Tag Archives: friends

Dear “The Loved Ones”: High School is Hard Enough (Mitt Romney, I’m looking at you)

14 May

Some things about this trailer are perfect. The music in the first 30 seconds, the boys’ unwashed hair, the way conversations about prom happen at lockers (I got asked to prom standing at my locker wearing an old sweatshirt, and no, there wasn’t a speech prepared, there weren’t flowers or a sign, I knew he was asking me in a half-panic after his first choice had said yes to someone else during lunch).

You know what else is perfect? The fact that Holly looks about 10 years older than her boyfriend Brendan. Eighteen-year-old boys are BABIES, you guys. Are they not drinking milk? Because the hormones in milk are not doing to boys what they’re doing to girls.

And then at 1:28, fake-Lena-Dunham goes all American psycho on her crush! Watch:

THE BRITISH ACCENT. THE “SUCK IT” FINGER. THE HAMMERED TOE. The conjunctivitis eyeliner. And then, because they couldn’t resist, they threw in the girlfight in the prom dresses. Special to Adam Best of Flicksided: while I buy the Texas Chainsaw Massacre reference, I somehow really doubt this ever “meets Sixteen Candles.”

How does this end? My prom night ended when we got kicked out of the hotel room where we weren’t even drinking (and not planning to stay the night, it was just a party thrown by my date’s first choice) and went for pancakes at IHOP and then I was dropped off at a very respectable hour. No one that I was close to lost anything that night– not toenails, nor virginity, nor sense of humanity. Maybe an earring.

What’s with this prom-horror genre? Do we have such a strong sense of prom as an American rite of passage that we’re all, “If they can ruin PROM, then nothing’s sacred?”

Please.

Read on to see how I magically work this around to Mitt Romney and Barack Obama’s childhood bullying and what it means for America:  (more…)

Dear Facebook Timeline

23 Apr

We all hate it. We all hate change every time it happens on FB, yes, and then like lemmings we throw ourselves off the cliff and continue to overshare online. Really, FB’s tagline is “TMI.”

So why? Why do we hate timeline? Why do some of us (guilty) hate it so much that we continue to hold out, hoping against hope that Zuckerberg will just never notice us lurking in the corners?

We carefully avoid that stupid little button that says “Get Timeline Now” like a hyperactive kindergarten teacher shilling naptime. You know it’s not really for your own good. Even as kid you were all, “Yeah, and what’re you going to do while I sleep?” Now that we have friends who are teachers we know: check Facebook. (How’s that for a transition?)

1. It’s stupid hard to find things on people’s profiles, even stuff you saw just a minute ago and you know definitely is there.

It’s even harder on Timeline than it used to be. Speaking of, why doesn’t FB have a better topical search button yet? It’s called “google search” and my understanding is that it’s basically HPV: already there, just waiting to be found.

2. You have to be a graphic designer to use it and what if I’m not, Facebook, GTFO.

Seriously. Timeline requires some sort of aesthetic/graphic aptitude: your cover photo and profile picture have to complement each other. Have you seen someone’s profile where they don’t? It’s ugly as sin. AND WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE GRAPHIC APTITUDE, FACEBOOK. YOUR MOM HAS IT.

I already have to make graphic design decisions concerning this blog and god, shoot me now. you’ll notice it hasn’t changed in two years, and didn’t change in the 2 years before that. And every time I do post a photo I realize– oh wait this has to look not-barfy against that yellow banner. Do any of you want to come draw sketches for me?

3. Have you even looked in the mirror lately, Facebook? That isn’t body dysmorphia disorder. You’re weird now.

Timeline does not look good with FB’s surrounding layout– the way that little bar at the top scrolls down with it? The settings buttons at the top which keeps the cover photo from truly being a banner, which is how we’re accustomed to seeing it work on blogs? It’s like a truly terrible tumblr theme.

It only took me seventeen tries to get a decent cover photo / profile pic combo! You?

The huge gaps in the profiles of people who almost never use FB look awful– thus forcing you into an “all or nothing” sort of use. That is, if you want your own wall to look palatable. You know how you know it’s a bad design, though? Even if people do post photos all the time, if the pictures aren’t through the same filter, or taken with similar lighting, they look strange lined up next to and against each other. Our eyes can’t reconcile them. There’s a reason movies don’t generally film every other shot with different tints to them. Film editors are paid billions of dollars to fix such discrepancies.

All those “buttons” under the cover photo (“friends, maps, etc.”)? First of all, you have to use those functions for it to be visually appealing, which most of us don’t. See that blue box with “158″ and the thumbs up in the picture above? It looks dumb. It needs an image. Second of all, the colors of them also should be in the same color family. (Right? “Color family” is a thing? See above lack of visual design ability.) But you have no control over what those buttons display.

4. What it leads to: the apocalypse and paid Facebook wall designers.

(more…)

Dear Confessions from a Girl who is Moving in a Month

20 Apr

I’ve stopped doing laundry. I haven’t vacuumed in a month. 

Should I even bother to replace the olive oil? What size should I get? How many ounces of olive oil do you use in a month?

I have the strangest impulse to keep buying books. This is my last month of graduate school! I should leave here with a complete library of every book I’ve ever loved and ever meant to buy, every book on my reading list. I should read all of the books I own that I have not read before I am allowed to leave. 

The stacks of paper in my apartment are taking over. I live in a studio. When there are stacks of paper and books on every flat surface, there is nowhere to sit, no other room to go to. I’m surrounded, essentially, by failed drafts. 

On the other hand (there is always at least one other hand, if not more)…

(more…)

Dear Seattle: A Love Letter from a Native Daughter

18 Apr

I’m moving (back) to Seattle at the end of May. Back to the land of clouds and lakes. Back to where we say obnoxious things like, “My hometown is better than yours” and we really, really mean it.

Seattle is so beautiful even I can't screw up the photographs.

Search google for “Seattle tumblr” and you find (page one) long lists of tumblrs that do nothing but post pictures of Seattle (really?) and (page two) you find posts about all those tumblr authors meeting up. In bars. In Seattle. To talk about how great Seattle is. And presumably to compare the silk percentages of their favorite hiking socks and stroke each other’s facial hair and create a living Escher sketch with all that plaid.

Seattle-ites who are stupid or restless or ambitious enough to move to other cities have a reputation for being obnoxiously proud. Like: I was surprised other parts of the country were allowed to have salmon and crab. I’m still unsure about ordering it in restaurants here. Here. In San Diego. We aren’t exactly landlocked. 

My ex-boyfriend thinks he really loves Seattle, having gone to University of Washington, and having expressed a desire to live there for the rest of his life. I just smiled at him pityingly. It’s really cute that he’s enlightened enough to recognize its inherent greatness, but he just does not even know.

I mean, that’s the thing: we think Seattle is great, and we’re sort of amazed the rest of the world hasn’t caught on, but we don’t really want you moving there. You’ve seen the articles, right? About how Seattle natives are friendly right up until you actually want to talk to them or do something? In a lot of ways, it’s easier to move to New York and make friends. 

I’m hoping I won’t have that same problem as a Seattle daughter who’s returning, but to be honest: I’m a little nervous. And to be honest: my pedigree isn’t as watertight as it could be…

(more…)

Dear Friends

21 Mar

Dear Friends,

TV shows lie to us, which is fine.

But sometimes the myths become so pervasive they’re hard not to ignore. And sometimes they’re judgy. Like the myth about how we should all have a group of 5-6 friends, and all of us should live in awesome apartments, and date each other, and not really ever have to go to work, and if anyone breaks up, it’ll be awkward for approximately 8 minutes. At the most 20. Even if there’s a baby involved. Eventually somebody (well, 2 somebodies) will get married and everyone will apartment-swap and also hug.

For past examples see Friends, Party of Five, Friends, That 70′s Show, Dawson’s Creek, Friends, Saved by the Bell, Beverly Hills 90210. For current examples, see Happy Endings, Whitney, New Girl, How I Met Your Mother, The League, 90210, etc, et al, ie, ergo, and so forth.

Forget the sweet apartments, the barely-present babies, the comic marriages, the impossibly high-paying jobs and low-rent living situations. Forget that no one ever grocery shops.

What if you don’t have the friends?

(more…)

← Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 25 other followers