How I Use Pinterest in My Yoga Practice (And How It Can Help You Connect With Your Passions, Too)

Source: shareitfitness.files.wordpress.com via Andrea on Pinterest

Pinterest has inspired me to incorporate surfboards into my practice! Haha, no. Pinterest is the fastest-growing social media site ever. Which you know because you're on it! Everyone is on it. But not everyone knows quite what to "do" with it (how many followers do you have with 0 pins and 0 likes?)

Pinterest is the Internet's virtual pinboard, with everyone tacking up--"pinning"--their interests. It's completely photo-based, lending itself to pretty photos of "things": things to buy, things to cook, places to visit. It looks like a shopping list for your dream shopping spree, which can leave people who aren't jazzed about finding the exact right lilac-and-honey-themed centerpiece for their table, or redoing the bathtub in spanish tile at a loss for how to use the site for themselves.

There is a joke somewhere in here about how Pinterest = Goop, and I will get back to you just as soon as I've worked out that punchline.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Real Nail Polish Strips: Helping Ladies LIke Me Look Grown-Up and Put Together

I am terrible at many things. Like Calculus (only subject I ever almost failed. If I had been better at it I might be splitting atoms right now instead of talking about Journey songs). Pushups. Basketball. Also chess, but that's because it's impossible for me to go about anything in a roundabout way.

I am also terrible at painting my fingernails. Terrible with both hands! I always end up looking like I used a paint roller to do it while I was having some kind of seizure. So I always leave them bare. But I read so many fashion magazines that I feel like I'm not completely put together. Like, outfit-minus-one. It's the one thing I'm bad at that I have a little bit of a complex about (well, the Calculus too, but only sometimes). Are grown-up put-together ladies looking at my fingers and saying, "oh the outfit looked so good but...missed it by an inch"?

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Strips let me live like a grown-up.

Judge Me: I Am the Crazy Lady With Arbitrary Dating "Rules"

A while back I completely blew off a one-word text from a guy I have every reason to think is a decent human being. I rationalized it by telling myself that "sup?" does not a conversation make. Since this is a guy I don't really know too well, I'm pretty certain that's that. So now I'm a huge jerk! And the truth is, if he did text me again? There's no way I'd answer, since who keeps after a jerk who blows them off?

Because I have arbitrary dating rules.

Feminist Women On The Moon

Everyone, I think it's time we got out. When Planned Parenthood (and also Nancy Pelosi) tweeted that photo of a sausage fest testifying to congress about women's rights to have control over their own bodies, I was so speechless with rage I almost clawed my own eyes out. Self harm! It's no good. Look, we've tried. We marched, we yelled, we begged we pleaded, we cajoled and we patiently explained.  And after a hundred years a group of men sit in front of the body that will determine whether women have a right to take medicine, and everybody's all, "U mad?" 

I think it's time to put that plan into action...you know, the one we were talking about the last time we were drinking whiskey and braiding each other's hair?  Let's find whatever moon colony plans Newt Gingrich has been able to work on and steal them to build our own feminists-only moonbase.

I acknowledge how Ayn Rand/John Galt-y this plan is. But read what I wrote up there in the beginning. Self harm! A hundred years and we're back outside banging on the doors? And nobody can even conceive how that might be a problem? We need to just gather our bats and gloves--and uteri since that's all anybody cares about ever!--and get out of Dodge. 

Happy Valentines Day! Facebook Wants You To Die Alone

Have you checked your Facebook messages today? Oh you have? Have you checked the OTHER messages today? You know, the secret ones that Facebook doesn't give you alerts for?

Over a year ago, Facebook changed the messages function, sorting all incoming messages and sending them to one of two inboxes: those they determine are "meaningful," like messages from people you're already friends with or pages with whom you interact a lot, go in the main inbox and you get an alert. Messages from people you aren't friends with or don't interact with as much get thrown into a bottomless void they've labeled "Other." And you don't get an alert. Which, on the surface, seems like a decent idea. Who cares that the 1000-miles-away-museum you Liked after vacation last year is having a canned food drive?

But two things suck about this: One, that to my knowledge Facebook didn't bother to let people know that their messages were being sorted this way. Two, that not only can you not change the sorting preferences so that more messages go into the main box, but you can't even automatically display the "Other" submailbox in your home screen. Which, since you don't get alerts that you have a new message in a box you can't see, means that you have to remind yourself to physically go looking for possible messages whenever you log onto Facebook.

So, what did you find when you checked out your hidden messages? Anything good? Because I found a BOY.

If You Only See One Silent Movie This Year, See it With a Bunch of Olds Who Don't Give a Crap About What Anyone Thinks

We all know about The Artist by now, yeah? The one that keeps winning awards everywhere? The one everyone keeps assuming you've seen but you actually haven't because you're embarrassed to admit (even to yourself) that you're one of those Philistines who's still going "gah, a silent film?" That one. Go see it. It's fantastic! It's great and funny and clever and awesome. It's even more awesome surounded by the elderly in the middle of the afternoon.

I have this weird affection for going to movies in the middle of the day, at an independent theater that's largely membership-based and has cheap popcorn, so I usually find myself the youngest person in the semi-crowded theater by about 40 years. It's the Pre-Early-Bird Special Sweet Spot. This came in very handy when I saw Midnight in Paris and everyone was "quietly whispering to each other (ahem)" the names of all the historical figures that kept popping up. People chatter during movies anyway, loudly or not; sometimes it's quirky and interesting to have a side commentary rolling, and when it's not the loudness of the movie will usually drown it out.

There is no such luck with the soundtrack of The Artist.