Posts Tagged "twitter"

Being a Better Friend | The Original Interview Conversation

Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth. Erma Bombeck DearKidLoveMom.comDear Kid,

Author’s note: I have deleted the word “like” from my otherwise verbatim transcription in order to keep the word count under 7 zillion words. You may feel free to, like, insert it, like, wherever you like, because in all likelihood it was there in the original.

My fab friend Debba asked me to write a blog for Girlfriendology.com about how teenage girls can be better friends. While I may look insanely young, it has been a while since I was (in fact) a teen, so I turned to our very own teenage girl for advice and inspiration.

Pi,” I said, “I need ideas for how teenage girls can be better friends.”

“Huh?” To be fair, we were at the gym and she was 45 seconds into a handstand. I repeated.

“I dunno,” she said and turned right side up again.

“It’s for DEBBA,” I explained.

“Uh-huh,” she said, beginning a third set of sit ups.

I could see this wasn’t the right place to begin the conversation.

I waited until we were driving home and tried again. “Seriously, Pi,” I said, “What makes a teen a better friend?”

She sighed, realized I wasn’t about to give up, and decided to help. “Making food for a friend, hanging out, maybe going with them to a sporting event. Ya’ know, support the school and hang out.”

“What do you do when you and Sarah hang out?” I asked.

“We generally drive around and get lost…and then find our way back.” I have visions of them going out for a smoothie and ending up in a different country.

“And with Emma?”

“We bake stuff at her house that never turns out right. I think next time we’ll try baking at our house, ok?”

“Of course.” I make a mental note to be sure the fire extinguisher is handy. “What about with Melissa?”

“I dunno, mom.” Exasperation.

“Well, do you ever slip a note in someone’s locker to make them feel better if they’re having a bad day?”

I get a look. “No.”

I realize I am hopelessly out of date. “Well, a tweet, or a text?” The look. “No.”

“Do you sit around and talk?” “No.” “Not even about boys, and school, and stuff?”

“Well, of course. But that’s just regular. We don’t talk about serious stuff.”

We finish the drive home in silence.

I consider sending messages to Pi’s friends asking them for help. Then I remember it’s exam week and decide that might not be the best idea on the planet.

I consider going into a deep meditative state and trying to remember what it was like to be a teen. But I’m laughing too hard (I can barely remember what I had for breakfast and Booker will probably climb into my lap and lick my face—not good for regression meditation).

I decide that the answer is probably somewhere at the bottom of a carton of ice cream. When that proves to be incorrect, I sit down to write. You can read Five Tips for Being a Better Teenage Friend on Girlfriendology.

Hope whatever you’re researching today goes better.

Love, Mom

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7/20/13 MoonWalk, Oceans on Mars, 9 for IX, and Football Lift-a-thon

Pi football lift-a-thonDear Kid,

Forty-four years ago (give or take a few hours), Grandma and Grandpa woke us up “in the middle of the night” (not really, but I was a little kid) to watch the first man walk on the moon. One small step and all that. It was a very cool piece of history to witness. And somehow we did it with a black and white TV and no Twitter.

One of the headlines yesterday was Evidence found that an ocean once existed on Mars. My first thought was that the beach towels and flip flops the rover found must have given it away. My second thought was “How do you lose all evidence of an actual ocean? It’s not like we’re talking about a puddle…” My third thought (yup, when I think, I often think in threes) was to check out the article—right up until I saw that the link was to a TV & Movies tab and I moved on to Mashable where I found the Complete Guide to Twitter Abbreviations.

It’s actually a pretty good compilation.  If you’re not going to read the list you should at least know that TIL stands for Today I Learned.

Best part of the article:

TIL: Kummerspeck is the perfect word. German for weight gain from stress eating. Literally translates to grief bacon (via @jacoblogansmith)

I may have this embroidered on a pillow.

In other news, at Pi’s request we recently watched Let Them Wear Towels (one of the 9 for IX documentaries on ESPN). This documentary is about the first women who covered major league sports from the men’s locker rooms. It’s running frequently—I think you’ll like it.

The thing I found most interesting was the women saying that really no one – male sportswriters included – WANTS to be in the locker room after a game. Locker rooms are stinky, sweaty, stinky, raucous, stinky, humid, loud, stinky places. It’s where the story is so they had to be there to do their jobs. But want? Not so much.

I bring this up because the HS football lift-a-thon was this week. Talk about a loud, sweaty (but surprisingly not stinky), testosterone-filled environment.

Plus Pi.

Her shoulder still isn’t 100% so she wasn’t able to do everything but she participated in the squat part and maxed at 190 pounds. Compared to the rest of the team, that’s not much, but then again, most of the guys are 6 times as big as she is. (Kudos to the 2 guys who squatted 475! Yikes!) I was really impressed that her teammates took her weight seriously and spotted her as carefully as if she was lifting at their max levels. The picture doesn’t really show that, but trust me. Her goal is to be able to squat 200 by the end of the summer. Stay tuned.

Happy Saturday. Text your sister.

Love, Mom

 

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5/8/13 If It’s on the Internet, It’s Permanent — As in Forever

Love twitter. Follow me @JudiCogen

Love twitter. Follow me @JudiCogen (I do not yet tweet from beyond the grave.)

Dear Kid,

If it’s on the internet, it’s permanent — as in for-e-ver.

You know that. You have heard six zillion, 9 grillion and 4 messages about not posting anything you don’t want everyone to see. About how things on the web last forever. And that you are likely to feel differently about what people know about you when you are 30 than you do now.

So I will not bother to repeat any of that.

I will not spend a pixel telling you that potential employers will check your Facebook page and your twitter feed and your Google Plus circles and so on (even if you think they can’t).

And I will not tell you that you should never post anything you wouldn’t want your mother to see. That you might not want children to see. That you don’t want reporters to see when you run for President of the United States (or for dog catcher).

But here is something entirely new: There is a well-known tweeter who is tweeting from beyond the grave.

You heard me. He’s dead. Tweets still coming through.

You know that I love twitter. Love. Can almost always be found there. For the record, I am hilarious there too. (Feel free to follow me @JudiCogen)

The short version (here is the long version) is that @RickCaffienated used some kind of program within Hootsuite (which no one seems able to figure out) to schedule tweets—which are still showing up after his sudden and unexpected death in January.

Which raises the question, what will people find out about you after you’re dead? Or when you have the flu or when you’re out of town or whatever.

Think carefully about what you post, Kid. It may come back to haunt you. (Get it? from beyond the grave? Haunt? oh, never mind.)

Love, Mom

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