It's 8:00 p.m. on a Saturday, and S wants to watch an episode of Downton Abbey before she goes to sleep. (And she has an early bedtime. She might try to tell you it's because the kid, but she's gone to bed early as long as I've known her. She's one of those head-hits-the-pillow types of sleepers too. I am so jealous of those people.) I've little time for a flowery intro or seamless segues, but I have some thoughts. So let's get to it, bullet point style.
- I've found myself checking Facebook a lot more now than I used to. I figured out it's because while watching the little guy, I only get breaks of 45 seconds or so, while he's preoccupied with other things. Facebook is something I can check in under a minute. One of my friends posted a link to this article ("7 Ways to Be Insufferable on Facebook"), which I thought was funny and mostly accurate. One thing I do disagree with though is the open brag. If it's not couched in an obviously fake self-effacing shell ("guess i have everybody at worked fooled. i got the promotion!!"), and it's reserved for big life events that are actually accomplishments, I don't find it insufferable. Everybody should be allowed to crow at bit.
One thought I had: Would Facebook be better if their was an anonymous "dislike" button? Maybe with different types of dislike -- "trivial", "boring", "braggadocious", etc.? As the author points out, almost all the reinforcement on Facebook is positive. If there was a non-confrontational, easy way to indicate to somebody that their posts are stupid, would that be a good thing? - Speaking of watching the little guy. He's so demanding right now. He's at that age, where he's old enough to get into things he shouldn't, but he's not old enough to really understand reason or consequence (unfortunately for boys "that age" doesn't end until about 25). And he's learned how to pout, to make things worse. So it's just constant supervision and attention wherever we go. And when you thwart one escapade, he just goes on to the next. It's like if you surveyed a room and ranked all the things in it from least to most suitable for a child. And then you brought Lil' S in, he'd just right down the list in order. He'd start with the scissors that somebody forgot to put away and then move on from there. If we're lucky, we can eventually get him down to just chewing on cell phone wires. I'm really hoping Kid No. 2 (which is in our plans at some point) is a girl. I don't care if it's a baseless, gender-normative stereotype, little girls are easier than little boys... until they're 14.
- I have an acquaintance who's really heavy, like gasping-for-air-walking-up-a-few-stairs heavy. She's a really nice woman, and her hobby is baking. This got me thinking about obese people. On one hand, they are severely stigmatized by society. Slender people (especially slender, good-looking people) just have it easier in many ways -- socially, romantically, logistically (think airplanes), etc. But in another way, they aren't stigmatized enough. I'm not trying to sound overly harsh, bear with me. This woman bakes a lot and then partakes in her goodies, and nobody says anything to her or openly looks down on her for it. Imagine if this was some other unhealthy activity, like drinking or smoking. If somebody was an alcoholic and his hobby was brewing and drinking beer that wouldn't be okay with people, right? Or if somebody had emphysema and loved to hand-roll and smoke cigarettes, they'd get a lot of dirty looks, wouldn't they? But when it comes to being unhealthy with food it's just not the same. We have it backward with really overweight people. We should be much less judgmental with the social aspect and more judgmental with the health aspect.
- We had a handyman come over today to get estimates on some odd jobs. Small stuff -- fixing sticky doors, tightening a shower knob, removing a wall-mounted TV that came with the house that we've never used -- all things that I could probably do, if I would take the time to learn how to do it (which would probably be easy, everything is on Youtube now). But I won't. I feel a bit guilty, like it's wasting money to pay for these things. But on the other hand, you have to put some monetary value on your time. Working full-time means my free time comes at a premium. It also means I can afford to pay somebody to do odd jobs. If I lost my job then I couldn't do this. But then I'd have the cheap free time to do it. It's a reverse catch-22. At least that's how I justify it.
- The government shutdown is over. What a colossal, idiotic, pointless embarrassment of a farce of a sham. And it was entirely on the Republicans. If, after all this, you come across somebody who still tries to feed you the both-sides-are-just-as-bad line, kick them in the nuts. Or if it's a woman, tell her she has a really bizarre-looking asymmetrical head, stare at it for a few beats, shake your head in a puzzled manner, and walk away. Trust me. It will spoil her day.
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