Linkety Dinkety Doo: These things come in triplets

1. This thrills me. OK, so it's a little geeky thrill. But still, I can't help but delight in the idea that blogs could fuel more grassroots print media.

A quick back-story because one of my best friends, Molls, is in labor as I type and I'm feeling anxiously chatty: Once upon a time, I produced a 'zine with a grad school friend, a baby that was conceived over many clove cigarettes and 50-cent coffee refills at off-campus cafes in a small town in Oregon. When I read this article, it brought back wonderful and agonizing memories of creating ads in the computer lab, begging academic committees for grants and meticulously planning readings and receptions full of angst and exhilaration and exhaustion at producing an anthology from scratch paper sketches and a shared idea. My mother warned me that all of the carefully penned poems I self-published back then were to explicit and I'd get that once I had a child of my own. I scoffed with a radical feminist sneer and kept on selling copies for a dollar a piece. Now I have boxes and boxes of extras of each of the three editions we put out and every time I see them in my storage space, I cringe to think of explaining such works of literary genius and artistic expression as "The Fourth Time We Ever Did It" to my son. I'm not ashamed, just not amped to air all that dirty verse. All in good time, I guess. And no, I will not be submitting that one poem to any other printed publication, thank you.

2. A new namesake! And maybe because she so reminds me of the woman on the cover of that one Matthew Sweet album, I love her. (Need a recap of all the other Jessica Ashleys crowding up the internet? Here you go, loves.) How could you not love an all-blond (now) model who "loves colorful shoots"?

3. Until I can buy incredibly over-priced rocker onesies for Molls' baby (Lil E's convinced it is a boy and will come today, so hopefully that shopping spree will be tomorrow), why not buy shoes? Peep toe-wearing season seems a million years away (unless I would be crazy enough to risk losing those black cherry pedicured toes to frostbite, which I am...let's be honest, pretty sure...I am not). But wouldn't these retro-ish, pin-uppy lovelies be the perfect welcome to spring weather? They're so Sassafrass, they give me shivers.