Think before you share.

Not a good hobby.

Dear Internet,

 

I love you, I really do. You’re clever. You’re a wealth of information. And you look great in that hat.

 

Your insta-connectedness is fantastic too. Please continue to tweet a video of a cat riding a Roomba when you’re bored watching a middle school band concert or share that blog post that brought you to tears. Viral content is awesome. But if you want to share content that touches on a serious issue please take a bit more care. When you get pitch-forky it makes me nervous.

 

What do I mean by pitch-forky? I’ll give you an example: this past week you’ve been all about sharing and creating content about Abercrombie and Fitch being douchey.

 

Here’s the thing, though: Of course Abercrombie and Fitch is douchey. They’re Abercrombie and Fitch. In other news Gymboree caters to suburban parents of small children and water is wet.

 

Mother's Day guilt guilt.

Motherhood is like a flower. A beautiful, stunning, guilt ridden flower.

One of the things I know to be true about motherhood is that it involves guilt.

 

That guilt is hard to shake in no small part because our fears often dress up in a WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN?! outfit. That kid who’s constantly whining for candy?  Don’t blame the kid, blame the parents. Whatever you do make sure you blame someone because if non-ideal outcomes sometimes just happen despite everyone’s best efforts then they can happen to you and me.

That kid over there who just pantsed herself in the middle of the grocery store? There’s no way I want that to be my kid. So it’s probably her mom’s fault. If she just spent more quality time with her rather than going to her book club or whatever then she’d have much better manners. I mean, seriously, lady – what’s more important? Chardonnay and “Gone Girl” or YOUR CHILD? You’re a mother. Act like it.

Pants.

Visual approximation of author.

You know when you go shopping for the perfect pair of pants yet you are prepared to brook no actual pants (that’s trousers for you British colonial folks)? Sure those Joe’s Jeans pseudo-jeggings are nice but jeggings are very 2011 and if you’re going to blow $100+ on some goddamn pants then they better last longer than -2 years. The Seven for All Mankind’s are pretty classic but they kind of make your butt look its actual size. So no on those, obviously. And True Religion’s? Yeaahhh… Why don’t you and your eyelash extensions plonk your clichéd selves in your Subaru and drive directly to yoga class?

So you go home without buying anything because you have STANDARDS, dammit.

Standards but no pants. And you really needed pants…

Because of course Ramzan Kadyrov has selfies with tigers.





NOT A PRETEND PICTURE. #Tiger

Last night I stayed up ridiculously late looking at President Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechnya’s Instagram account. I came across it because of the Boston bombing. In a world where Salon is trolling tumblr for first hand accounts from people who got a facial from Dzhokar Tsarnaev’s mother I yearned for non-link bait information so when I read that Kadyrov disavowed a Chechen connection to the attacks via his Instagram I had to check it out.
 

Hotel with toilet.

Running away from troubling pride in plumbing
and Funspiration.

Booking.com is great but also not so great. Right now I’m trying to reserve lodging for an impromptu family vacation and their general description of a potential hotel is “heating, air conditioning, comfortable bed, toilet.” That’s what you put in your hotel description if you’re PR savvy enough to realize that “now with 50% less hookers” would be problematically honest.

 

Staying at a “hotel with toilet” is not so much likely to facilitate family bonding and relaxation as it is likely to elicit feelings of “Oh God, how is this my life? And holy crap was that a bed bug?!”

 

 If struggling to make a life together turns us into an atomized mess then things won’t actually be better once it stops raining. There’ll be that whole other storm to contend with.

We need connection not exposure to weird stains. So “no” on the “hotel with toilet.”
 

Companion possum.

A week or so ago I was thrifting and a guy got in line behind me with what appeared to be a rotund cat in a mesh carrier nestled in the front of his cart.

At first I was like, “Huh. That’s random. But whatever. I just looked through a rack of possibly urine stained shower curtains. It’s not like this dude’s cat is sullying the tone of the joint. Besides I like cats.” I smiled at the guy with the carrier, leaned down to peer in the cage, and saw what looked like a furry 20 pound meat loaf with no neck, a giant weasel face, beady bulging eyes entirely made of pupil, and OH HOLY HELL THAT’S A POSSUM.

Snow White.

source

Today I proselytized faux-feminist fairy tales to a Danish bakery.

 

“I love princesses, Mama. Yesterday I got a Snow White doll,” my five year old informed me as we sat in the bakery licking the frosting off bunny cookies.

 

Fairy tales are part of our cultural heritage but the versions where women are victims until some dude shows up to marry them bug me. “Do you know the story of Snow White?” I asked.