WELL, IT’S HAPPENED. My older brother is officially old. Today is T’s 30th birthday. (Yet mysteriously he doesn’t seem a day over twelve.) When I asked him what he was planning on doing today, he responded with: “Well let me tell you what I’m NOT going to do today.” He then proceeded to list only two activities, both of which had to do with launching into space. So take heed, American public, anything is possible.

For my part in the celebration, I’m baking this cake (fingers crossed I can pull it off). And if you’re in the mood to get nostalgic, too, here are a few of T’s greatest hits from The Sister Project archives:

Brother T’s (snore-fest) birthday from last year, and the year before.

Unsuccessful attempts at finding T a date.

The all-time favorite phone call foibles.

Adventures in pony-riding!

Enjoy. Happy Birthday, dear brother!

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TOMORROW MARKS THE 38th ANNIVERSARY of the supreme court’s Roe v. Wade decision. I’m so grateful to have been born into a country where sisters (and brothers, too, of course) before me fought for women’s right to choose! So how are you celebrating? Need ideas?

The website Feminists for Choice has several events listed (in Texas and NYC) and here’s a post from feministing with the lowdown on other NYC-based celebrations.

P.S. Another happy birthday to my favorite feminist and fantastic boyfriend, Dreux! (photo by christine)

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Hello 25! (Photo by Shaina Machlus)

ONE OF THE REASONS why I’m always geeking out over the blogosphere is because there is such amazing potential for community within it—it’s like a great big amorphous blob of sisterhood just waiting to be claimed and shaped. And in large part, that’s why we started The Sister Project as a blog network. What better way to explore sisterhood than through a medium that inherently fosters community? Lately, I’ve been most excited about an internet project started by 22-year-old blogger Cassie Boorn in which she asks older female bloggers what they would say to their younger, 20-something-year-old selves. Here’s the scoop:

In an interview with NPR’s Cassie says “she decided to do this post because as a blogger she has traveled to a lot of conferences and met ‘a lot of really great women.’” She decided to pick these women’s brains for the kind of honest, useful (and retrospective) advice that a 22-year-old single mom like herself could use. And lots of fantastic female bloggers responded. They wrote their advice in the form of letters to their younger selves.

One of my favorite bits of advice / comfort is from Sarah Brown of the blog Que Sera Sera. She writes:

“First of all, let’s get this out of the way: no, you are not crazy. Yes, you should probably talk to someone. There’s no shame in that. You should also go outside more.”

You can read all the letters on Cassie’s blog. And even contribute your own. I feel like all this is especially pertinent to me right now as I’ve just skidded past my 25th birthday (eeps!). And I feel a bit like I’m at a pit stop between 20 and 30, trying to peer at every horizon. I keep asking myself, What have you learned in the past five years? (hopefully something) and What will you learn in the next five? (again, hopefully something).

So here goes: what would you write to your 20-something self?

Links:

Cassie Boorn’s blog

NPR interview with Cassie Boorn

Sarah Brown’s letter

Sarah Brown’s blog

Shaina Machlus’s blog

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zzzzzzzzz...on the couch before we left and then on the shores of the river.

HOW LUCKY AM I to be able spend some quality time with my brother T on his birthday? It’s been way too long since we hung out. (Six months!) To celebrate his 29th year, we brought a picnic lunch to the Green River. In true T style, however, all he wanted to do was nap. What the birthday boy wants, the birthday boy gets, right?

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A YEAR AGO when Margaret, Marion, Paige and I were just setting sail on murky blog waters with the mission to spread the word on sisterhood, we were nervous. Who would read our ramblings? Could we really write about sisters and sisterhood for an indefinite time? But we came together with you, our sweet readers (in our own sort of sisterhood) and have officially been breathing life into The Sister Project for one year! In celebration of this milestone, and as a toast to more blog-birthdays to come, here are a few favorite posts (mine and yours) from the last year to read again or discover anew:

What if fairy-tale heroines lived unhappily ever after?

Cooking lessons with my brother, T: veggie fritters and lemon bars.

Nuns!

This year’s winner for “least desirable baby sibling.”

Great handwriting + feminism = brilliant.

And a few of my personal favorites from elsewhere on The Sister Project:

A Geisha Sisterhood.

Marion goes bra shopping.

Flipping for potato salad!

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IN CELEBRATION OF CATHERINE Deneuve’s birthday (she happens to be one of my all-time favorite French leading ladies), today I’m renting Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, in which Deneuve stars alongside her sister, Françoise Dorléac. The sisters play on screen, musically inclined twins living in the seaside town of Rochefort. Tragically, Françoise was killed in a car accident shortly after the film had finished shooting in 1967, and it always gives me chills seeing Catherine perform with her. Bon Anniversaire Catherine, your strength and talent are ever-inspiring. (More movies all about sisters here. What are you favorites?)

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TWENTY-FOUR YEARS AGO today I was caught by my midwife, Anastasia. (We’re together on the left.) She took the ferry from Burlington, Vermont to my parents’ farmhouse in the Adirondacks when no one else would, because 24 years ago home births were illegal in New York State. So to celebrate my midwife and my namesake on the anniversary of our heartfelt meeting, I put together a little slideshow of newborns and their women who helped bring them into the world. It’s a sisterhood I’m so grateful to be a part of!

P.S. Do you have a favorite midwife-meets-baby photo? I’d love to see it.

P.P.S. You’ll have to bear with the falseness of my blog subhead for a little while.

[Show as slideshow]

Images via the following Flickr cats:

• “Max & Alanna” from pasta e broccoli
• “Clara & Melida” by spamily
• “Chad” from International Rescue Committee
• “Vintage Midwife” from osborne_villas
• “Beatrix” by fowlkes
• “chandra & charlotte” by lhoward
• “Lisa Sarah and Aesop” from velozo
• “Violet and Nancy” from mr-sparkle
• “Ta-da” from pamidwives

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YES, TODAY MARKS THE anniversary of my brother’s birth. He has been gracing the world with his magnanimous presence for 28 years now, and to celebrate this exciting day I thought I’d share with you three things that you may not know about the man who we sometimes call “T:”

1. He has a serious geeky side. For instance: not only is he a die hard Star Wars fan, but he has all of his old toys from the movie locked up in our basement so they don’t get damaged!

2. He knows how to juggle. He even performed a juggling routine in my kindergarten class as a part of our unit on the letter “J.”

3. He is fabled to have blurted out “rutabaga” as his first word. (Impressive, right?)

Happy birthday, T-Bone!!

__________

For even more about T and his strange ways, have a look at TSP’s archived posts all about him.

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OUR FAVORITE PETITE FRENCHIE, Capucine, turned 5 last week and her mama made this tribute video for her. Isn’t it adorable? And I love that she chose the music from Amelie to go along. Bon Anniversaire Capucine! Also: Did you see her brother dressed as a clown in the first photo? How silly.

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FOR MUCH OF MY CHILDHOOD, when I was taken to Alice in Videoland and let out of the car in the parking lot, I tore like an escaped caged animal to the children’s section of the video store and grabbed The Parent Trap off the shelf (I had memorized its location). To this day, when I think of Haley Mills and of long-lost-sisterhood, of course, I think of this movie.

My undying adoration for Mills led me to discover more classics like The Trouble with Angels (in which she plays one half of a bad girl duo at Catholic high school) and Pollyanna (this movie actually scared the crap out of me, proof here). She left my life for a while, only to return, surprisingly, as the teacher in Saved by the Bell. I haven’t had much quality time with her since then (although I did get sucked into a few Parent Trap clips on youtube while preparing this post), and I’m looking forward to sitting down and watching the whole thing tonight in celebration of her birthday, which happens to be today. Happy Birthday, Haley!

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