How was everyone’s weekend? I spent mine allergic and snotty, but I did enjoy spending time with the little girls I used to nanny, catching up with an old friend at happy hour, and savoring the first barbecue of the year with John (above: drool). I also just got back from a run, which wasn’t as painful as I thought it’d be (though the potato salad I’d just eaten still hadn’t properly been digested… TMI?). Tomorrow’s weather isn’t looking so hot, but the rest of the week should stay consistently in the 60s, which I’m cool with. More spring weather, please!

Now for this week’s link round-up:

In case you didn’t catch my Twitter or Facebook updates about it, I did a podcast with Peter DeWolf for his Petecast blogger series. If you want to listen to us chat about writing, useless talents, and social awkwardness, listen here! Also, my latest Pooping Rainbows post is total stream of consciousness for your mild entertainment.

This is fascinating: A photographer took pictures of thousands of women from different countries and mixed their faces together to come up with one image of each country’s average woman.

Here’s one hell of a time capsule. This Paris apartment was abandoned for 70 years, and there are some pretty spectacular relics that were found inside.

A moving essay by a writer who prevented a man from committing suicide while contemplated his own:

“On the day I convinced Chris not to jump off the bridge, I thought maybe I turned a corner, maybe I could embrace positivity again, maybe I could hear the words I had said to him: ‘I’m sure that no one wants you to die.'”

For your WTF find of the day, couples posed together in compromising positions—and vacuum-wrapped like meat.

As usual, another fascinating read from Brain Pickings on how to find fulfilling work:

“The lack of any clear positive relationship between rising income and rising happiness has become one of the most powerful findings in the modern social sciences. Once our income reaches an amount that covers our basic needs, further increases add little, if anything, to our levels of life satisfaction.”

For every girl or woman who has EVER felt the need to change or play down her best qualities to make other people happy: read this declaration.

And on that excellent note, I’m going to go shove some more tissues up my nose and think about daunting projects like cleaning out my closet (without actually doing them). Happy Sunday!