SISTERS ARE GOOD. More to the point, it has now been reaffirmed that sisters are good for you. Yup, you read it here first, and we’ve got another study to prove it. Want some sister stats to brighten up your day?
From the category archives:
For Better or Worse
By Marion Roach Smith
THE BRA’S BIRTHDAY. Now there is something to celebrate, sisters. And a centennial birthday, at that. Imagine: 100 years have gone by since the first American woman said—now repeat after me, sisters—“How in the world am I going to these into that?” Oh, yes, sisters, let’s light some birthday candles and throw a few bras on the pyre, since it’s a birthday you don’t want to miss. We have a woman named Mary to thank for it. The full-figured story.
By Paige Smith Orloff
I SWORE UP, DOWN and all around, that I would never raise another puppy. Puppies, I said glibly to friends considering getting their own, are like children, without benefit of diapers. What I should have said, instead: Be careful of the stone certainties, the pronouncements, the “I’ll nevers”–they’ll bite you in the ass, every time. And it did, as you can read here.
By Paige Smith Orloff
A FEW YEARS back, my family made its own venture into the wilderness, moving from the urban sprawl of Los Angeles to the expansive green hills of the Hudson Valley. It’s paradise, yet the climate can be wretched and unforgiving, the land hilly and full of stones. We marvel aloud at the tenacity and sheer strength of this area’s early settlers; we are awed by what they accomplished, and quite certain we, with our reliance on power tools, the internet, and central heating, would not have a prayer of replicating their achievements. Novelist and memoirist Gabrielle Burton shares her own amazement at the resilience of our forefathers and mothers in her lucid, provocative novel, Impatient With Desire. Here’s what I thought.
By Marion Roach Smith
THERE WAS A time when our dogs divided us. It happens in neighborhoods, and it did, in ours. Each of us lived behind our own electric fence, keeping our dogs in our own territories, allowing for no mixing of our pedigreed charges. The humans walked, we waved, but we knew little of one another’s lives, except, perhaps, that it was the woman in each home who walked the dog. That much was clear. And for a while that’s how it was: Not much contact, little to say, we walked our dogs along the perimeter of each other’s lives. One day last week was different.
OUR FRIEND SUSAN SCHNEIDER, AKA SHANDELL’S DOT COM, has these retro-but-au courant matchboxes in her lineup this summer, and we cannot think of a better mantra for the moment. Remember crafty Susan, whom we have profiled before? Or you can just get a box of your own mantra-covered matches here. Om, baby.
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By Marion Roach Smith
SISTERS UNDER PRESSURE is always a good place from which to plot a story. After all, with all that history between any set of sisters (you didn’t really think you are the only one who has issues with your sister did you?), it’s a good bet that if you squeeze the pair a bit, some interesting things will happen. They do, in a new novel by Susan Rebecca White called A Soft Place to Land, and they do it quite well, indeed. The scoop.
By Paige Smith Orloff
I THOUGHT IT WAS ONLY PARENTS who felt (with guilt aplenty, of course) that they wished their children, sometimes, you know, just for a moment, time to collect one’s thoughts, or maybe just form a thought…could you all, please, just for a second, BE QUIET? Apparently, this is a sibling issue, too. A tale of how my son feels about little sister’s latest soliloquies.
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By Marion Roach Smith
AND YOU THOUGHT your family home was strange. How about growing upon a “divorce ranch,” one of the famous places where women who once wanted out of their marriages could live as “residents” while awaiting a Nevada divorce? Here’s what got me thinking of this.
"Rather than come to blows with his sister over the missing Lego tree, he sat beneath his prayer flags and let the feelings wash over him." (Photo: Dave Lauridsen; Dwell)
By Anastasia Smith
THE HILARIOUS PHOTO BLOG Unhappy Hipsters posts photos from trendy design magazines along with little satirical captions. Why I especially love its captions about siblings.
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By Marion Roach Smith
IN THE SUMMER of 1924, five sisters worked in Washington, and happily someone had the great good sense to snap their photo. Don’t you just love them? I found this on Flickr, and then did a little research, and found out that they are (left to right) Goldie, Jeane, Marge, Belle, and Vera, all of whom worked as secretaries for five members of Congress from various states. Here they are, having their lunch. Read on, sisters.
By Paige Smith Orloff
RIVALRY? HA! THAT’S teeny, tiny potatoes. My resident little sister and big brother–my beautiful kids–have tabled competition, in favor of all out war. It’s looking like Afghanistan in my house: no end in sight. How do you cope?
From 'The Betty Betz Teenage Cookbook', 1953
By Paige Smith Orloff
MY FIRST PICNIC of the season is breathing down my neck: it’s the capper to the kids’ last day of school. Sounds lovely, right? Well, maybe for someone less spent than I am at the moment. With none of my own cooking creativity left to mine, I decided to delve into the archives here at TSP to see what past picnic resources I might unearth. Are you in need of outdoor eating support? Read on.
First time here? Here's the idea: TSP is a network of blogs about the many facets of the word sister, and the concept of sisterhood. A sisterhood of sister blogs, you could say. Whatever sister means to you, from identical twin to sister-in-law (or in-friendship or in-feminism), we’ll make room to listen in about it or express it on TSP. Like the slogan up top says, “Don’t you have something to say to your sister?” We've got galleries of art and literature by and about sisters, and a Sisterpedia of sisterly trivia...but now we're getting ahead of ourselves. The quick study: 
As the suffix of its name suggests, 
No surprise, really, that sisterhood, often life’s longest relationship and always one of its most important, has been the Muse for so much creative self-expression by women, and also by men. 
