Tuesday, December 15, 2020
2020 Ironic
Friday, December 11, 2020
App-y Birthday!
Instagram celebrated its 10th birthday recently. Double digits!
As a mother about to celebrate her own child's double digit birthday, it's easy to see the social media apps as true representations of their ages.
Sometimes our real life kids require we stimulate our brains elsewhere, and for that, we are grateful to our surrogate children: social media apps.
Twitter is 14 and that makes perfect sense. Twitter is such a moody young teenager: over-emotional, picking fights over nothing. They say inappropriate things and then claim not to know better. They do one thing right and want you to celebrate that and overlook all the times they do nothing. And their algorithms (inner workings) are super confusing, change daily and are the key to their happiness and the happiness of those around them. They act like they don't want to be noticed, but all they want is for everyone to like them.
Facebook is 16, the even more moody, sh!ttier older sibling of Twitter. Facebook thinks they know everything, but really they're just repeating BS they've heard through a friend of a friend that isn't even true. They stir the pot and take no responsibility for the trouble they cause. They want to be both fully supported yet fully independent. They will claim moral integrity, but will actually do anything for money. Britney Spears sang she was “not a girl, not yet a woman.” Facebook is not a technology platform, not yet officially a media monopoly. But congrats on destroying democracy... keepin' it 💯
Instagram is the self-involved 10-year-old who thinks their entire life is worth sharing. Visually they have their act together. They are older, wiser and cleaner than their younger siblings, and younger, fitter and more pleasing than their adolescent siblings. They want to make you happy and will sometimes resort to cheap gimmicks to do so. If they do something for you, they want to be compensated. Your affection goes a long way, and the absence of it can be destructive.
Pinterest is the 10-year-old "artsy" one. They probably have undiagnosed OCD, which presents in their hyper-organized manner and attention to detail. They are the most creative and have great ideas, but aren't fun to be around because any deviation from their original perfection they deem a “FAIL.” They have the best birthday parties and their goodie bags are the stuff of legends.
Snapchat is 9. They always seem to have a lot of new, weird tricks that entertain for 5 minutes before they get boring. When they do something cool, you'll never see it again.
TikTok is the toddler sibling from dad's new girlfriend. Like most toddlers, TikTok takes mildly amusing things and repeats them over and over again until they're funny, and then until they're annoying. Fun to play with, but will suck you in for hours and report all your personal info back to their creator to be used against you at a later date.
Only Fans is the baby of the bunch. Thirsty, messy, dirty. Only for the true fan, most of us can't be bothered to look after it. Loves to take off their clothes... there are a lot of body parts and bodily functions on constant display.
My Space is the older sibling from a different marriage. They once seemed cool, but aren't around much anymore. Still out there, you will randomly hear about them once in a while. They have been fighting for relevance for over a decade, but will settle for acknowledgement that they were the original.
LinkedIn is of legal age now and considers themself the mature one. Networking is their whole life, and one day all that hard work will be worth it. Bore off!
A warning to parents: the more time you spend with these "children," the more you will ignore your own.
#blessed #parentlife #neverchange #hashtag #morehashtags #stillmorehashtags #whysomanyhashtags
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
Life, the universe, and everything
I just completed another trip around the sun. Not really a dazzling achievement, but one which I will reflect on in my own self-indulgent way.
They didn't used to be so exhausting, so physically draining, so emotionally consuming. In my defense, I was busy doing a lot more than simply "aging" this past year.
I read two books. That fact could be more embarrassing than the accomplishment it felt like given I have owned both books for well over a year. That is why my library card goes under-utilized... oh the fees! (and the funny smell of the pages). But I did it. Hurray for escaping into a good book. Now there are two more items in the piles of stuff around my house of things I am unsure what to do with. (yes, I will donate them eventually... four years, tops).
I was busy trying my best not to ruin my children for life. This was not necessarily a successful endeavor. Only time will tell, but I would guess it's nothing a few years of good therapy can't help. For the record, my "best" counts as what I have to give and I used most, if not all of it.
I was busy continuing my attempt to make the people around me laugh, and also widening that circle of people to include more strangers and members of the general public. Also not necessarily a successful endeavor, but for some reason continues to be fun. It makes me feel good more than it makes me feel bad, which is more than I can say about running.
Running, another thing I tried to do more of. Not exactly sure why, since my body does little in the way of tone and tighten these days, but for a few months those runs were all of the "me" time I got. Me time, more like meh time... ammiright??!!* (*example of jokes I tell in front of other people. To be clear, I said it's fun for me, I didn't say how anyone else felt about it).
I was busy baking treats and eating some truly lovely things. Baking is one of the many things I learned from my mother and one of the few things I have to give to my children. Pro tip: when you don't have the emotional fortitude to reckon with life's difficulties, kill some time making the house smell like butter and cinnamon and then bribe them with the sugary results.
Prior to the world shutting down, we went on a bunch of fantastic trips: England, Barcelona, Austin, England (again!), Park City, Maine. That list is either a pathetic attempt at a humble brag, or a partial list of things we can't do and won't be able to do again for the foreseeable future. Ah, good times.
For the past five months, I have traveled only in my mind. I have been a prisoner of my own lovely life. A life I was rather enjoying before the world turned upside down (yes, I've also been busy watching a lot of Hamilton). A life I have continued to enjoy at random intervals between the anxiety attacks, stress eating sessions, eliminating all contact with the outside world, re-engaging with the outside world, Netflix binges, suicidal ideations, Amazon sprees, guilt for the stress eating because so many people don't have enough to eat, home-schooling meltdowns (both mine and theirs), feeling like a prisoner in a very nice apartment, forgetting how to socialize, overwhelming concern for people I have never met, daydreaming about donuts, heightened sense of impending societal doom, and a few paper cuts thrown in for good measure (one while squeezing a lemon, which felt like the most accurate depiction of the exact moment in history it occurred in).
That has been the life on this most recent passage around the sun.
But there has also been love. Most notably the unbending and (at times shockingly) consistent love and support from the person who chose to spend his life with me, and whom I would have easily understood wanting to change that decision at any point, but for some reason doesn't. I feel loved which makes it possible for me to love. I love him more than I love donuts.
There has been light. In between temper tantrums and meltdowns and crying fits (mostly mine), my children have provided some levity. I have learned a lot. Mostly that they scream at each other a ton. My big takeaway is that I probably have the condition: misophonia and will simply have to learn to live in a constant state of anxiety around my own children... but I'm pretty sure that condition greatly overlaps with another condition known as parenthood, so I'll be fine. Sometimes I make them smile though, and it rights the ship and reminds me of my own capacity for love and why I love making people smile, specifically those two tiny people.
There has been laughter. Turns out I can make more than just my immediate family laugh. I can make my close friends laugh too. And in one of their words: "I thought it was going to be awkward and terrible, but you're actually pretty funny, kind of like a real comedian."
There has been family. Even though there hasn't been a lot of in-person time with our entire family recently, the connection is always felt. Together, we miss each other as if the act is enough to bring us together somehow, at least until we can be together again.
There have been great meals (and some sh!t ones too), but... so many meals shared and increased family time that I will choose to overlook that we probably relied on pasta a bit too much, and rather just focus on celebrating that we had that time.
Remember all those trips? A lot of fun times and great food with dear friends. Did I mention the laughter? Well, it is what has sustained me this year, and fortified me to enter the next one, so probably best to mention it again.
42: the answer to life, the universe and everything. It was. I think I get it. The answer is not actually knowing everything... it is simply knowing that. That is the answer because I feel the weight of it. All of it. The weight for myself, for my family, for my community, for my country, for the world, for humankind. The weight of not knowing what's going to come, what will become of our health, our livelihoods, our love, our laughter, our humanity, our empathy, our ability to care for one another, to see good in others and to bring out the best in each other.
I don't know what the next journey around the sun will bring. I will carry with me the things I loved about this past one and prioritize them above all else: above the noise, the drama, the pain.
Another year of life is cause to celebrate, so today I will celebrate. Tomorrow I will continue to search for ways to make it all a bit better, the way that the people I have let into my life make it all a bit better for me. At the very least I will continue to search for a way to help people smile while we tackle the undertaking of healing this world. All while continuing to search for good donuts.
Sunrise, sunset... |
Sunday, March 29, 2020
Whatcha doin?
First, an apology: I haven't been posting so much because I have been performing jokes live on stage for handfuls of people at a time. Fun, but that means I haven't been writing here regularly.
I don't want to neglect you, my true OG audience. However, transcribed jokes rarely work.
So, what can I share with you?
Well, I have been keeping myself busy in quarantine making videos with my friends and family.
Here's a video starring my kids, because they were the only cast I live with and could get last minute and free*.
A (lack of) Space Oddity
https://youtu.be/XggtbfejlO0 |
Please enjoy. Please stay home. Please stay safe. Please wash your hands. But most importantly, please stay home.
See you soon!
*They were well fed on set.