychad on Twitter.

Official government weather updates on Twitter: @GustavAlerts

Why We Have Pets

Crossposted from BlogHer.

This is my final post as BlogHer's pets contributing editor. I will be moving back to photography coverage, and continuing to cover extended family issues on the alternate weeks. My friend and colleague Heather Clisby will be guiding you through the fun and ever-changing world of pet and animal blogs from now on.

Because this is my last pets post, I'd like to leave you with a reflection on why we have pets in the first place, such that they'd get a category here at BlogHer, such that they'd get a weird reality show, such that they'd have a place in the culture that is unrivaled by other non-human breathing entitites.

Why do human beings have pets? Why do you, if you do? Why did I, for 13 years, give a large part of my time and a good part of my heart over to two tiny dogs?

For me, it was family tradition combined with an obsession with getting a dog when I "grew up" and was out on my own. I got Boston Terriers because my grandmother had them throughout her life and I feel an extraordinary connection to them, partially as a result of her but mostly because they're awesome and hilarious dogs - for people who don't mind being followed around and nagged at the heels 24/7, that is. They have silly, affectionate, stubborn personalities and they mesh into families well (which is to say they will come to run the house and allow you to live there and pay their mortgage and buy their food and toys.) They're also completely neurotic and on a bad day a little insane so it's good if you can handle that. They don't need to be walked a lot (which is excellent if one is prone to lazy mornings) and their grooming is easy. Finally, they're in the "so ugly they're cute" category for a lot of people who don't understand that they're incredibly beautiful, and people who didn't think they were either of those - well, I say with a smile - those are probably cat people anyway.

It could be said that I got dogs just to act on my neuroses, but I'll say in all honesty that any of those things I did, well, I blame low blood sugar. It's true, SOME pet people can seem quite strange. SOME of us dress our animals up in unfortunate costumes, and get photos taken with Santa and talk to them incessantly as though they can not only hear but hold up their end of the conversation. Some are even prone to talking in the third person about themselves, i.e., "Mom doesn't like it when you throw up on the rug, dude," and then shuddering with horror when "they" hear the words that just came out of their mouths.

Some pet people spend money on ridiculous things, like paw-sized rainboots and gourmet peanut butter treats and a t-shirt that has "ROCKSTAR" emblazoned on the back with rhinestones. But they also work hard, you know. They get up at 6 a.m. to walk a big dog who needs to go for a mile or two, and go to great lengths to get a recalcitrant cat into a carrier for a trip to the vet. They stress over the bills for that vet and in most cases pay them anyway. They take great pains to explain the passing of a hamster or a Guinea pig to a child, and even hold elaborate backyard burials in those cases where it's called for.

"They" (ahem, ahem) may even consult a pet behaviorist when they are awakened by their beloved nine-month-old-not-quite-a-puppy pooping on their HEAD in bed at 3 a.m.. They may then feel incredibly guilty but likewise do not punch this behaviorist in the face when she says that it is all the pet person's fault because she - er, they - did not "assert herself as the alpha and clearly he's angry because of your new work schedule."

Right. Of course. And they will, as a result, drink perhaps more wine than is wise in the face of this personal alpha female failing and take the puppy out five extra times before bedtime and pray to God that never happens again because how much can a girl take? Still, they will not think, not once, well maybe once but not a time more than that, of discarding the animal or not hugging him when he come snuffling around the couch having completely forgotten the incident, and will merely file this story away in the happy hour archives for years to come.

"Hey'd I ever tell you about the time my dog pooped on my head? And that I cried and threw him on the floor in a still-asleep daze while the other one dove under the bed because hey she may have eaten Aveeno bath that time but she won't get fooled again? And then I cried again because I threw him on the floor kind of hard by mistake and I felt guilty? And then we went to the pet behaviorist - NO, God no, NOT a psychic!"

Pets are not always easy. They are expensive and demanding and annoying at times. They require exercise and restroom services in terrible weather, and they will unfailingly step in the worst stuff in the yard right after the bath. They will not have you call the 24-hour emergency line because they ate Aveeno (which could be clearly seen by the oatmeal mustache on her little black and white face) because it says on the packet that it's totally nontoxic. They will, however, have you call because they ate a pack of cigarettes, and then a jewelry box, sometime in the halcyon months AFTER they pooped on your head.

But my dogs - and why I had them - had everything to do with this stuff along with the best feelings that never went away, including, I have to say, the funny and stupid times that resulted because I knew absolutely nothing about what it took to get a being-that-does-not-speak-any-spoken-language to do my will. I remember the annoyances, sure, but they're just part of the package. The happy stuff is way more clear and it's amazing how much it comes into my mind unbidden. I remember coming home from work and dancing in my empty dining room to the Beatles' White Album with both of them up on hind legs. I remember them standing up and looking out the window of the moving truck almost the whole way back to Maryland from Ohio. I remember the joy they brought to my parents who never had a dog in the house and who, over a period of loves, fell stupidly in love (take that, haters) with two animals who took them away completely from the stress of jobs they'd had for too long and caregiving for aging parents that has often stressed their spirits. And mostly, I just remember what now I miss the most, which is looking over and seeing them snoozing on the rug, or on the sofa. I remember them looking out the door and jumping up and down with happiness when I was walking up the sidewalk. I remember them as part of my household, and I remember them most - and most sadly, now - because there's a huge hole where they were.

And in the life of pets outside of my own, which is vast and awesome, I've seen the reasons why they're so important to people time and time again. I know my friends' dogs and cats well and know how important they are to them. I see on the news when disasters occur how people are so devastated over the loss of their animals, or refuse to leave them behind even at physical risk to themselves. I saw the desperately unhappy man in the first nursing home where I worked, who was mean and cranky and no one could get through to, until our local rescue brought puppies in and like some in-your-face sappy public service announcement they jumped all over his bed and he laughed and cried and I hated when they had to leave him because it meant he went back to watching tv and being sad again. It was the first time as an adult that I understood the power of an animal to do what a human could not accomplish.

I lost some of my inspiration for writing or really even thinking about pets a lot just over five months ago, when I lost the first dog who was completely my own. In the most overwrought of ways Punkin made me take responsibility for SOMETHING when I was a young adult in graduate school who really needed something outside of herself to focus on, and also a living thing to come home to because as great as I know living alone to be, it can be lonely, no doubt about it.

I'm not over it by any means, and know I likely won't ever be, although I'm already learning to tuck that pain into a part of my heart where all the stuff lives that I hated when it happened. I'm learning to make some peace with what I call the hammer that hits you in the head, masquerading as the circle of life. My dogs lifted me up, and eventually broke my heart. They made me laugh all the time, when they tried to do yoga with me and when they made stupid noises and when they pirouetted in the air in a circular motion. And I have to admit, although I have no idea how it happened or why it is so, I have to say that on the very short list of things that have made me a better person in this haphazard life I lead, they are very near if not at the top. And that is the answer to my own question. That was why I was lucky, and stupid, and smart and destined enough to have pets.

From the pet blogs, and blogs that are sometimes about pets: BlogHim Andrew at Running With Dogs points out today's quote from Michael Phelps that in the middle of all of this Olympic history, he's really missing his dog. Several writers have shared their stories about why "I Love My Cat" in this category at the Experience Project. Other groups include "I Love Dogs and Have One" and "I Couldn't Picture Life Without Pets."

Michele at Mihow posts Tuesdays with Murray, about her cat, every week. I love her most recent photo post, but her lyrical words about him make me smile.

Murray is the hand stirring a pot of Hollandaise sauce, the smile that moves across a person’s face when no one else is looking. Murray is New York City before 9/11, the sound of the teenagers skateboarding out back. Murray is laughter among friends, that first sip of white wine, lightning bugs at dusk. Murray is me before I exchanged my naivety and hope for experience and cynicism. Murray is youth. Murray is a fixed number of minutes and a computer you leave at home. Murray is joy. Murray is the you you thought you would be, and the you you still can.

An article in US News and World Report last month reported that more assisted living facilities and nursing homes are allowing pets, acknowledging the important lifelong role that animals play in the mental and emotional health of many people.

Just ask Loren Shook, CEO of Silverado Senior Living, the San Juan Capistrano, Calif.-based company that operates 17 assisted-living facilities in four states for residents with dementia.

"Pets are useful in reducing depression, anxiety and re-engaging people in life," Shook said. "We are committed to making it work."

Often, when a resident has seen many friends pass away, he or she considers their dog or cat a good friend and part of the family. "It is so important for a person's general happiness in life not to have to give up on one of their last friends," he said.

The Boston Globe Magazine's July 13 issue was devoted to pets (wish I'd found it sooner!) and why we have them. Highlights include a photo essay of the day in the life of a guide dog, how far people should go to save them when they're sick and Robin "MissConduct" Abrahams' piece on why we sing to our dogs.

Do not skip Penny the singing pug at the top. I laughed lovingly out loud and Penny is a lovely falsetto soprano. Says Abrahams:

Why do we love our pets? From a Darwinian perspective, it hardly makes sense to lavish attention and resources on another species. Is today's pet-keeping merely a decadent holdover from a time when cats and dogs had utilitarian value - killing rats, pulling sleds, rescuing Timmy? Or did "survival of the cutest" result in the big-eyed, large-headed, irresistible pets of today that evoke our deepest caretaking instincts?

Vix writes about the "the reason I have so many pets, and the one I lost."

This is how I end up with most of my pets. My heart goes out to both the animals, and the people trying to help them. Each of my pets have similar stories, and that is why I cannot say no. However, the Inn is full. And it will be full for some time. If it weren't ful...kitten #2 would be at my house as we speak. I am in love with her!

Therese at the PetSitUSA blog wants to know if others have gone to great lengths to be present for their pets in hard times.

I was curious to what lengths other people have gone to be able to stay with their pets when they are ill so I asked my contacts on LinkedIn and Twitter. I asked if they had ever canceled a social engagement, or taken off work to care for a sick pet. People who answered cited at least one time they’d opted for their pets over other obligations. Everybody who answered absolutely loves their pets takes the responsibility of caring for them seriously. They opted to care for their pets over work, vacations, school, and social engagements…and not one of them regretted it.

Laurie White writes at LaurieWrites.

First day of school, and the rest of my life

Denise just posted over at BlogHer about the first day of school, wanting to know who takes pictures of that annual milestone. Now, you know I don't have kids, but last September, I have to admit that I did take a picture on the first day of school: of myself.

It was my first day of graduate school at the University of Maryland, in journalism. I'd failed out of the program as an undergraduate approximately 18 years prior, although I stuck it out and graduated from the university in another major. It never felt right, though, never felt like I'd done what I set out to do there, so I was back to mark this off my list of things that hadn't worked out that I could control (much shorter list, as it turns out, than the other "can't control it" one.)

That is me, standing in front of one of the many statues of Maryland's mascot, Testudo the terrapin (not a turtle. NOT a turtle. Get it right or some asshole in a red and white sweatshirt will bring the beatdown. It won't be me, but that's what I'm supposed to say or they'll revoke my last season of basketball tickets and that is among the joys I discovered this year.)

This is part of the post I wrote about it then.

First day of school below. Dork! (And that's melted mascara combined with exhaustion...and a couple of happy tears that I may or may not admit to. Milestones, man. Gotta love 'em...sometimes.)

I actually tagged this "First day of school" on Flickr, which of course I said was a dorky thing to do, but it was a long-forgotten feeling to be that proud of myself, to have followed through on something that I really wanted to do, that I had an idea would change my life for the better after eight years of knocking around back in Maryland, never satisified, sadly more worried about what the man who'd spent a lot of that time with me was finally, oh God please finally, going to do. And then when he finally did it (something I supported, no matter what it meant for me) I was standing there with hands not entirely empty but holding nothing I wanted, and a head that was so confused I HAD NO IDEA ABOUT ANYTHING AT ALL.

I found photography and I honestly believe that saved my life. Photography and blogs were my anchor, and I moved into a world of words and pictures that increasingly had little to do with my day to day, with a job I liked but where I felt I didn't fit anymore. I had an idea that school could save me, give me the connections and the kick in the ass I needed to make the changes, so somehow in this confusion I filled out applications and did writing samples and got letters of recommendation with no idea what I was going to do about it if I got accepted into either of the two programs I thought would work for me. And then I got into both of them. After a brief consideration of giving into my newfound crush on New York and completely impoverishing myself in Manhattan, I decided to go back to where they kicked me out a long time ago.

It's a year later now, blahblahblah, and I only have the online news bureau to go in the fall and then I'm unbelievably done. I concentrated in online journalism, which I'm still glad I did, even though it's quite clear now that very few people  - including me - really know what that exactly means. I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time, besides defending blogs against the journalistic literati, including a 25 year old who quotes Pound with a very serious face. This is also why you'll often find me wasting my time on Facebook and laughing myself stupid over LOLcats and Top Chef recaps, which are helpful activities in spite of the fact that they deter me from new media domination, because I do not have to put down my wine glass to participate in them.

What I didn't know a year ago was extensive and nearly crippling and could and has filled many blog posts, text messages, Twitter updates, tearful phone conversations, dinners with more wine and late night deadline iChat rants. I have typed literally a million words, I think, deleted almost that many, taken approximately 10,000 pictures, and I just pray that Virginia the MacBook will make it to December (after Woolf, so I'm a lit dork too, yeah.)

I have been straight crazy for most of this year, it must be said. I have gained so much weight, too much for what my body is comfortable with. I have been to Vietnam. I have stood on a stage and read a very personal essay out loud to hundreds of people, which, as it happened, was a pretty big deal in my endless quest to not be crazy and to get used to participating in community where I find it. I have left a devastating but nonetheless seminal relationship behind and in that process been a messy and ridiculous mess of a person. More importantly, perhaps, I have learned not to care what other people think about that...so much, because it's just what happened for me and it's how I felt about it and that's the 5 W's of that. I have gone through the primary season without even a vague picture of what kind of world we'll have in a year and that scares me to death. I have pissed some people off and gotten into some less-than-stellar conversations that may in some quarters mark me as someone who needs her prescription refilled right now this minute. I have blown some important deadlines and been a lazy reporter. I've also gotten a few things right - I like the stuff I write online, for the most part. I've taken some pictures I'm proud of. I got a print magazine assignment that was a personal and professional milestone for me, which was kind of the point of all of this anyway.

I have also lost a grandmother and a dog since that September day, to what Elton John calls the circle of life, but I just call a big fucking hammer that comes at your head when you're the last one standing, when it's you dying of course, and to a lesser degree when you're the one watching it come down. (Yes, death wields a similar, slightly smaller hammer for bystanders. You just get to stay conscious for longer.)

Now they're sending me to the convention in Denver next week and I've started quietly freaking out about that too. I have never been more worn out in my life, but somehow, I have to wring the rag out and keep going. I don't see an endpoint here, which is no doubt a good thing, but damn am I tired a lot. I am a master procrastinator, I can whine, I am really good at getting on my own nerves.

Almost a year later I am older, and a little bit wiser, and certainly, yes, fatter and more recalcitrant. I am less prone to tears than I was this spring, but I'm still sad about the way things have gone in my personal life. I have four months to go til I'm unleashed out of the academic structure again, and I have no idea what I'm going to do. I am completely freaked out and at the same time oddly calm, much like descriptions of people who rob banks. I am still really impatient and occasionally I will call fellow highway drivers very, very bad names.

What I do know now though, as vague and changeable as it is, is what keeps me from completely imploding into myself. I know that no matter how difficult this process is, no matter how hard it has been as a woman in her late 30s to partially chuck a stable career and take on a project that has required emotional, physical and mental work for which I often feel quite ill-prepared, no matter how much I've felt like this was the worst and most incredibly stupid idea to ever be put into motion, I have never, not once, thought it was the wrong thing to do.

Never. And you'd have to be me or someone very close to me to know just how monumental that is. I think most decisions are wrong at some point. I analyze everything on a level that few normal people can withstand. I doubt and worry and ponder until my neurons are audible in their efforts to bail out of my brain for higher ground. I feel responsible for everything. Rest assured, if I know you, if we've had even one innocuous or perhaps awkward conversation, I felt responsible for how it went, or for your feelings, or for your need to get a cup of coffee or your next life decision. I believe, incorrectly, that I am in charge of the outcome for the world at large so I'd better get my shit together.   

This time I actually accomplished that in some small way. It was all for me, and it wasn't and still is not totally popular, and I did it anyway. So thank you, first day of school, 2007, which just like every day, but particularly that one, was the first day of the rest of my life. I'm sure I'll take a picture of the last first one, in a couple of weeks, which may or may not include Testudo. Or Kermit. 

(Jim Henson is my favorite fellow Maryland graduate, and this statue of him and Kermit is outside of the student union.)

Sugarpants for a day

I guest-posted over at Karen's site yesterday. I wrote about trying to remember to have a little bit of fun amidst all of these toils and snares, for God's sake.

I'm still thinking about it, because you know I'm never sure whether I'm getting it right or not (not the fun part...the expression part. Or maybe the fun part too. And maybe this is why I have to write about trying to have fun. I'll shut up.)

Elsewhere, I'm on an immediate and a slightly less immediate deadline and I feel awkward and uncomfortable about that, although I know this is all totally doable. I'm also strangely aggravated by the elfin Chinese gymnasts and actually care whether or not Michael Phelps wins 800 medals, so I think this means I've been sniffing a little too much of the Olympic glue (really, NBC? Al Trautwig on gymnastics? Where did you find that negative jerk?)

And yes, this too shall pass, but that phrase is annoying me so I'm avoiding it. And oh hey, I got paid! I have more than free dollars, finally, and that's good. So I'm also looking forward to doing absolutely jack nothing this weekend but sitting around and oh, maybe having some wine (shocker) and uploading about 1,000 photos replete with highly descriptive tags. Seriously. Right now, that's my kind of fun, my lame, strange, mildly anti-social kind of fun. I'm clearly saving the real throwdown for 2009. Watch out.

Oh, ps, speaking of Olympics and glue: LOLBush does Beijing, courtesy of the UK Guardian (because our reputation in the international press just doesn't get much lower.)

Rosary Bracelets and Checkbook Prayers: Family, Religion and What a Little Bit of It Means.

Cross-posted at BlogHer.

This weekend in New Orleans I popped into the St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square, a building I've walked by several times but never entered. The usual things brought me inside this time: curiosity, a compulsive search for cool pictures that increasingly defines my days, and a sudden desire to find a calm spot in a nonstop city I love that can nonetheless can be exhausting.

St. Louis is one of the oldest cathedrals in North America, established in 1720. Inside, it is the usual Catholic combination of simple wood pews and votive candles, a brightly muraled ceiling and an ornately carved altar with Jesus and Mary and a few of the finest gilt archangels keeping watch over the proceedings. It's also a tourist center steps away from Cafe du Monde (beignets!) and Central Grocery (muffalettas!), so there are people milling around, taking pictures, lighting candles, a number of them kneeling and praying.

I was raised Catholic. I'm a cradle Catholic, culturally Catholic, "I survived Catholic school" (14 years, counting graduate school) kind of girl. I know what I'm talking about relative to this church. I've heard it harshly criticized and been told it is the one true church, the way, the truth and the light. And although I don't practice this or any religion anymore, there is still something in the spaces that hold it, in the words and the rituals that give it its shape, that I find comforting.

At the heart of that in so many ways is my grandmother, born Marie Louise McGrath, herself raised in the church in early 20th century Washington, D.C., way pre-Vatican II, a time of May queens and no meat any Friday, ever, not just during Lent. She went to Holy Comforter School, a few years behind my grandfather, in classes with one of his ten sisters. She dragged me to 7:30 Mass more weekends than I can count, and before her mother, my Nanny, died, she'd go along, and I'd sit next to her and she'd keep her arm around me the whole time. Nanny never went to Communion. She'd said "bastard" too many times that week, she said, and not gone to confession, so she'd just sit there with me. This transgression of profanity lasted for nearly 10 years, and I didn't understand it until I experienced the horror of the sacrament of penance myself. Mass with Nanny is one of the most visceral memories of my life, such that it may be the last thing I see before my eyes when I die. 

When I hit my knees in New Orleans this weekend, these women, along with my mother, a convert and my grandmother's daughter-in-law, were the reason why.

I had no idea that's what would happen when I walked in the door. The plan was to take a few pictures, get out, go get a muffaletta. But the more I walked around the place, paid attention to the details - the stained glass Stations of the Cross, the French inscriptions, all the candles burning for someone or some personal intention - the more I just I wanted to sit. It turns out, I wanted to kneel.

My life has been loud lately. There's a lot of movement, a lot of change and stress. I'm really tired with no time for it. As full of great stuff as my brain and heart are on a daily basis, there is also worry, uncertainty and confusion. Some people I love are having a really rough time. There are some unsettled questions. I've been doing a lot of work, inside and out.

The very act of kneeling is surrender. Outside the constraints of who I pray to, it felt like turning it over, all the junk and the stress. Take it, whoever you are, please, plaster cherubim at the end of the aisle. I'm doing the work, I'm holding it down, trying to be smart and make good decisions, trying to step up or back when it's called for. But it's a LOT, dude. It often feels like a "FAIL" in a "FTW" world. So I just need a little help, a freaking blazing neon sign would be nice, kthxbai God.

My God has a sense of humor and speaks LOL, apparently.

I steepled my hands on the back of the pew in front of me the way I'd watched my grandparents do it when I was little so it's just a reflex. I looked around and felt a little guilty, yes, non-practicer that I am, (really) vocal critic of all things structural and political and systemically sick about the patriarchal organization that built the pew I was kneeling in. But my "Catholic guilt," as it's commonly called, is always transient. I just don't buy it, don't choose it, won't own it. I'm pretty lucky, I guess, in that I was raised in what I always call the "felt banners and butterflies" 1970s church, where I associate mostly good thanks to the fairly moderate way my family practiced and the extreme amount of love and acceptance I received from them. Also, nobody got smacked or anything worse than yelled at in my school. If I ate a hamburger on a Friday in Lent, no one told me I was going to hell. It was just "Try again. Keep trying."

I tell my mom when she bemoans my lost religion that I can't belong to an organization that wouldn't let me lead it, I just couldn't, my conscience won't let me. Then again I still cried several times in Vatican City under the weight of the beauty and history there, all that I know about the Crusades notwithstanding, mostly because of what it would have meant to my grandparents and my Nanny to see it. 

So it was good in this time of flux and confusion to close my eyes in this cathedral for a few minutes, to breathe, to let the piped-in Latin chanting fill my ears. And when I got up off my knees and sat in the pew, I needed paper, because I wanted to write some stuff down. As it happened, all I had was the back of my checkbook, where I scratched out some things I wanted to remember, for me, for New Orleans, and for my family.

I am not pious. I am not proud. I am a flawed child of spirit if not of God. Pray for this loud, proud, chaotic, soul- spirit- and pain-saturated city. Pray for me, that I choose the right next steps and the best words. Help me look past the insanity of the surface to whatever simple greatness I can find in everything around me.

I capped my pen and I got up. I lit a candle apiece for my mom and my grandmother, crossed myself with holy water, and bought a rosary bracelet for my grandma in the gift shop. And then I walked out towards the Mississippi River, into the pouring rain. 

 

Writings about family and religion and all the ways they collude and collide:

Ann Steliman at World Unturning wrote about sharing her concerns about her Jehovah's Witness beliefs with her family.

Brian at Daily Buddhism responded recently to a reader who was concerned about her family's reaction to her practice. 

I would suggest the best approach is to make sure your family sees you acting in the finest traditions of Buddhism (without necessarily advertising the fact). They’ll see and experience you as a good person, doing good in the world, alleviating suffering where and when you can. Be an exemplar of the best “Christian values,” and when your “shocking secret” eventually comes to light, perhaps, just perhaps, they’ll be willing to talk rather than judge you out of hand.

Carrie at My Funny, Funny Family shares what it's like to explain religion to your kids when it's not something you participate in "The Holy Trinity of Questions." 

It's unavoidable that some of the questions are going to be about religion. It's a sticky subject, because we are not religious. So we don't have a preapproved set of explanations for that stuff. And it's going to take a lifetime to explain why some kids believe in God, Jesus, Mohammed and the Almighty Dollar, but we don't.

Loni is an American Muslim who "reverted" (her word) to Islam and writes about what it's like to wear the hijab in front of her family for the first time. (Fascinating stuff -check out the post.) 

But it is one thing for me to be “outed” in a community full of strangers; it is another to show my close friends and family the person I now am.   

Shannon Clark at Searching For the Moon writes about "The Communities I Speak" including Catholicism and Judaism. (Again, really fascinating ideas here.)

I am not religious but I do consider myself Jewish at least as an ethnic and cultural identity. At the same time to some degree I don’t fully speak “Jewish”, I was raised more as a Roman Catholic, went to a Catholic elementary school and the world around me has generally engaged with me not as someone who is Jewish so I haven’t had the experiences positive or negative that might convey

Laurie White writes at LaurieWrites. Photos in this post and thousands more live on Flickr.

Full stop, brah.

Matthew McConnaughey lays it DOWN, on a dime:

"Everyone talked about how, oh, you have a kid, life changes, it's like 180 degrees on a dime full stop, wow," he says. "And a lot of them had an insinuation under that like, you have to stop living your life as you live it. That hasn't been the case."

Next up, the grammar stylings of Tommy Lee.

Heart - San Francisco

The rest of the BlogHer/San Francisco shots here.

My friend called from New York last night where he just moved to tell me that the first morning he was there he went to the park with his roommate to walk his dog.

"Did you know that you can take your dogs off-leash in Brooklyn parks before 9 a.m. and then again at night?"

I did not.

"You can. And there are SO MANY DOGS. It was BEAUTIFUL, the greatest thing."

He did not hear me crying, this struck me too as beautiful, something so much better than my own day had been, and not just because I don't have a dog anymore, live with one who doesn't have much interest in me, and have no plan to get another any time soon.

I had a terrible day yesterday and today I'm still not feeling well. I can't find a check I need. I have to handle some stupid-ass personal conflict. Someone who tried to help me set me back without meaning to.

I am so over being like this. I want to have better news. I will better news to come, consistently...for the things to stop happening that send me spinning. And it almost seems like the more I try, the more effort I invest in bringing people closer to me and developing good relationships and trying to move on, I get more stuck. It's so weird. Driving home on the highway in the dark, though, I was so happy for my friend. His progress, too, has been a long time coming and this move monumental. It was good to hear about it as it began.