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I love the idea of this Five Year Diary - only having space for a few lines a day takes so much pressure off!

Happy 50th Anniversary, birth control pill! "Even though 100 million women take the pill every day, to the great relief of 100 million or so of their partners, the terror of mentioning birth control is so great that the humongous new health care reform act has managed to avoid bringing it up at all. Advocates are hoping that when the regulations are finally written, they will require health insurance to cover birth control pills like any other drug. But nobody is sure." What Every Girl Should Know About Birth Control.

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Interesting essay on happiness and the potential merits of discontent.

“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package,” she said. ”I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.” - Joan Didion 1975

Yes you are. So you might as well make the best of it.

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* Happy * Mothers * Day *

221 B Baker!

Townlow Boston, a new site on things happening in Boston - added it to my GoogleReader, will see if it ends up making the permanent cut...

In love with this gorgeous summer retreat, both inside and out.

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Love this necklace/ring. Erie Basin finds the best stuff.

Effort shock! Yes!

NYTimes: how liberal is the Ninth Circuit?

Haha! The worst movie of all time? Chasing Amy.

From Tim Wise, Imagine: Protest, Insurgency and the Workings of White Privilege.

Loved Rosalyn Carter's interview on Jon Stewart and her dedication to raising awareness about mental health issues. Admirable stuff.

Mad love for Singles! Good movie, great soundtrack. #ilovethe90s.

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“The lows are so extreme that the good seems fucking cheap and it teases you for weeks in its absence but you’ll fight and you’ll make it through. You’ll fake it if you have to and you’ll show up for work with a smile and you’ll be better and you’ll be smarter, more grown up and a better daughter or son and a real good friend. And you’ll be awake, you’ll be alert. You’ll be positive though it hurts and you’ll laugh and embrace all of your friends and you’ll be a real good listener. You’ll be honest, you’ll be brave. You’ll be handsome and you’ll be beautiful… and you’ll be happy.” - A Better Son/Daughter // Rilo Kiley

"And I have a lot of self-esteem, which is amazing, because I’m probably somebody who wouldn’t necessarily have a lot of self esteem, as I am considered a minority. And if you are a woman; if you are a person of color; if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender; if you are a person of size; if you are person of intelligence; if you are a person of integrity, then YOU are considered a minority in this world. And it’s going to be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere, especially women’s and gay men’s culture. It’s all about how you have to look a certain way, or else you’re worthless. You know, when you look in the mirror and think, “Ugh, I’m so ugly, I’m so fat, I’m so old.” Don’t you know that’s not your authentic self? That is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising: magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself, so that you will take your hard-earned money, and spend it at the mall on some turn-around creme that doesn’t turn around shit. If you don’t have self-esteem, you will hesitate before you do anything in your life. You will hesitate to go for the job you want to go for. You will hesitate to ask for a raise. You will hesitate to call yourself an American. You will hesitate to report a rape. You will hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender. You will hesitate to vote. You will hesitate to dream. For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution, and our revolution is long overdue. I urge you all today, especially today in these times of terrorism and chaos, to love yourselves without reservation and to love each other without restraint. Unless you’re into leather, then by all means, use restraints. Thank you." - Margaret Cho via the awesome Definatalie, via my bff's awesome site NonPlus

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My bff Lisette and I saw this amazing jewelry at a show at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts here in Boston, but couldn't seem to track it down online afterwards - but here it is! Amazing stuff, combining organic forms and blasts of color and texture; I would love to own a piece. Triian.

Lots of new stuff up at NKSS.

Clog love!

On privacy and the Census. As a temporary Census worker, I can tell you that they take privacy very seriously - and as a person, I can tell you that I understand someone's skepticism about giving the government private information. When in doubt, just be nice to your local Census worker and feel free to just tell them how many people live in your residence, even if you don't want to share identifying info - it'll help us out!

From the awesome calivintage, a great roundup of stylish lady bloggers.

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On mothers, daughters, and breaking the cycle of bad body image.

I love these sketches from Mischief Champion! h/t OK Great

What's ahead for Puerto Rico?

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Belly Good

A heap of wheat, says the Song of Songs
but I've never seen wheat in a pile.
Apples, potatoes, cabbages, carrots
make lumpy stacks, but you are sleek
as a seal hauled out in the winter sun.
I can see you as a great goose egg
or a single juicy and fully ripe peach.
You swell like a natural grassy hill.
You are symmetrical as a Hopewell mound,
with the eye of the navel wide open,
the eye of my apple, the pear's port
window. You're not supposed to exist
at all this decade. You're to be flat
as a kitchen table, so children with
roller skates can speed over you
like those sidewalks of my childhood
that each gave a different roar under
my wheels. You're required to show
muscle striations like the ocean
sand at ebb tide, but brick hard.
Clothing is not designed for women
of whose warm and flagrant bodies
you are a swelling part. Yet I confess
I meditate with my hands folded on you,
a maternal cushion radiating comfort.
Even when I have been at my thinnest,
you have never abandoned me but curled
round as a sleeping cat under my skirt.
When I spread out, so do you. You like
to eat, drink and bang on another belly.
In anxiety I clutch you with nervous fingers
as if you were a purse full of calm.
In my grandmother standing in the fierce sun
I see your cauldron that held eleven children
shaped under the tent of her summer dress.
I see you in my mother at thirty
in her flapper gear, skinny legs
and then you knocking on the tight dress.
We hand you down like a prize feather quilt.
You are our female shame and sunburst strength.

- Marge Piercy

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I'm back! I took an unanticipated but needed break from blogging, but I'm ready to venture back into the colorful waters of the internet. If you're still checking and reading this site, thanks for being so loyal and I hope you enjoy my return to Y&Y and NKSS. xoxo

Image: Banksy in the USA!

“We were just talking about those American Apparel ads. They’re fucking gross, man. Look, I love beautiful girls too. I think everyone should be free to have their knee socks and their sweaty shorts, but I’m over it. I’m over this weird, exhausted girl. I’m over the girl that’s tired and freezing and hungry. I like bossy girls, I always have. I like people filled with life. I’m over this weird media thing with all this, like, hollow-eyed, empty, party crap.” - Amy Poehler

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