I have the most exciting news of my writing career! One of my short stories will be published by the Magnolia Review! More to come about the story as well as a link to the publication.
     A million thank you's to my friend and family readers--Pam, my mom, John, Anna, Johnny, Darby, Avery, Lori, and Gayle--and everyone else between Norfolk Senior High and Miss Henre, UNO and Lisa Sandlin, and Antioch University and Gayle, Kerry, and Francesca. So much love to all of my peeps.

     This is totally a first world problem, but I've been struggling with my feelings about Miley Cyrus for over a year now. When she was Hannah Montana, I paid her no attention. Since she has left Disney, she's been taking me up and down on quite a roller coaster of love and dislike. I think she can really, really sing. I've seen her live, and she did a Bob Dylan cover that gave me goosebumps. However, she was also touching herself and riding on a giant hot dog. She's been very open about her support of free love, but then she is naked in her music videos at an age that is barely legal. I admire her free spirit, but hate that she makes a statement by saying the F word every other word and using her body to make her voice heard.
     Miley is in the news this week for posing naked for Paper Magazine. The article has nothing to do with the pictures. The article is about Miley's charity for homeless teens, Homeless Hippies. In the piece she talks about how it hit her while she was driving in her Porsche: how could she have so much and others so little? She's right. Her reasoning is enlightened and humble. I'm excited to see someone with influence actively speaking out and doing something to create change.
     Miley also talks about her fluid gender and how she doesn't identify with one sex nor is she attracted to only one sex. She says, she's down with any adult who is down to love her and as long as you aren't hurting anyone, your choices are your choice. Her last statement about choices--how many times have I said that myself? I whole heartedly support Miley in her quest to create love about love rather than gender or sexual orientation. I'm down with that.
     However, why all the naked pictures? Miley has a great body. I support her showing it off, but let's be honest, she's using her body to sell the article, to sell the product--both herself and the charity. Does she think no one would read about her if she didn't sensationalize everything? Will there ever be a day where a woman can be smart and talented and speak out about her causes and people will listen because she is smart and talented rather than because her boobs are showing? I realize that Miley doesn't identify with one gender, but this is a hard loss for feminism.

      In the wild and exciting life of Yadi the Dog, he ran his first half marathon a couple of weekends ago. It was muddy. Our shoes and paws sank into the ground passed the ankle. We trudged through.
      The first four miles were rough on Yadidog. He's never had diarreah on a run before, so of course, race day was the day it decided to come. The poo may have been brought on by nerves from running his first race, but other than that, he showed no fear, no mercy.
       Yadi would pull passed the dog ahead of him, touch noses with it and pass the dog like, see ya sucka! He'd then set his sights on the next dog competing with him for first place.
       This would have been a fine way to run the race if not for the diarrhea. We'd sprint to get in front of all the other dogs, then have to stop for poo, while pooing all the other dogs would pass us, then we had to repeat the process. It was exhausting.
       Finally, after about mile four, Yadi had rid his body of nerves and his bowels of substance, and we were able to romp around Chalco Hills like normal runners.