I don't actually remember MCI.

1. I envy Dianna her ability to turn her personal narrative into an essay on privilege and on all the negative "isms" that we try to pretend we've fixed. I envy it all the more because, aside from the fact that i am only 23, the following two paragraphs could easily have been written from my own life.

"At 27, this isn't exactly where I pictured my life, though it depends on age you examined looking forward. At 13, I would have told you that I would be a famous writer living somewhere exotic, like New Zealand or Australia. At 17, I would have told you that I would be the next Tucker Carlson (that was in the heydays of Crossfire on CNN). At age 20, I would have told you married, settled down somewhere, working from home (I never pictured a stay at home mom gig) while my husband took care of the kids. At 24, the dreams became fuzzy. All I knew was I wanted to write and I didn't care - still really don't - what form that took.

"Adulthood is a strange thing. Growing up, you think your parents have all the answers. I remember watching commercials for MCI (remember them?), wondering at all the choices adults made in their daily lives, and what would happen if you made the wrong choice (that, my friends, probably explains a large chunk of my anxiety issues). But the thing I've learned time and again in growing up and in learning how to Be An Adult, it's that I own myself, and I am responsible for myself, but my responsibility does not negate being able to ask for help."

2. This is a really interesting perspective on geek culture, and has some exciting info (Sandman Overture!!!).

"'I feel like every culture has a different version of itself sort of writ large,' Whedon said. 'In Japan and different Asian cultures, people are floating in trees and doing kung fu and here we dress up in tights and fight crime . . . it's just become part of our mythos, a genuine mythos, a real sort of evolving mythology.'"

3. I'm not sure how i feel about this poem, but it's interesting.

4. "Against my better judgment I've been doing a lot of reading on the purity movement. If you've never been exposed to it, then I'll explain. The idea is basically that you, as a father, are supposed to serve as the sole male influence in your daughter's life until she gets married. You 'guard her heart (and vagina)' because only you can be trusted with it. Certainly she can't. If God wanted women to be in charge of their genitals or feelings he wouldn't have let them be born in Texas."

And so begins an incredible list of ten things that one man plans to tell his daughter about sex. My dad is amazing and said most of this stuff indirectly over the years, but it would have been nice to have some of it made explicit. Regardless, i turned out okay.