(Tiredly) Linking Friday

It's Friday afternoon, I'm done with work, and I'm tired. This has been happening more often. Maybe it's a Pavlovian response to our utter dearth of Friday activities usually. Hubster is a VegOutFriday kind of guy. I could be a PaintingTownRedFriday kind of girl, but I don't usually like to rock the boat. I CAN be tired on Fridays, so I guess I choose to be. It's actually less tiring than planning and then dragging us out for an evening of fun which might turn out to be mere "fun" for K. Compromise - sometimes it just makes you tired.

I've been reading some interesting things on the web this week, so instead of tiredly yanking a post out of my head, I'll tiredly link to some stuff and let you read it at will. (Have I said "tired" enough yet? TIRED. tired. TI-A-A-I-red. Okay, I'm done.)

1. This article about an upcoming AIDS convention in Toronto is interesting, especially the bit where they introduce the topic of the coordinator's paper. The gist is that where women attain equality in one African society, the rates of AIDS transference are slim whereas in most of Africa where women can't even ask their men to wear condoms or, you know, WHERE A CONDOM WHEN THEY CHEAT WITH OTHER WOMEN, AIDS rates are much, much higher. Sad, but at least there's hope that if cultures can come around to treating women decently, their children might survive this epidemic.

2. Foreign correspondent Jill Carroll, the hostage whose 82-day ordeal received so much attention earlier this year, tells her story to the Christian Science Monitor. Fascinating reading. Part 1: The Kidnapping

3. I stumbled across this article in Salon Online (might be ad-riddled, just choose to skip them) and followed the link it contained to a story in Details magazine about how fat is back in Hollywood. The story was illustrated with a literal pig's backside propped up in heels to highlight that this is Hollywood's ladies they're talking about. The slideshow of these "fat" ladies who were so hot contained an image Kristin Davis. The mind boggles.

You know it would be so much easier if they could make up their minds on just exactly whether these ladies are hot or fat (because the two could NEVER be synonymous in a standard men's mag). The entire article rambles tongue-in-cheek through the meadows and makes those of us with some meat on our bones a little fearful that we can only choose to be fat pigs. To quote the author, "I can't imagine why any woman would get the message that she should strive to be thin if she wants to be wanted or taken seriously." WORD.

Well, that's all I've got the energy for right now. Have a spectacular weekend, folks, and I'll see you (from Indiana!) on Monday!