1.
My stepson, Jeremy, age 16, has decided to delete his Facebook account. His reasoning is that he's found himself becoming too addicted, and he wants to simplify. He cited the Ghandi quote, "Be the change you want to see in the world." What a cool kid.
(This is the same reason he returned the smart phone that we didn't want him to purchase in the first place. After realizing it was becoming a huge time suck, he returned it in favor of the basic free model that comes with his phone plan.)
I'm glad he's taking a break from Facebook for two reasons:
A) I am now free to say things like "Why is it that when you get three teenage boys together, their individual aromas combine and multiply and manage to take over an entire basement?" on Facebook with immunity.
B) I think teenagers are too "exposed" online. When I was a young, awkward, know-it-all, there was a limit to the number of people who witnessed that stage in my adolescence and/or could document it with screen-capture technology. Today, teens put it all out there for the world to see, having no idea how embarrassed they might be by their antics in the future. Anonymity is not always a bad thing.
2.
It appears that the word "vitriolic" is the new word du jour. If you want to be popular and sound smart, you should use it too. I heard it three times on NPR over the course of one day. There are synonyms, people! Choose from "caustic," "antagonistic," "scathing," "hostile," "venomous," etc.
3.
I thought I was the first person who had ever thought of this, until a quick Internet search proved otherwise. But, without revealing my personal politics, let me just say that when I said the phrase "Obama nation" out loud, I discovered that it's a homonym. Go ahead, say it. Hahaha. The President should dress up as the Obaminable Snowman for Halloween. (Or, feel free to use that idea yourself. All you need is a snowman costume and an Obama/Biden campaign button.)
4.
My niece, Jensyn, a precocious kid if there ever was one, says the best one-liners.
Witness:
At age 4 to a male Costco clerk who had long braids: "You don't see many men with long hair nowadays. Are you an Indian?"
At age 5 while picking up my sister from the airport: "I don't want to go to outer space. I don't like pirates. They have flags."
At age 6 after seeing Tangled in the theater: "Sometimes when I look at the moon I think there are other planets out there that haven't been discovered yet. And that they have rainbows drawn by unicorns."
5.
Why is it possible to be "precocious" but not just "cocious" or especially "postcocious"? I was just wondering.
6.
Babies rule.
