What I think Facebook does well...

Lately when I get on Facebook, I’ve encountered articles that carry the tone of “Why I Hate Facebook… and other rants”. Okay, that wasn’t the title of the article(s), but you catch my drift. The authors maintain that we’re broken into types, that we’re all guilty of bragging, and that Facebook gives a false impression of our daily life or just the best versions of ourselves. I have a friend who maintains that Facebook is designed to make you sad. All of the parties you aren’t attending, the weddings you weren’t invited to, and the friends that you no longer keep in touch with can all be boiled down to a newsfeed.

Interesting.

Don’t get me wrong; there have been many times where I have practiced my break up speech with Facebook. “It’s totally you and not me.” “We obviously want different things out of this.” “You’ve changed since 2004.”… But really, just like any bad romance, if I choose to stay, I really have no one to blame but myself. So, like many people, I just cringe in silence when I see memes about Walmart or celebrity fodder, because this is the “price of admission” to stay on an (ironically) free social media site.

But for all of the things that Facebook does not do well (and I’m sure you have counted them on your fingers and toes), there actually are some things that I do enjoy about it, and if I’m being perfectly honest with myself, many things that I enjoy sharing with people in my social network.

So here’s what I think Facebook does well:

1.)  Facebook actually does allow me to be proud/happy/excited for people I know who are doing well. For every person you know who treats Facebook like his or her diary and is constantly complaining there are ten people who are excited about something today.

I know we’re adults, and maybe shouldn’t need affirmation on such a grand level, but when I see that someone has gotten married, had a baby when they never thought they would be able to, passed the bar exam, or took an amazing trip that they worked their whole life to take, my initial reaction is, “HELL YES. Absolutely. Take your happiness and run with it.” Because network friends, this life is long, and besides the joy that you are experiencing in your life (and I am well aware you need no validation) I hope you know that there are people rooting for you, even if you don’t know or need it. And I for one wish you well upon your journey.

2.)  Facebook reminds me every now and then that I know some smart people… really, really smart people. Okay, I hate the memes about Walmart as much as the next person, and honestly, I could do without a poignant take on Taylor Swift’s song lyrics, but filtered through all of that, there are some really bright people that I have met in this life. Some of these people are professional writers, comedy teams, producers, doctors, musicians, and just all around interesting people, and I actually know them. How did I get so lucky? When I read about their latest projects (that they choose to share on social media), I am blown away by the ideas and insight that they are putting into the world. These people teach me plenty when I take the time to notice their creativity and appreciate their stamina for the rejection and beat down that life can offer at times… they’re inspiring. Whether they know it or not really isn’t the point; the point is that they are putting themselves out there and taking a risk. The success of it all is not for me or anyone else to measure.

3.)  Facebook illustrates that some people have really changed for the better. I’m not just talking about on the outside, although some of you have really blossomed into lovely adults. That person that we weren’t sure would graduate college and spent most of 2005 on a video game in the sweatpants, or the really pompous jerk who became humbled later in life, well, they grew into decent people. And change looks different for everyone. Some people made subtle shifts, and some hit rock bottom before they got their life together. Again, it doesn’t really matter than I notice it, or that anyone else does, but since I have, I rather enjoy rooting for these people now. I enjoy success stories and I realize that they come in many different packages.

I know that people can make their lives much more interesting on Facebook than in reality. I know that maybe it isn’t necessary to see ALL 108 pictures of your trip to Vegas this year (anywhere but Vegas, please, I beg you). I also know that it creates a really false sense of knowing people you really do not know. (Shameful plug: You should know that Facebook has taught me how to be a one-lined comedian and I can assure you that I am not nearly as funny in real life.)…

But for the people I spent twelve years in primary and secondary education with, for the people I lived with in college, stood in your weddings, met your children, and have sat at a table with, I tell you with absolute certainty that I do actually celebrate your victories and success, filtered through the clips of Toddlers and Tiaras and random invitations to parties 1800 miles away.

And if ever you or I reach our threshold for negativity, judgment, or jealousy; if you or I ever decide that we are no longer sifting through our newsfeed to celebrate our friends’ success, we need only to remember that at any time we can in fact, turn it off. 

To all my seniors...

To all my seniors:

To all of you beautiful weirdos, I hope that you had a fantastic first day of your senior year. I hope that you helped someone who needed it, rekindled friendships with people you hadn’t seen all summer, and got a little geeky over school supplies (yes, I know that last one probably did not happen, but I can dream.).

I hope you all know how special it was to teach all of you your freshman year. You were my first class of freshman, and you are all so dear to me. You came into my class scared to death (a record I hold no small amount of pride for being able to accomplish), and stepped out of my class (never too far away from stopping in to say hello) a little more knowledgeable and polished than you came before. This was a team effort. I watched some of you really struggle, but you made it… and now you’re seniors. If I were still your teacher, I’d try to teach you small lessons as we went through your last year, but since that is not the case, I wanted to make sure you knew a few things that will help you make it through your last year in secondary education:

1.)  You absolutely do not know everything; stop strutting already. I know you. I know EXACTLY how you walked around those halls today, and you need to just cut it out. Be on time, be respectful of other people’s time… because you will absolutely never be able to predict when you are going to need someone’s help, and you want to make sure you’ve given a little help to others in the process.

2.)  Work together. I said “work” not “cheat”; you know how I feel about cheating. Help each other out. The same kids I saw working together to make sure their friends passed their AP classes late into the night at Whataburger are the same people you are now. Except you can drive… and that terrifies me.

3.)  Be nicer than you have to be. I’m telling you, and hear me now and believe me later, repairing things later is hard work. It’s much easier to do it right the first time. Be nicer than you should be, and people will ever so grateful.

4.)  Avoid being lazy. I know it’s tough, and you’re going to want to coast, but you will have full on panic attacks (I see it every year) because you assume someone is going to figure it out for you. No. No one is going to figure out for you whether you signed up for your SAT, applied to college, sent in the check for graduation fees, or remembered to take health so that you can graduate. (You still need health to graduate, right? I don’t even want to think about your concept of public health and hygiene.)

5.)  I said stop strutting, but you should absolutely be a leader. Humility is a hard lesson, and most of us learn it MANY times over. Be a humble leader by helping those who do not ask for it when they need it most and (here’s the hard part), TAKE NO CREDIT FOR IT. That’s tough, because we all want people to know our goodness, but that’s not the point of doing good. Remember that.

6.)  Read a book of your own choice. Let me just say that you will not have to know the 200 literary terms I taught you to make it in life. That’s just, like, a fact. You will however, find that there are a lot of people your age reading all over the country for pleasure. You won’t feel the backlash of it five years after college, but you will the NEXT five years after college. If you travel to New York, be careful; everyone on the east coast is a book snob because they all read on trains…even the teenagers.

So pick up a book and learn something and remember that there are so, so many kids (in this country, no less) that would kill or die for a library. I know some of them. You have a beautiful library and Mrs. Vyoral is just waiting for you to ask for her help. So take advantage of that resource and make yourself a little smarter than you have to be. You’ll be so glad you did.

7.)  Remember the little people. At the end of this year, you get to honor some educators who changed your life for the better. You did not teach yourself to read. You did not learn Algebra II on your own. Your handwriting is questionable, so that might be the only thing I’d believe that you taught yourself.

Say thank you and say it often. You don’t get to honor every teacher, but you can say thank you to most of them. Go visit your kindergarten teacher this year when you get out for early dismissal. Walk over to the middle school and say hi to a coach that taught you integrity and commitment. Stop in to say hello to your freshman World Geography teacher. Most importantly, remember that it isn’t just your teachers you have to thank for who you became at school; you have a plethora of people who work hard to make school run for you (as much as you might hate it from time to time). They are your custodians, your cafeteria workers, your campus police, and your administrators. They get very little thanks, and they absolutely deserve it.

8.) Be interesting. I know that it’s cool to shop at all the same places, and listen to all the same stuff… but please, please do not be afraid to be interesting. That does not mean you have to throw out your new clothes or “only download indie bands”. (Gross. Newsflash: that isn’t interesting; it’s predictable. It makes you just as boring as everyone else who is a slave to their wardrobe and money.) Interesting means thinking outside the box. Ask questions. Read MULTIPLE articles on something you find interesting and ask yourself why you believe/agree with something. Watch a TED talks or listen to a great podcast every now and then. Try new food that sounds questionable. Ask people their opinions about real things and then really listen. Digest ideas and then create some of your own. Those are the interesting people, the ones who aren’t afraid to be different.

Above all, show integrity, and remember: Those who make excuses are rarely excused.

I love you, I love you, I love you. Have a fantastic year and make me so proud. J

Movies my parents let me watch and other ridiculous things I think about that cause me to miss train stops...

Look, I know that parenting is a tough job and that I know nothing on the subject, but the other day I was talking with my friend Justin on the roof of our apartment and our conversation got me thinking about some movies I got away with watching as a kid. The conversation went something like this:

Justin: What’s it like inside the bikers’ club?

Me: Meh. Kind of cramped. I don’t know. I only stepped inside for a second.

Justin: You didn’t, like, hang out with them?

Me: Uh, no. I’ve seen The Accused. I know how that ends.

*end scene*

No, I did not see The Accused as a small child (my parents aren’t monsters, guys). Most of the dramas I got to watch with intense scenes like that as a teenager were probably so that my parents could infuse fear into my sister and I to make sure we would never, oh, I don’t know, WALK INTO A BIKERS’ CLUB ALONE. But I digress…

Here is the list of movies I got to watch as a kid (7-13) that would never fly in 2013:

Dirty Dancing:

I missed so many things when I watched this movie the first 200 times (which is true for every movie on this list), but I have real issues with Baby and Johnny’s relationship.

1.)  She hooked up with 1986 Patrick Swayze, who wore a black t-shirt and mastered the art of beckoning her to the dance floor with the “come hither” motion. This is unfair and absurd. Mostly just unfair. I didn’t realize how unfair until adulthood.

2.)  They hook up all the time. They were like rabbits. She was supposed to be practicing her fox trot and NOBODY noticed her absence? How is this possible? My parents always knew where I was (especially since I feared breaking rules until early in my 20s) all the time. My father mastered the art of “finding me” well into the 2000s, and I paid my own taxes.

3.)  Patrick Swayze's character was basically a womanizer/gigolo… who slept with older women and then felt really victimized by it. That’s weird.

4.)  There’s an abortion. That happened? When? They were practicing the mambo.

5.)  Apparently the dancing is a metaphor for sex. Just kidding. I always knew that. I have eyes, people.

Willow:

There’s a two-headed dragon (that makes zero contribution to the plot); thanks a heap, Ron Howard. There are small people that use magic. Val Kilmner is a con artist. But all of these things could be overlooked, if it weren’t for that witch.

I watched Willow when I was in college with my roommates and guess what: that lady is still terrifying. The movie is campy as hell, but the witch is super batshit crazy.* There are also these crazy, horny little pixie people that confuse me…and at one point one falls in love with a cat. I dunno. The 80s were weird.

*To this day, if someone says the name “Wiiilloooowww” like the sorceress/goat, I die laughing. Uncontrollably.

Grease:

I had to break it to my friend Jenny one summer that “Greased Lightning” is like, chalk full of sexual references. When she didn’t believe me, I pulled up the lyrics.

I’m still not sure if she forgave me for that.

Grease is the movie that I first learned what a condom was… mainly because there’s a pregnancy scare in the movie. But generally speaking, I think that my overall understanding of the movie came way later. And really, thanks to Grease, I can do a kickass karaoke version of “Hopelessly Devoted to You” that will Bring. Down. The house. If we ever karaoke together, you will be so, so grateful.

Crybaby:

John Waters, you master of dark comedy. Between this and the original Hairspray, I gained an early exposure to drag and a strong propensity for bad boys.

Look, I made good grades and I was squeaky clean most of my childhood. The chances of me ending up on the back of a motorcycle were pretty slim. First, my dad made me wear a helmet when I rode my bike in the neighborhood until I finally convinced him that I was the master of my own destiny (or I threw it in a dumpster outside the Stop and Go at the front of our neighborhood), so he really laid it on thick about motorcycles. And secondly, bad boys didn’t drive motorcycles at my high school. They drove trucks or Honda Civics.

Something about being taken away from the sock hop in a Civic just didn’t seem as sexy to me. Also, people at my high school dances were usually smashed on Boones Farm, so the “bad boys” were probably on black tar heroin. Or bath salts. Or whatever. I don’t really know.

I miss Boones Farm. Whatever happened to it? Do they still make it?

Next movie.

Pretty Woman:

I wanted those boots.

I think I still could rock them without falling into a prostitution ring. I knew the ENTIRE soundtrack to this movie. My aunt had the tape (and a tape deck, because she was my cool, single aunt), and my sister (who is four years younger than me) and I would come home singing all about “wild women who don’t regret it”. Don’t regret what? I had no idea. I just knew all the words.

I actually learned some very positive things from this movie:

1.)  Don’t beat down hos at a store when they are mean to you. Even if they suck as badly as those chicks did.

2.)  You should always try and help people who are lost because SURPRISE! They could be a millionaire with salt and pepper hair who doesn’t have any judgment at all about your prostitute tendencies or body count and wants to give you an apartment and a never-ending shopping spree. So, yes, always help strangers.

3.)  Make friends with your concierge. They know all the best people in town and will help you find the fancy forks and a cocktail dress. But in my version, I never wear a choker, because that’s tacky.  

4.)  Look like a lady, but act like … well, you get it.

5.)  Still don’t beat the hos at the store, even after you get a new wardrobe and look fabulous.

So, this is what I learned from the movies I saw as a child. I know that most kids watched really wholesome television, or no television at all, and that’s cool. I still maintain that a clean arrest record, no harm to humanity, and a generally pleasant disposition prove that I’m probably no worse for the wear.

Also, it made me a badass kid.

Seriously, guys.

Seriously, guys:

In the summer of 2004, I worked with a guy named Will. One of Will’s favorite things to say at staff meeting before or after he would give us information about music was, “Seriously, guys…” so we all started saying, “You guys, Will is serious this time” and he would get irate (I’m talking seeing red)…so naturally we continued doing it… all the time. For the rest of the entire summer. Like it was our only job.

Will and the golf cart:

The thing about Will was he was soooooo easy to read and you could push his buttons so easily; it just became cheap entertainment while living at a summer camp. The second thing that burned him up (after commenting on his seriousness) was messing with the golf cart. Will loved the golf cart almost as much as he loved his guitar. If you messed with the golf cart, or if you took the golf cart… or if you hid the golf cart from him (ahem), he usually stormed around in his flip flops muttering things under his breath until you gave him hints about where to find it… but only after he’d say, “I’m serious, Jackie.”

Did I mention that our summer camp was completely walk-able and no one needs a golf cart?

Neat freak:

Maybe you didn’t know this about my friend Will, but he was a neat freak. I’m talking about making his bed with hospital corners, color coordinating his closet, and lining up all of his shoes, neat freak.

One of my favorite memories of the neat freak coming out was in college. Will was having a party and it lasted late into the night. At about two o’clock in the morning, I realized I hadn’t seen him in about an hour, so I went looking around. I found Will in his garage bleaching the floor. “What? It was messy.”

This was the same party where I discovered a Crayola pillow that Will stashed under all of his pillows that no one was allowed to see because he had it since childhood. But if you moved the crayon or if you found the crayon, he would get bright red and snag it from you as fast as he could.

“Jackie, stop moving the crayon…Seriously.”

But these are the funny things about Will. And the best part was that he never tried to be funny. What I loved about Will was that he knew that when we teased him, he was never the butt of the joke; he knew that we loved him.

The helper:

You never know when you are going to need an Eagle Scout. Will would recite the pledge (or whatever you call it) if I begged, but usually he refused.

When I moved to College Station, I would see Will from time to time. We’d run into each other at Northgate or outside a football game. One day I was going to leave campus and I realized I had a flat tire. I had no idea who to call at first, but eventually I just broke down and called Will. I think I might have even been crying because it was during finals.

Will didn’t really react well to my waterworks over the phone, but when he showed up, he gave me a hug and fixed my tire. He called the next day to make sure it was working fine and went with me to the shop to make sure that no one messed with me. And that was it. I don’t even know how long I went before we talked again, but that was just the friendship we had. I could call Will for anything and he would help me. It was in Will’s nature to do for others and never ask for anything in return.

I remember that Will and our friend Nathan built a dock the summer we were at camp together. They gave up rest periods to go down to the river, they worked on their breaks, and they never complained. Will killed every bug I asked him to, he would help me clean the arts and crafts cabin until early into the morning, and he would play the guitar until his fingers bled if we begged him to keep playing.

Remembering Will:

I didn’t keep in close touch with Will after college. The last time I talked to him I had just met his dad in the valley. He called Will in front of me and said, “There’s this blonde in front of me that says she knows you. I told her that she better know you.” He and I had a good laugh about that. 

I guess the point is that regardless of how often I saw Will, he was a constant, as so many old, real friends are. I could rely on Will and many of us felt the same way. He had a way of making you feel like things were going to be OK, even if you were stressed or tired, his motto was “Well, we’re just going to do it. Don’t worry.”

And seriously, guys, I never do.