Friday night odds & ends

• It is cloudy and definitely cool outside today -- the high was just 18C/64F.  It feels like fall. Already. (How did it get to be mid-August??)  
• The skunky smell of cannabis is wafting through our partly-open balcony door again as I type. : p  I must say, though (while knocking wood, LOUDLY!), it has not been the issue this summer that it has been the past couple of years. (Sample complaint post from last summer here.)  We still smell it the odd Friday afternoon/Saturday night, and I'm (relatively) okay with that. (Hey, it's legal here.) But five, six times a day, every day, starting early in the morning (which is what was happening last year)??  Ridiculous. 
• I literally laughed out loud when I read this article in the Toronto Star. Let's just say that I'm VERY well acquainted with the rudest city in Canada!! (and I agree...!) 
• Anne Helen Petersen has been obsessing on her Instagram Stories all week long about something called Bama RushTok. (There are highlights on her Instagram page if you're curious.)   I've been clicking through with the sound off & not clicking on the actual videos (I don't think I could endure listening...!) -- but from what I can tell, it's dozens of girls in TikTok videos, hoping to pledge a college sorority in Alabama (and other states) -- complete with consultants!!  and choreographed group dances. TRULY, TRULY BIZARRE. 
• The girls ALL LOOK THE SAME -- long hair (mostly blond), toothpaste ad-perfect smiles, extremely short skirts -- often baby doll tiered skirts with lots of florals & ruffles (!) and big puffy sleeves -- lots of jewelry (which they show off for the camera), makeup to the hilt and videos filtered to the max.
• I read about sororities in novels when I was a teenager -- and of course "Animal House" was HUGE, just as I was entering university (lolol)(and yes, I went to a few toga parties!)  -- but sororities and fraternities, while they existed at my school, and were somewhat bigger at other Canadian campuses, and still exist today, are pretty much a non-entity here in Canada (as is college football & other college sports -- but that's another post...!).   
• Or maybe I'm just showing my age here??  (I do not do TikTok -- that's where I drew the social media line, lol.)  
• Apparently there's a documentary about this??  (Another article about it here.) 
• Were you ever part of a sorority?  Were they a "thing" when & where you went to school?  
• A new website spotlighting books for people without children -- check it out!  
• Keira, the site creator, has also started a project for "Inclusive Libraries" -- asking libraries to stock books, create programming, etc., for the childless/childfree members of their communities. :)  (Details on the website. Consider asking your local library to help!) 
• In case you haven't noticed it before, the "pages" at the top of the page (underneath the title banner) includes a book list of books related to grief, pregnancy loss (& loss generally), infertility, childlessness, childfree life, pronatalism and adoption (etc. etc.) that I've read and found interesting/helpful, with relevant links to titles and my reviews, where available.  (It hasn't been updated in more than a year, though! -- oops! -- adding this to my blogging to-do list...!)    
• This is a wonderful article from the Walrus about summer camp. But not the kind of summer camp you might expect. It's worth a read!  
• Yael Wolfe does it again -- I couldn't help but exclaim "Oh hell YES!"  out loud as I read her recent piece on Medium, titled  "Why Do We Assume Childless Women Have Easy, Frivolous Lives?" (Subhead: "How childless women pay an unfair price at the hands of pronatalism and misogyny.")  Unfortunately, it's a "member-only" story and there are no gift links, but here are a couple of (edited) excerpts (soooooo hard to choose just a few!!):  

Do whatever I want, whenever I want? Again, what adult woman can truly say this? What human of any age or gender can say this?

Sure, there are nuggets of truth to these statements. I could sleep until noon if I wanted. I can sleep through the night without a baby or child waking me up. I don’t have to secure the welfare of little children 24/7 or make sure they get their vaccinations, dental cleanings, daily lunches, and rides to soccer practice.

But that doesn’t mean I’m living a life of no responsibilities, a life of leisure, a life where I only need fulfill my own selfish desires.

There is so much missing from this story, it astounds me that another human being wouldn’t realize that.

and

I don’t like that so many women have so little curiosity about a childless woman’s life that they feel comfortable making up any story they like. And I definitely don’t like that the story they make up positions childless women as selfish, immature, and lazy.

and 

The conditioning to believe that women without children are worthless and just “taking up space” is strong and deep. Sometimes, from what I’ve seen, it appears that women are more apt to be taken in by this propaganda than men are.

But do you know what kills propaganda? A little something I mentioned earlier: curiosity.

What would it be like to be curious about a childless woman’s life instead of defining it with assumptions? What would happen if mothers realized that childless women have challenges, responsibilities, and hardships, too?

And what would it be like to live in a culture that treated childless women like adults, instead of young, selfish women who never quite grew up?

You know how we can find out? Instead of telling childless women how lucky they are to get to sleep until noon…get to know her in a way that allows you to learn about her life.

And be willing to consider it just as valuable as the life of a mother.