Arts & Culture Editor Jillian Lovejoy Lowery and I squared off about employer googling for this week’s Perpetual Post. You can find it here.
Next time you want to avoid answering a question, just take one of the words that was said to you, and repeat it over and over again, then wander away.
For example:
Q: “Hey, can you take the dog out?”
A: “Dog? Dog. Dog. Dog! Isn’t that a funny word? Dog. Doooog. DOG! Huh. Crazy, right? Dog…dog.” (wander away)
An Ode To Wings:
W is for how I have to Wipe my face after I eat you
I is for the Itch I have to eat some wings right now
N is for Not eating wings which I don’t want to do ever
G is for Gee I love wings
S is for the sauce which clings to your wingy surfaces
WINGS!!!!!!!
I’m having some trouble staying upbeat lately.
Ok, so maybe I’m having some trouble not wallowing in the depths of a weird, nebulous depression.
The problem is, I like to read the news. I like to stay informed. I like to know what’s going on in the world around me. But right now, reading article after article about the crumbling economic situation; constantly hearing about things ‘hitting bottom’, and about how a year from now the situation could be even worse, is pretty frightening. Because I don’t think I completely understand the ramifications of the current situation, and therefore, if things get worse, I feel like I’m rapidly going to be learning a lot of unpleasant lessons and having many new and difficult experiences.
Living cheap is nothing really new for me. I have lived paycheck-to-paycheck before, so it’s not that big a deal to do it now. I’m happy to pull up my socks, smile bravely, cancel my Netflix account and stop eating out or purchasing new clothes. But really, all of that is pretty easy to do. And somehow I feel like that is just the beginning.
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Are you feeling more hopeful? Tell me I need to lighten up. A pie to the face might help, since Lent is over, and I am once again all about pie.
You know things are not going well in the world when you receive your quarterly newsletter from the company that handles your 401K, and on the back page is an article extolling the virtues of taking a ‘Staycation’.
Feeling guilty about the amount of bad energy you are releasing into the world every day with your terrible attitude and your evil deeds? You are right to feel bad—that energy is building up, gaining momentum, and breaking down the goodwill and kind actions of others. Your karmic footprint is growing increasingly negative with each snide remark you make, and thoughtless act you commit.
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I took on Facebook one last time in this week’s Perpetual Post. See Akie’s response as soon as it’s up on Monday at midnight.
I think I know what it must have felt like for the people who hated television when it was in its infant stages. They probably recognized that this was the direction in which the world was headed, and that this new phenomenon was only going to become more and more popular. But that knowledge didn’t stop them from hating it, and from feeling sad as they watched it become more omnipresent every day.
It’s hard for me to put my finger on exactly what it is I don’t like about Facebook. I think a large part of the problem is that every time I visited the site when I was a member, I got the distinct feeling that I was indulging some sort of guilty pleasure. And not a fun, silly guilty pleasure, like watching a Lifetime made-for-TV movie or eating an entire plate full of hot wings. I love that kind of guilty pleasure, but this felt different. It was a dirty, wrong kind of pleasure, like stepping on a worm on the sidewalk or cutting someone off in traffic.
Not only did it feel like a bad guilty pleasure, but it also felt kind of like walking down a high-school corridor, lined with lockers and filled with frenetic teenagers. Suddenly, you were back in a world in which it was ok to make snap judgments, to snoop around and find dirt on people and then talk about it; to base your opinions of others on superficial criteria. Suddenly, I felt like I was in an adolescent echo chamber, and none of the echoes were particularly worthwhile, and many were simply cries for attention. This may not be everyone’s experience with Facebook, but can you see why I wanted out?
Even if your Facebook friends really are your actual friends, which I think is dubious for many, the types of exchanges the website fosters are the social equivalent of Cheetos; tasty at first, but also dry, artificial, and not particularly nourishing. Don’t think so? Here’s a typical Facebook exchange, re-imagined as an actual face-to-face conversation between three people:
Bob: “I am a fan of Cheese.”
Jill: “I like this.”
Pete: “I have given Bob a pretend Rum and Coke.”
Bob: “On Saturday I am going to this party.”
Is this where technology has brought us? Is this how far we’ve come? I think people probably had more interesting conversations with telegraphs.
Facebook’s utter ubiquity is also a large part of the driving force behind its popularity. After all, how could something be bad or harmful if everyone is using it? You might be wasting hours of your sweet young life on Facebook every day, but so is everyone else, so it must be ok. You might question the usefulness of giving someone a flower that doesn’t exist for them to plant in their virtual Facebook garden, but that’s just what people are doing these days, so it must have some validity.
I am also astounded by the way in which Facebook manages to make us look at data through the wrong end of a telescope. The notion of saving the rainforest is reduced to a vehicle to get people to download applications which enable them to plant more worthless virtual flowers. You join the cause to fight world hunger with the same level of interest and concentration you use while taking a test to find out what kind of Pirate you would be. Things that matter in the real world are reduced to empty, baseless concepts.
On the flip side, trivial information is given the star treatment and insignificant facts are trumpeted to the skies. On Facebook, commenting that you are sleepy, or in the mood for a muffin, or that you partied way too hard last weekend, is expected—and is bound to be recognized and commented on by numerous people. Terse, staccato snippets of conversation rule the day, and all the while, the amount of useful information we are really learning about each other, and our actual closeness to one another, continues to stagnate.
Human beings love drama; they love gossip, they love secrets and allies and conflicts. Facebook provides them with all of those things, and more—but at a price. It sets the stage for a living, breathing soap opera, and in return, it gives our lives the same amount of depth, dignity and meaning as you would find on an episode of General Hospital. Devotees to the site, I’m sure, would like to tell me that I don’t have to be a member of Facebook if I hate it so much, and they’re right. I just wish more people would question exactly why they do choose to be members.
Am I unreasonable to instantly stop trusting any eye doctor who tells me I can leave my contact lenses in for days and days at a time? That just seems like a crazy bad idea to me, and it instantly makes me look at them sideways and think “Snake Oil Eye Salesman!” I mean really, why would you do that? My contacts get irritating after wearing them for a long day, and it’s a relief to take them out. Why on earth would you go to sleep with them in, then get up and wear them all day again?
Does anyone out there do that? Please ‘splain.
Howard and I once again engage in a debate in this week’s Perpetual Post. This time the topic is Stem Cells. Find his side here. Will we ever agree on anything???
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish to bring to your attention a growing problem that, if left unchecked, will rapidly proliferate into a variety of other problems with different disease-curing functions. I’m talking, of course, about Stem Cells. They’re here, they’re cells, and no matter what type of cell they decide to become at any given moment, (even an apple-pie cell) they’re always un-American.
It’s time we recognize these teeny, good for nothing or everything cells for what they really are; parasitic fame-whores, intent on destroying American values even as they help pump blood through aging American valves. These wanna-bes don’t care what kind of cells they have to morph into become rich and famous and attract all sorts of sleazy little groupie enzymes. Reinventing itself as a younger-looking cell with a taut new membrane and sexier stems every time you turn around, the stem cell is the Madonna of the research circuit. And I for one have had enough.
These slippery little cells will stop at nothing to grow with scientific encouragement and nurturing into the kinds of specialized cells needed to help individuals who suffer from arthritis and Parkinson’s. That’s all fine and good, if you have those diseases, which I am vaguely familiar with but not personally affected by— but more importantly, you have to wonder about such a cell. What kind of moral fiber can it possibly have? What sort of traditional values was it raised with? In my opinion, this drifter, this three-faces-of-Eve cell is bound to become a bad influence on any other cells it encounters. It will doubtless encourage every lowly and humdrum Bob-the-liver or Dolores-the-pancreatic cell to dream of a life spent as an impressive, high-profile heart or brain cell. Not every cell gets to do the glamorous job—unless it’s a stem cell. What kind of connections do these cells have, anyway? Where’s the rich uncle stem cell that started all of this? It’s nepotism at its most basic level!
We have entered a sad age when even the jobs of our own organs are being outsourced. An honest day’s work in the endocrine system is being snatched away from hard-working American cells that just want to make a living. So what if some of the cells that were proudly made in the USA aren’t up for the job—can’t we give them a second chance before turning immediately to foreign labor? Perhaps these American cells just need better healthcare.
A few nights ago I had a dream in which I went into a store (not a store I’ve ever been to; some random dreamland store) and looked at some jewelry. There were some decent necklaces; a plain one with some wooden pieces on it one kind of caught my eye, but I didn’t end up buying it.
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Last night, I had another dream, during which I entered the SAME dream store, and went straight to the back, and looked at the SAME dream necklaces.
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“Huh,” I thought. “Some of these are decent. And this wooden one is still here. But I’m still not sure about it.”
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Suddenly I bolted awake. “I am so boring!” I gasped.
I Heard Tell 