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Mothers Day is Sunday, so if you haven’t purchased your cards or flowers yet you better get on the ball. Your mom may not live up to your expectations of June Cleaver or Carol Brady, but most of them do the best they can and let’s face it, you probably weren’t exactly Pollyanna. So this week’s Friday Five honors MOTHERS.
- What’s the most important lesson you learned from your mom?
- What’s one thing you WISH your mom would’ve told you?
- Who is your favorite mother and daughter from fiction?
- What woman who is not your mother has had the biggest influence in your life?
- In what ways have you turned into your mother?
Leave your answers in the comments. My responses after the jump.
I was a victim this week.
I was trying to get my car washed. Sometimes I just go through the Exxon car wash - it’s convenient to my house and easy to use because I can just swipe my gas card to pay for it. But my car was pretty dirty. I probably should have taken it to one of those detailing shops because it was really dirty. So I thought I would take it to that really nice drive-through car wash across the street from the Exxon. At the BP station.
I pulled up to the entrance but the card reader wouldn’t read my BP card. I tried a couple times, then pulled around to the front of the gas station (sighing heavily. Soooo inconvenienced). Inside, I told the cashier that I was trying to get a car wash and it wouldn’t read my card (*flashes BP card around as visual aid*). She says, “We don’t have anything to do with the car wash.” I said, “So you can’t charge my gas card and give me a code?” I mean, that’s how they do it across the street at the Exxon. She says again, “We don’t have anything to do with the car wash.” Fine, I huff. I’ll just go across the street.
I typically spend the first four or five months of a new year renting and watching Academy Award-nominated films. Maybe it’s where we live or maybe I’m just not quick enough on the draw, but I never manage to see many of them prior to the awards ceremony. This weekend I watched The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, based on the French memoir Le Scaphandre et le Papillon.
I pretty much decided that I needed to see this movie when Julian Schnabel beat out the Coen brothers, Ridley Scott and Tim Burton for the Best Director Golden Globe. When I started watching it, I thought first that it was really weird. But as the story unfolded and I realized what was going on, it started to seem pretty freaking amazing. Then it made my eyes hurt and I had to go take out my contacts. Read the rest of this entry »
This weekend kicks off Memphis in May with the Beale St. Music Festival. This year’s line up includes Sheryl Crow, The Roots and The Black Crowes. Are you going? I’ve lived in Memphis since 1986 but I’ve never attended a Music Fest. Frankly, I’m not that fond of crowds. Or mud. Come to think of it, the closest I’ve ever come to an outdoors concert experience was when I saw Harry Connick Jr. at the Mud Island Amphitheater. Which, can I just say, the only thing that could’ve made that performance any better would’ve been if it had been at our wedding reception. Mine & Harry’s. Because I do love that man.
But in honor of Music Fest, this week’s Friday Five obviously must be a music edition.
- What was your first concert experience?
- What was the first album/tape/CD you bought for yourself?
- What live performance stands out in your mind most?
- What’s your most recent music discovery?
- Who would you stand in the rain and the mud to see live?
Leave your Friday 5 in the comments. My Friday 5 after the jump.
A friend of mine just found out that her teenager is cutting.
Not like cutting classes. Like CUTTING. Her skin. With razor blades.
Cutting is a form of self-abuse, like anorexia. It affects 10 percent of American teenage girls. I knew the WHAT of cutting, but I had no idea of the WHY of it, so I started doing some research. Teens cut themselves for relief from bad feelings, emotional pain and pressure. Their coping skills are overpowered by emotions that are too intense. They cut to feel in control.
Cutting is sometimes associated with other mental health problems, such as depression, bipolar disorders, eating disorders, obsessive or compulsive behaviors, or drug or alcohol abuse. For some teens, it’s a way of “waking up” after a sense of numbness following a traumatic experience, such as abuse.
Most teens who cut aren’t attempting suicide. Cutting usually begins on impulse, not as a planned activity. “I never looked at it as anything that bad at first,” said Natalie, a high school junior who began cutting herself when she was in middle school. “It was just a way of getting my mind off something I felt really awful about.”
You know what I feel really awful about? That a young person would feel so bad about anything that she would feel the need to mutilate herself. That’s heartbreaking.
