I've Been Memed. II

Little does Phydeaux know I've been lurking at his place, too. Shh! Don't tell him! It's a secret!

These are the rules:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

As Dot said, "You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her wear panties." Or something like that. Anyway, while it's charming to be chosen for the Varsity Cogitating Team, I should mention some months ago, my sister Daria introduced a pearl of wisdom we now live by. Feel free to adopt it if this adage suits your purposes: Don't think - it weakens the team. Let's sort out a few things, for clarity's sake. Think of it as the AlkaSeltzer before your bingy-drink-drinking.

I write for and/or fall down at:
Poor Impulse Control. Hi!
Running Scared. Infrequently. I finished the Holland House.
Blanton's & Ashton's. They have booze.
AgitProp. BYOBushie.
...so Mr. DBK and Mr. Blogenfreude are RIGHT OUT.

I read a pile o' blogs every day, some several times a day. The really big ones don't make sense to me (Eschaton hurts my tiny brain and I'd have to quit my job to read Kos) so I stick to mid-level, middle-to-actual left blogs, art, food and storytelling blogs. (Many of these blogs have the Thinkery logo.) At least once a week, I follow someone's blogroll to a blog I'm really glad I found. The tricky part can be finding it a second time, because while a great many big thinkers are working in the Blogosphere, quite a few of them don't need little me to prop up their egos. In no particular order, then:

For straight up monster-stomping goodness, nothing makes smoke shoot out my ears like Brilliant@Breakfast. This is the first blog I read every morning. How Jill accomplishes organized thinking and writing day after day while I'm begging the Caffeine Gods for mercy is beyond me. Moreover, Jill's passion is contagious. I'm a lot less likely to walk away from political conversations seething and silent than I was before either I found her or she found me.

Enrevanche. Barry thinks about things I don't or they wouldn't cross my path. His cat is a humble rock star. I read Enrevanche about once a week. If I skip it, I feel like I misplaced my car keys.

Reading The Unapologetic Mexican drags me out of my cracked-glass-lined comfort zone and into one where my assumptions of 'normal' and 'ordinary' sound gratingly stupid to my ear - and that is fantastic. I can't question my ideas - I have to deal with their failures.

Spocko's Brain is an important read whenever I feel uninspired. One determined, organized person with a good memory can put the screws to bullies, and don't you forget it!

You must join me in the splendor and fury that is Cripes, Suzette II: Into the Fire. Do not argue the point! You will not prevail! Suzette's politics differ from mine, which are slightly to the left of Gandhi's, yet we must order soup, and you must absolutely taste the duck. Taste it! Do not vex me, as this meme will vex Suzette!

It must be mentioned that Sharon at Center Of New Jersey Life is so smart I jog in place to keep up, and it's a good thing I recently bought new bras.

There you have it. As for Rule #3, I will ask Siobhan to explain it to me slowly and in simple expletives, because I am small and covered with fur. Though there's Nair.