WROTE

Here are a few of the pieces I wrote last week:

Why we all need to mourn Kalief Browder, The Good Men Project, 6/10/2015.
Tragic story- held at Rikers Island for three years without a trial under horrific conditions. He was recently released committed suicide last week. NYC Mayor De Blasio called it a "culture of delay," but it is so much more than that. 

Mom and sons conquer the Incline, The Good Men Project, 6/13/2015.
Excerpt: 
"I fantasize about getting in my car and driving 26 hours back to Maryland. I hate Colorado. I hate it even more when the floods hit a few months later. Then, I experience my first polar vortex, temps of 17 below that transform my town into a cryo-chamber."

Introducing the new sport of dog parking, Crooked Scoreboard, 6/12/2015.
I don't like to lose, and I don't like my dogs to lose either. I invented a sport-- dog parking-- and described how to keep score. 
Excerpt: "Running from dog butt to dog butt like it's the first time you've ever encountered another dog is not suave. Don't be desperate."

I also wrote a piece called Don't call me strong for Huffington Post.  

READ


If you hate punctuation rules, or really like articles about the English language, you'll enjoy Cormac McCarthy's take on punctuation found here:
Cormac McCarthy's Three Punctuation Rules, and How They all Go Back to James Joyce, Open Culture, 8/13/13.


This is a "watched" not "read," but it was definitely impactful. If you are somewhere you can sob freely, I suggest you watch it.  It's the story of Denali, a dog, told from his perspective.


ABOUT TO READ AND WRITE


Finishing Erik Larsen's Dead Wake is high on my list since I started it such a long time ago. Great read so far, I've just been reading more articles than books lately.

I have too many pieces planned for this week than I can reasonably write, but I hope to do something about going to concerts with my dad, and another one for TWLOHA for PTSD awareness month.  And, of course, lots of Steelers news for Behind the Steel Curtain.

The Dinner Party facilitates pot luck dinners for people in their 20's and 30's who have suffered significant loss. Not a therapy group, the dinner party provides a source of community and support for people who are grieving and provides a safe place to express grief honestly. I love this idea, and think groups like this would be helpful for issues beyond loss (PTSD, pregnancy loss, terminal illness). Isolation is the enemy. 

Mom: The Designated Worrier A thoughtful NYT article about division of worry in a parenting relationship. (Most articles focus on division of labor, so this was an interesting take.) 

Excerpt: "One reason women like me get stuck with the micromanagement is that we don't see it coming, not at first." 

Split Image ESPN did a piece on suicide and the discrepancy between what people put on social media and their actual state of being. Suicide is a highly stigmatized topic, so ESPN did important work by delving into the issue.

Excerpt: "Young women growing up on Instagram are spending a significant chunk of each day absorbing others' filtered images while they walk through their own realities, unfiltered."


Orangette I don't follow many blogs, but this one has excellent writing and even more excellenter (is that a word?) recipes.

Wouldn't it be great if there were cut-suit-like technology for other high-stakes tasks?

Parenting: "Whoa. I didn't handle that situation very well!  Good thing you're wearing a parenting suit. Let's try that one more time to make sure I get it right before you take off that suit and I try to handle it for real." Nice, right?

Dating: "It was good to practice that pickup line on someone wearing a dating suit. I can see that didn't go over as suavely as I imagined. Let me try one more time before I go out and attempt to interact with someone for real."

Relationships: "Let's do the scenario where we get really mad at each other so we can figure out the best way to solve our problem without actually hurting each other when we get it wrong."

In most situations there aren't do-overs. Our actions have a real impact-- the first time.