Click here, then press any key and drag.

And were these girls really girls?

Anyone who has ever suffered vertigo will relate to and applaud Christian Hubert, a 60-year-old Belgian now living in New York City who rides his bike from Brooklyn to Manhattan - over the bridge! This is his story in voice and pictures from The New York Times.

That’s the title of CareyRN’s post about each person’s pain - physical, emotional or spiritual - being unique. CareyRN writes the blog Big Grey Birds under the pseudonym “Muffy Jorn.”

She writes tight, short stories about life up-close such as “Northtown,” in which a naive young woman (Is she Muffy?) encounters urban depravity.

She also writes lucidly and compellingly about living with rheumatoid arthritis.

Reading “Pain, Friends and Validation” and “Justify Yourself” is like hearing a top-notch sermon - the priest (or priestess in this case) - is speaking to everyone but you feel like the sermon uniquely addresses you.

If you ever feel anxious before visits to a doctor, or you live in chronic pain, or you feel misunderstood by the medical system, read Muffy Jorn, who says:

“If you have a friend or acquaintance that has any kind of pain, let them know it is legitimate. Human beings need validation. I hear you, I see you, and I care about you and your pain. It is the least we can do for each other.”

Sung by Joan Baez and Dar Williams (who wrote the song)

Many thanks for this to Nancy Vala Michaels and The Sister Project, who are on a roll. Their site is fabulous.

“If necessity is the mother of invention, laziness is the mother of efficiency.”

(Via Linda Eskin’s Twitter.)

New research shows that getting older does not mean that older people are worse drivers or that they are far more likely to crash, Tara Parker-Pope reports in this story in The New York Times.

Drivers over 70 are keeping their licenses longer and driving more than earlier generations, a trend that led to dire predictions about car accident risks for aging baby boomers.

But the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says fatal car accidents involving older drivers have actually declined markedly in the past decade.

“It’s not what people had expected to see,” said Anne T. McCartt, senior vice president for research at the insurance institute.