545th Friday Blog Roundup

My brain has been on the Amtrak train crash.  That’s my train — the one I take when I go to New York.  It is hard to read about the passengers who died; to think about what their families are going through right now.

It is scary because thousands of times a day, we put our trust in other people.  The other people on the road.  The people in the driver’s seat.  We put our trust in machines and buildings and roads and bridges.  There is so much trust we extend to others, and then something like this happens and it makes me want to curl my trust up inside my hand like an empty paper straw wrapper.  I want to fold my trust against my palm or tuck it away in my pocket.  It is really hard to go out there when you get these moments that remind you how interconnected we are, how dependent.  We each affect everyone else’s life.

Sometimes I don’t know what to do with that idea.

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Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Positive I Don’t Have a Uterus” (The Toast)
• “Not a Distant Memory” (Mine to Command)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Invincible Spring has a post about alternate worlds.  It’s a theory I’ve always loved.  She draws comfort from it, writing: “It also means someplace my 4.5 year old son is playing amiably with my one year old daughter. Someplace S is alive and growing and laughing in something other than the breeze that sways the trees.”  It’s a gorgeous post about a thought-provoking idea.

I really liked Bent Not Broken’s post about Mother’s Day.  There were a lot of post-Mother’s Day posts this week, and this one summed up what I think a lot of us felt.  We got through it.  And it’s rarely as bad as we fear.  An ordinary day (well, except for the mimosa), with reading and shampoo shopping and a little bit of sadness.  But ultimately okay.  And over.

Lastly, River Run Dry has a must-read post about the vitriol we bring online as we discuss events, fomented by the presentation of subject in the media.  She explains: “It’s just been recently that I’ve been feeling like one big nerve ending whenever I go online.”  How do we find solutions when we’re all yelling to be heard?  You’ll chew on this post for a while.

The roundup to the Roundup: It’s hard when you realize how much we need to trust one another.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between May 8th and 15th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.