Jenni Berrett

This week includes mostly chihuahuas. You're welcome.

Here we are, your fearless Internet explorers (pun totally intended), back with another melange of web flotsam for you to scavenge.

"I had always pictured myself spending afternoons studying there. I instead found myself curled up on one of those benches at five in the morning, promising the crises hotline operator that no, I did not want to kill myself. I just didn’t know who else to call."

Part of me wants to write this off as innocuous and carry on with my day, because homophobia is already everywhere and there are better things for me to dedicate my words to — but then I remember 10-year old me.

Culturally speaking, though, it’s pretty much set in stone. Even if I left the church entirely, there’s no getting out of my heritage. Cut me open; I’ll bleed funeral potatoes. I’m what you call a “legacy Mormon” — my ancestors migrated across the frontier and settled in Utah (then Mexico) after facing unspeakable persecution from countless communities in the United States. You probably know my ancestors best as the people with the wives.

This chihuahua protecting her tater tot added a solid 5 years to my life, I'm pretty sure.

"Disease takes the body over, and, in the cases of the diseases we vaccinate for, moves swiftly on to other bodies. It does not ask permission to enter. "

I don’t think the bar is low enough. We obviously need a way to work up to the Bechdel Test. Baby steps. And we all know women love babies.

It was the night before my father’s funeral that I finally asked the tarot for help. I was incapable of imagining a future where I delivered his eulogy.

I’ve been mentally ill pretty much my whole entire life, and it isn’t something I see going away any time soon. I don’t see that as an inherently bad thing.