Happy Friday! New Things & The Contest*

Welly, well, well! Looks like it's Friday again, my friends. I've been working hard on Citygirl today to update some things. If you look right under the masthead you'll notice some nifty new pages that I'd love for you to check out. They'll tell you more about me and the writing projects I've completed. Plus! If you'd like to take advantage of my writing services there will be another page available shortly that'll spell all the options out for you. Yay!

Now, the contest! A few days ago I noticed something cool had happened with Citygirl; I've hit 30 followers! As a thank you for reading and supporting my work here, I'm having a little contest.

The first five people who email me at rockette74@yahoo.com with the subject line "Contest! Woo! Yay!" by 2 p.m. CST on Monday will be emailed a photo from my extensive library of the shots I've taken over the years. Just let me know what category of pic you want (Animals, Cats, Nature, People, or Inanimate Objects) in the email.

All photos will carry a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, which means you can do whatever you want with the photo as long as you don't alter it or make money off of it and give me credit for the image. You can check out my photo blog, A Girl And Her Camera or many of my previous posts here to see more of my photos.

Phew! Now, lovelies, on to some interesting things around the web!

1) Job seekers are getting creative.

2) Ever thought about starting a small business? These websites might help.

3) If you want to see a movie this weekend, you might not want to bet on Adam Sandler's Jack and Jill. It's getting zero love, friends.

4) Someone got inappropriately creative with a wedding dress.

5) Kate Moss has a modeling little sister. Unfortunately, "little" means only 13 freakin' years old.

6) Kim K. Just. Can't win. And I don't care.

7) Sometimes, Americans are stupid.

*Wouldn't New Things & The Contest be a cool band name? Just sayin'.

Oh, Heavy D...RIP

I'm sure a lot of you have forgotten all about Heavy D & The Boyz, if you knew about them at all. But for fans of late '80s through mid '90s hip hop, Heavy D was the shit. I wish he hadn't passed away earlier this week at only 44 years old.

Want to get to know Heavy D and his ever present Boyz? Here you go...

Compadres

I've been chatting via email with another blogger about making and keeping friends, and how difficult it seems to be (for some of us, at least).

When I was a kid, I always had a couple of buddies I did things with: going roller skating or swimming, having sleep overs, heading to the movies, passing notes in class...But I was never one of those people with a gaggle of amigos surrounding me at all times. I was quiet, studious, lacking in confidence, overweight, well-mannered, four-eyed and frequently riddled with acne. Any one of those things could have knocked me out of cohort competition, but I suspect the combination was what really did me in.

I spent the occasional moment, as a young'n, wondering why more people didn't like me, but I was basically fine with having only one or two close friends. Now, of course, I've been without close friends who live nearby for several years.

It's odd. Even when I was young and thinking about friendship two things never occurred to me: completely changing who I was to fit in more and concern over my future ability to make friends. I guess it seemed like I'd always be able to run into someone somewhere who had things in common with me.

Creating and maintaining friendships is like money management, or brewing the perfect pot of coffee. No one teaches you that stuff. They all just assume you'll get it or that you'll ask the right questions and then they can help you. Clearly, it doesn't always work that way.

What have you learned about friendship since becoming an adult?