Listen, whatever you see and love — that's where you are

I've mentioned him before, but here's my monthly reminder that Gideon, the kid who pets dogs, is the best thing on Twitter. 

Here is a cheering story about him by Blair Braverman!

(I mean, this kid): "Fifth grade is a big year, and Gideon has big plans—to pet more dogs. 'There’s still tons more dogs left in Cedar Falls,' he says. 'I’d say maybe 50. I get to look out the window and say, Do I have that dog? That dog looks awesome.'”

CHEESE

Edited to add:

On April Fools Day, all the posts on his Twitter were Gideon's brother (who looks like Gideon with short hair) petting cats. I mean.

Too strange to speak

I have been sporadically checking in with the Iditarod this past week and a half, mainly because I am a huge fan of Blair Braverman and her dogs. We had a blustery, bitterly cold several days, and while crunching through the snow with my non-working dogs, I imagined racing across a quiet stretch of wilderness on a sled pulled by dogs gone nearly silent as they run. I don't literally wish I were racing the Iditarod, especially after learning how hard mushing is on the fingers, but it's the best kind of fantasy in March in Maine.

Blair's Twitter is one of the only reasons I still open Twitter. I think she and Nicole Cliff and the kid who pets dogs should be in charge of Twitter 100 percent. If you need a little extra faith in humanity right about now, please go read this thread prompted by Nicole's question "What is the kindest thing a stranger has done or said to you?"

In other news, on a wet and icy city walk with the dogs this morning, I shuffled my feet carefully and thought about how many hours of my childhood I might have wasted spent desperately trying to have telekinesis.

Oh of late I wake with this wedged deeply, intractably, in my head, rather than the dreams that should be lingering there.


My horoscope this week (go find yours!)

"You’re usually so comfortable living inside language, so good at translating your shimmering ideas into words that can be shared. This week, though, you might encounter moments that language fails you. Your emotions might feel inexpressible, too dense, too complicated, too strange to speak. It’s okay. This doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong — not with the feelings, and not with your words. It just means that language was never meant to do everything. Some experiences are meant to be solitary. Some emotions aren’t asking to be spoken yet, only felt."

Impeach Facebook

As I contemplate quitting The Book of Faces and Twitter (I am definitely taking some time away from both this month), I've been making mental pro and con lists, trying to sort out what's positive and healthy, what's necessary or at least convenient, how I can use social media so it doesn't use me.

Some of the pertinent issues I'm facing with loosening my connection are getting news, learning about cool stuff, connecting with other people, expressing myself.

I still use an RSS reader almost every day, where I read blogs, basically (are they all blogs? Do we still call them blogs?). I still blog, with (obviously) great irregularity and half-heartedness. Does anyone besides my mom still read it? Do I care? (I'm not implying that I don't, just that I'm uncertain.)

My brother is thinking of doing a newsletter, which I would enthusiastically add to my list of newsletters, and would read with even more enthusiasm than I read the ones I already subscribe to! I add and subtract them as the whim takes me. I am not a paying subscriber to any of them (which often gets you extra issues/deals/info), at least not yet. Maybe I want to write a newsletter? Do I?


Newsletters I always love:

Laura Olin (Everything good. She describes it as lovely/meaningful things, and it is!)
The Collected AHP from Anne Helen Petersen

Newsletters I almost always love:

Leah Finnegan
Brainpickings
Carrie Frye's Black Cardigan
Austin Kleon
Strange Times ("...a day-by-day rereading of the weirdest articles printed in the 1921 New York Times. Starring gangsters, killers, bootleggers, madmen and jazz, it is a weekly reminder that the past was stranger than we think.")

Newsletters I sometimes love:

R. Eric Thomas's Here For It
Two Bossy Dames
Jamie Varon's Friday Letters
The Shatner Chatner (Oh how I want it to be the Toast, but alas, it is not.)

the small white flower

“I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center.”

-- Margaret Atwood

Lately it seems like the underlying theme of every TV show I watch, book I read, Twitter tweet I scroll past, is that men generally suck. Interesting.*

*I know many men IRL who do not suck

Six

I saw a headline on Twitter that said: Maine man accused of shaking baby to plead guilty. Doesn't it sound like the guy shook the baby to try to force it to plead guilty to something?

At Your Service, Sir

In Which I Educate an NPR Reporter on the Correct Usage of the Phrase "To Beg the Question."

Just another day on the grammar beat.

pastiche

i've already mentioned this on the twitter and the book of faces, but i had such a fabulous dream last night that i just have to describe it again. in the dream, i came across a great blog called dismal pastiche.* i then proceeded to email a link to myself via my brain. it was like there was a built-in iphone. in my brain.**


*yes, dismalpastiche.com is available. and it's MINE!

**just to be a little more meta about it, i then woke up, grabbed my iphone from beside the bed, and emailed myself a description of this dream.

my entirely scientific poll

when surveyed, 55% of mean mama readers not too shy, confused, or bored to participate responded that twitter is, indeed, "silly."

jo myles pointed out a flaw in my poll when she noted that there should be a "silly, but I still like it for some reason" option. i agree, since that's my basic take on twitter. although i recommend that those with a serious interest in the subject (i.e. beyond "silly or not?") read what alex steed has to say about it.

personally, i "unfollowed" a few people who i was finding unaccountably irritating and started following some friendly new people, and i feel much better about the whole thing.

items of note (and an amazing race spoiler)

*as of this minute, there are still six hours left to vote in my exciting twitter poll!

*hugely disappointing: mel and mike were eliminated last night on the amazing race. boo and m are so bereft that they swear they won't watch another episode, but i still want to see who wins (now i guess i'll root for luke and margie -- margie, who fainted dramatically into phil's arms last night, by the way). and i want to see that last episode when the winning team sprints to the finish line and everybody's there to slap hands and cheer them on. then we'll get that last glimpse of mel and mike.

*i was much cheered, though, to learn on the today show this morning (while on the treadmill at the gym -- i didn't need to include that information, but i wouldn't want you to think i sit at home on my couch watching the today show, 'cause i don't) that 40 is the new 20. i hope it's the new 10 pretty soon, so i can ride my banana seat bike all afternoon and throw mean kids over fences when they dis my brother.

*i switched the car radio to wmpg because there's an even-more-annoying-than-usual pledge drive going on at the npr station right now. this morning, i heard this song, which just might be my new theme song.

*i realized that the weightlifter guys at the gym stare at themselves in mirrors just as much as (if not more than) fourteen year old girls do.

*artemis has two tickets to see david sedaris on friday, and she invited ME to go with her!!!

cool or lame?

my kids and their friend miss gliss used to play this hilarious "game show" game they called are you cool? or are you LAME?* that's the basic idea of my wee poll over there on the right. twitter: is it cool? or is it lame? or do you have no idea what i'm talking about? i'm just kind of goofily excited about making a poll on my blog (i didn't even realize it could be done til i saw one on hillary's blog, to tell you the truth). so don't be lame! vote!





*they also played a game called tape 'em up which i never quite understood fully -- it involved one person getting taped to a chair with duct tape, as far as i could tell.

streamline your humiliation

i find this article - about a guy who said something dumb on twitter and cost himself a job - quite amusing. i should be more sympathetic, since who among us hasn't said something stupid and humiliating that we wished we could snatch back just as it escaped our lips?

Why waste valuable social networking hours getting yourself "Facebook fired," when Twitter allows you to humiliate yourself quickly, and in 140 characters or less?

honestly, i am having very mixed feelings about twitter lately. i think it might turn out to be silly. facebook, on the other hand, gives me the opportunity to 1) play scrabble a lot 2) make plans with local friends 3) re-connect with high school and college friends 4) see what two of my cousins are up to 5) stay in touch with bean's friends, 6) watch funny videos, 7) etc.

from the aforementioned article, a bit of wisdom:

Never post anything you wouldn’t say to your mom, boss and significant other.

i have always stuck to that, as it's an intrinsic part of my very own personal lady blogger code of ethics (the other part is "always ask people, especially your own children, if they're cool with you posting their photos").

twitterku

i'm going to try to twitter in haiku form this week. just cause.