New slang

All over town (by town, I mean webernets) there are these hoards of people who lurk in the dark shadows of popular blogs and online publications, voraciously devouring every word written, waiting with bated breath to pounce on something... any small morsel they can concoct an elaborate vitriolic diatribe around in the comment section. This brand of feedback is almost always entirely indicative of their lack of comprehension of the writing's true content/purpose and generally serve to disparage the author in some ridiculous, single-minded way without addressing any larger issue.

Frequently rife with misspellings, poor sentence structure, and/or faulty grammar- these diarrhea-of-the-mouth style (for lack of a better expression) missives serve no purpose other than to chip away at the self-esteem of the writer (or worse, the subject of the post/story), while demonstrating the higher intelligence/morality/social standing of the commenter.

Ladies and gentlemen of the webernets, without further ado... allow me to introduce you to:

Netpicker (n) - Original Etymology, Nit Picker (n) 1951 - pedantic critic. Adopted for the web (or internet) in 2009. - Specifically characterizes an individual who seeks to criticize the work of another in the public forum of the comment section of any online published content with thinly-veiled attempts to elevate his/her own standing on unrelated grounds.

Synonyms: Hater (variant, "player" hater), troll, sniper, naysayer, @sshole, misanthrope.

I should add here that I've been very fortunate to avoid the steel gaze of most netpickers by flying largely under their radar with this fun little blog of mine. I've come up with this expression to put a name to the endless supply of jack@sses I come across while enjoying the work of other bloggers.

Most notably, I'm alarmed on a regular basis at just how many readers flock to Heather Armstrong's thoroughly amusing and insightful dooce.com, seemingly for the sole purpose of netpicking. She regularly posts excerpts of her most amusing hate e-mails and I applaud her for taking it all in stride. Netpickers should largely be ignored... but it's about time we put a name to their nasty little spiteful faces.

Too little time

How irrational is it that having been unemployed for 8 months, I still feel like there isn't enough time to accomplish all the projects I'd like to undertake? What, exactly- keeps me from just sitting down and doing them? And lastly, how is it that days seem to drift by slow as molasses or, alternately, at breakneck speed without my even noticing. We have a joke around the house that it doesn't really matter what day it is when you're unemployed. Basically, your entire week is the weekend. And I think that's really the problem. Without the confines of the work week, I don't value my time the way I should. It reminds me of an article I just read in the Atlantic Monthly- my new favorite magazine.

{In summary- the article postulates that just as most people are likely to put off future (negative) experiences/tasks such as going to the gym (sound familiar?), eating better (getting warmer...), and saving money (BINGO!)- we're also prone to delaying gratification when there is no specific time frame allotted. It's very counterintuitive which I love. ...Yadda, yadda, yadda the main point is that both marketers and consumers alike to should be aware of this tendency and try to navigate the muddy waters of behavioral economics with caution.}

So I'm going to spend a little time thinking about how best to bring back the routine of my week. My motivational circadian rhythm is all out of whack and needs a serious makeover. If you have any tips or tricks of your own, I'd love to hear them. There's nothing worse than wasting time.

Words of wisdom

"One of the worst traps
is finding yourself
despising someone
really good.

There they are
wearing a miniskirt
talking dirty
but washing
the filthy
feeding the hungry
defending the poor
befriending the dead.

& all you can
say in your
defense

is
their bleached hair
& studded
nostril
hardly goes
with so much
leg."

-Alice Walker (from Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth)

Sunday secrets

PostSecret is one of my favorite blogs and while I try to avoid the webernets (and computers altogether) on the weekends, I can't help but feel a little bit like a kid on Christmas morning every Sunday as I cruise over to the site to see what new beans are waiting to be spilled. These two are today's favorites for different reasons.

If you're not familiar with PostSecret it's a fascinating site where individual post cards are displayed that have been sent in anonymously from people around the world. On each card the sender spells out a secret, sometimes artistically rendered, sometimes in shockingly simple black and white text. Some are hopeful, others are hopeless. Some are funny and some are more heartbreaking than a Greek tragedy or any of Shakespeare's best stuff. Most of it is inspiring.

As someone with a few secrets up her sleeve, I had considered sending in a few postcards myself over the first year or so of lurking on the site. But I never sent any. Eventually I found that the honesty and courage of strangers helped me to feel more resolute in the decision to share my deepest secrets with Mr.Mr. when the time was right. I had become convinced over time that without the honesty between us, our relationship would quietly suffer as I had for not having an outlet. And we now share secrets on a regular basis. Not every single one of them is earth shatteringly severe but I take comfort in knowing that I have nothing to fear anymore.

Take a look. Go now. It will be hard not to feel an instant kinship when you read a secret that belongs to you as well.

Photos courtesy of Postsecret.com.

Month-i-versaries

I don't need anniversaries if monthiversaries are this good.  

Mr.Mr. subscribes to an email listing called American Life in Poetry which is a very English-major kind of thing of him to do.  Only today the poem he received in his inbox was perfectly timed.  He gave me a hand-written transcription of it today as a small celebratory token.  I think it may very well be the most beautiful and appropriate thing I've ever read.  

Marry Me (a senryu sequence)

by Veronica Patterson

When I come late to bed

I move your leg flung over my side --

that warm gate

nights when you're not here

I inch toward the middle

of this boat, balancing

when I turn over in sleep

you turn, I turn, you turn,

I turn, you

some nights you tug the edge

of my pillow under your cheek

look in my dream

pulling the white sheet

over your bare shoulder

I marry you again

I'm thinking it would be great to have a version letterpress printed and then framed as a sweet little reminder.

...

Oh yeah, and in case you're thinking I've gone completely soft and mushy over Mr.Mr.'s by-proxy proclamations of sweet, sweet love... just have a listen to tonight's anthem care of the Flight of the Conchords.

Hmmm... now if only I could parlay these monthiversary presents into an art studio, printing press and a room full of type and ornaments.  Yeeeaah.

Bringing sexy back to activism

I'm half-way into an article entitled, "I'm bad! I'm slick!" in the May 2008 Fast Company and I'm thinking Van Jones is a cross between Denzel Washington and Al Gore with a little bit of James Brown thrown in for good measure. ...The last time activism looked this good its mascot was a barely-clad, face-painted, flower child protesting the Vietnam war. His charisma and personality leap from the page and he clearly has his priorities in order when it comes to the environment. But Jones is taking a different tact than your average tree-hugger and battling the burn of our dwindling environment with business. As founder and president of Green for All (not to mention a Yale Law grad), Jones has been working hard to put an end to poverty while supporting the environment by training low-income, at-risk and disadvantaged men and women in green business practices.

Beyond his good looks, he's inspiring real change in the way people perceive the challenges we face as the world slowly dawns to the idea that we're running out of time to save our planet. The concept is this: in order to get green on the scale necessary to affect real change, we're going to need the people power to undertake the tasks of installing solar panels, building green homes and supporting earth-friendly business practices from the inside out. Beyond that, he believes that the absolute, hands-down, best people for the jobs are those who rarely have the means, education or opportunity to get a crack at that type of work.

What the article doesn't specifically spell out or beat you over the head with is this: The low-income, at-risk and disadvantaged of our country are the perfect pioneers of a this movement because they are exactly the people who can't afford be locavores. Their paycheck doesn't stretch enough to escape the the iron-fisted embrace of Walmart. And most importantly, the children of low-income, at-risk and disadvantaged parents are far more likely to struggle just to graduate from high school, let alone become involved in their community to support exactly these types of initiatives. It really is a cycle.

I'm not sure exactly what kind of message I can put forth about this other than that this man is really headed in the right direction. He's bringing green to the masses to make a better future for the planet and the people who live on it. And that goes way beyond the fashionable activism that conspires to not only further delay real attempts to make change but to squash it all together for lack of genuine support.