Saturday, January 10, 2015

Corrections

 I'd like to issue the following corrections to the world: 
  • Despite the fact that they had a wildly successful radio hit with the song "Mr Jones," and that their frontman had a hilarious hairdo for most of the 1990s, the Counting Crows should be recognized as one of the biggest bummer bands of all time. If you've actually listened to August and Everything After, you know that it's pretty much a paean to suicide, depression, lost loves, and angst.

  • None of the male Friends was worth a hill of beans, and Ross Gellar especially. I feel like he was the ultimate Nice Guy/friend-zoned doofus. AKA: ugh.

  • Working in non-profits doesn't mean that you should be paid less than a living wage. Anyone who tries to convince you otherwise maybe doesn't understand how truly sustainable and socially conscious organizations function. It's a widespread understanding in the non-profit world that the good feels people get from changing the world can somehow be converted into rent money, but this is not the case.


  • The comic Sex Criminals is not about actual sex criminals.

  • Unless you have an impeccably curated Instagram account, other people rarely find your children nearly as adorable, intelligent, or engaging as you do. (I say this fully aware of the fact that, if I have kids, I will do my damnedest not to let them become my only topic of conversation, and knowing also that I'll fail.) I have, however, come around on the whole "we're pregnant" thing, so you guys did win that round.

  • The hashtag #amwriting was recently derided on my Twitter feed for being something only posers, punks, and needful amateurs use. Fine. All you professional/full-time writers have fun in your miserable cocktail parties, comparing notes about how each sentence you write destroys your soul a little more, and how anyone who might mention writing in the spirit of fun and enjoyment is an awful person who Doesn't Get It. I'll be over here, merrily humming away, trying my best to finish stories, and celebrating the fact that I'm trying at all.

  • Knowing a problem exists is not the same as solving that problem.

  • Replacing your wheat flour with coconut flour, your rye flour with almond flour, and your spaghetti noodles with yam-starch noodles is the jankiest, laziest, most "I don't wanna give up the things I love" way of doing low-carb or Paleo. You want to do those diets? Fine. But don't front like your 1300-calorie slice of coconut oil bread has anything to do with cavemen.

  • Confidential to my sister and mother: you have seen the northern lights. I wasn't there. We have this conversation literally every time we talk about the aurora borealis. I still haven't seen them.

  • Spending time on Pinterest is not the same as making crafts.

  • The sentence "I wasn't interested," is complete and, contrary to that one intense dude that's at every house party, a 100% legit reason to not engage with media that doesn't appeal to you. No-one is under obligation to watch Breaking Bad, read Noam Chomsky, play Halo 4, listen to Serial, or whatever else. Don't let that intense dude make you feel bad.
Image via The Moscow Times