ColumnHigh fives, ladies, we’re the fixer-upper gender!

In light of the recent release of the Tush Tickler, your guide to “analplay adventures for everybooty,” you might be tempted to think there’s no personal development book under the sun left to be published, what with books being published where the sun don’t shine. You would think wrong. There are mines, rich veins, whole mountaintops of self help publishing left to be penetrated for our betterment. And isn’t that what it’s all about, ladies? Less thinking wrong, less thinking generally, more betterment?

They say print is dead. This simply isn’t true, because we have women, and as long as we have women, we will think of new books to improve them. Just check out these hot new self help titles for 2012!*

Everything I Need to Know in Life I Learned From My Dental Hygienist. Everything

“Some people say cleanliness is next to godliness. Some people also say pearly whites are next to pearly gates.” – Fox News

Raising Self Esteem by Broadcasting Everything Wrong With Yourself in Social Media

“Stunningly original approach to self help. Guaranteed to be a smash hit. Step aside, 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. Move over, The Secret. Sure to be an instant classic.” – Kirkus Book Reviews

Life Without Contraception in This Country

“A brilliant guide for the suddenly lesbian.” –  San Francisco Chronicle

Just Keep Telling Yourself It’s Not Personal, and Other Coping Techniques for Losers

“Denial is not to be stamped out, but amplified, explains this sage and insightful personal development primer that is the best thing I’ve seen yet at this low paying self help book review job I absolutely adore and vastly prefer to writing my novel.” – Internet Book Reviews Reviews of Books Best Book Reviews Online Internet Resource for Book Reviews Win Free Money, a subsidiary of Demand Media

If You Could Only Be Perfect!

“For the adult child who longs for the odd comfort of daily remonstrations at the hands of a tyrannical parent, this cruel, critical, fault-finding, nagging book is a lifeline nearly as judgmental as Mom herself, and certainly as disappointed as the Baby Jesus. The accompanying photo album for holding embarrassing childhood photographs to show prospective suitors is a thoughtful touch from the publisher, which clearly spared no expense in the creative development and packaging of this timely title. Now, more than ever, we need self-loathing.” – Brigham Young University Press

So He Left You for a 25-Year-Old She Probably Squeaks, and Other Crass Koans to Help You Feel Less Bitter About Being 50 and Divorced with a Credit Rating Shot to Hell Thanks to That Jerk Who Is So Immature Even the Therapist Despises Him Especially After She Slept with Him Because He’s Not Even Good in Bed! I Know!

“The author holds a canny grasp on the marriage zeitgeist, which is to say, the divorce zeitgeist.” – the Guardian

The Art of the Fake Orgasm

“A helpful how-to for pretending to reach climax during sexual intercourse, this delightful guide is full of creative tips for faking orgasm, along with dozens of real stories from women – and men – of all walks of life. This work would have been enhanced by the inclusion of expert insights from health professionals instead of the author’s friends. Still, a useful book for those interested in mastery of fake orgasms.” – Publishers Weekly

Is It Just Me or Does Nonviolent Communication Feel Like Suffocating Inside Sweaty Flannel Sheets?

“That’s not the actual title, but it should be! The NVC Myth: My Years of Suffering Through the Most Annoying Form of Communication on Earth really nails it. I knew exactly what the author meant the second I saw the book. For the stage five clinger not wanting the relationship to end and therefore having difficulty accepting the other party’s lack of interest, NVC must be a thrilling godsend, a therapeutically validated method for maintaining the connection for as long as humanly possible. For the party who isn’t the control freak endowed with epic levels of neurotic insecurity, NVC feels pretty much like you’re still dating the person only this time completely against your will.” – Amazon buyer itsworsethanherpes

How to Stop Beating Yourself Up for Misplacing the Keys for the Seven Millionth Time Today in One Easy Step Which We’ll Just Put in the Title: Anytime You Lose Something It Will Always Be Wherever You Left It, Except if There’s an Earthquake Then It Might Not Be Right Exactly Where You Left It But Probably Still Pretty Close By

“Though the entire contents of the book are on the cover, the intrepid reader or average New Yorker will soon grasp the many layers of this fundamental truism of life resting poetically within a simplistic single line. At once simple and nuanced, by turns pithy and existential, at once hilarious and brutal, by turns banal and profound, at once postmodern and tragic, by turns brisk and solemn, at once boring and random, by turns witty and frank, at once silly and bold, by turns like a girl wrote it and intelligent, at once riveting and poignant, by turns refreshing and compelling, this book is a triumph, an opus, a masterpiece, a tour de force. Deeply present. Deeply personal. Deeply provocative. Deeply shallow, while being deep in a shallow way. A Midwestern sensibility delicately permeates this experimental title, which is paradoxical in a richly ironic sense, reminiscent of the very best early work of Dave Eggars but also the biting disgust of a slightly older, slightly puffier Jonathan Franzen; both quiet like DeLillo and noisy like Safran Foer, if they were beverages. The book for the times, the book of the times, the book and the times.” –  The New York Times Book Review

What To Do About Your Wide Set Cleavage

“Wide set cleavage is a problem most women have, though many simply don’t realize it. This step-by-step guide takes the reader from DIY all the way to surgery, with scaffolding diagrams, resources, and plenty of tips for each stage of the journey to more attractive breasts.” – Allure

We need so much help. So much.

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life.

*Note: These are not actual books nor actual reviews.

Image: quinn.anya

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Could the 2012 presidential campaign be more ripe for Oscar gold?

We’re down unofficially at least to two candidates for this year’s Republican presidential nomination, and each is a compelling figure, a larger-than-life character whose story begs – hell, practically demands – for Hollywood treatment. While a buddy comedy (Newt & Mitt, or G ‘n’ R) would seem to be the most obvious vehicle for these two, I depart from my editors and offer a subtler, more arthouse-y approach to the candidates. No biopics here: Each movie presents an aspect of the candidate to which audiences could(somewhat) reasonably relate. The final scene of each, of course, shows one of our heroes entering the Oval Office, settling down for the first time as your No. 45.

In the Mitt Romney movie, we’re presented with a Gothic horror story in which Mitt is actually a split personality portrayed by two different actors. It’s a coming-of-age story – a bildungsroman, if you will—in which our hero is tempted by his dark side before discovering his true identity. It’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, except that in Mitt’s case, Mr. Hyde has more perfect hair.

First off, I hire a nice wooden rocking chair to play “Jekyll” Mitt. This is homespun, “Sure-I-made-$21 million-last-year-but-I’m-still-just-like-you!” Romney, the guy who tied his dog to the top of the car like Joe Six-pack and Edward Fortyhands, aka you and me. Sure, the whole “Mitt is wooden” thing is overplayed, but that means that it’s no longer played, which is really all you’d ask or expect a rocking chair to do.

“Hyde” Mitt is played by a Herman Miller Aeron chair. It’s cool and sleek, just like Mitt’s debate hair, with enough mesh to provide the most amount of style with the least amount of substance. It’s also an $800 chair, generally available to none but the most chair-happy spenders among us. This Mitt constantly tries and consistently fails to relate to Six-pack and Fortyhands. He’s got all
sorts of knobs and levers that let him contort into any imaginable position; there’s no zero, no firmly grounded center. If you’ve got no backbone, you can use his. And correlatively, he can dial down his spinal tension and elegantly lean on you when he doesn’t know what he thinks you want.

Ultimately, the two Mitts clash in an epic battle for soul-selling supremacy. They trade insults, throw jabs and hooks. Rocking-chair Mitt develops cracks he can’t afford to repair under Aeron Mitt’s health-care policies; Aeron Mitt can’t find the appropriate mechanical placement for his seat. Finally, Aeron manages to coat his enemy with chair grease and burn him to the ground, a stunning victory for modern design and a testament to the strength of a lack of conviction.

Befitting its subject, the Newt Gingrich movie is much more of a romp, with a lot more sex and a lot less Mormonism. It’s sort of a frat-house farce in which Newt is the house mom who’s always shooing scantily-clad chicks out of the house and scolding “her” boys for vomiting in the urinals, occasionally while vomiting into one himself. But at the end of the movie, Newt realizes he’s more SigEp than schoolmarm and leads the entire house in a naked raid on the university president’s house. It’s more fun to be chastised, our hero learns, than to do the chastising yourself.

House-mom Newt is played by a bunch of radishes. Red-faced and slightly spicy, you know he’s good for you but you’re also aware of his more complex, sinister side. Ancient Roman philosopher Pliny called the radish “a vulgar article of the diet” that has a “remarkable power of causing flatulence and eructation,” and some people just flat-out can’t stand them. Just like Newt. I cast radishes as Newt because of their more dualistic qualities. They’re polarizing vegetables. Take, for example, the radish’s reputation for curing flatulence (when combined with salt and pepper). And think about it: when Newt gets his hair right – that is, with just enough pepper to temper all that salt – he’s definitely a good prick with which to pop pontificating gasbags. Provided—and here’s why we gave the role to the radishes—he’s not acting the pontificating gasbag himself.

They might not win the Oval Office, but maybe we can get them an Oscar instead.

Image: Dave_B_

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Column2012 is the year of sparkling water.

A new year, a new chance for greatness. You’re a couple of days into your resolutions by now, if you’ve made them. You open the refrigerator and glare at the reserve bottle of rosé. But no, you will not succumb to cravings, for in the new year, you’re going to want to skip out on the notes of raspberry and oak and opt for undertones of liquid and wet instead.

Recently, I found myself at a sparkling water party, featuring the bubbles of three different continents and some 10 countries. Though the event was to raise funds for a good cause, the environmentalist in me couldn’t help but cringe, and not just when the bubbles tickled my nose. On the other hand, or perhaps I should say in the other hand, the foodie in me giggled!

Specialty sparkling water has taken the same route as wine did in the days when shoulder pads were still acceptable in the workplace, leaving longtime favorites Perrier and San Pellegrino in the dust. Still on the green bottles? You might as well be chugging Two Buck Chuck.

It’s time for a change, and change this year is going to start with your sparkling water cellar. Isn’t that refreshing? It could also be cooling, or even energizing. At the very least, it will add some effervescence to your everyday routine.

The possibilities with sparkling water are endless, and unlike its sparkling alcoholic counterpart, it won’t leave you with a headache. It’s even good for your teeth. Besides, Paris puts it in their water fountains. Sort of socialist, really, but the idea is still nice.

With a nose for bubbling trends, trust Foodie Underground to guide you through the business of consuming packaged, pricey water with only the most prudent use of puns:

1. Start your research by consulting an expert.

Just as you wouldn’t pair your fennel filet mignon with an accompanying Cabernet without the guidance of a sommelier, consult a sparkling water expert until you feel comfortable navigating the carbonated world on your own. Feeling like I was drowning in a vast new pool of bubbly information, I did just that, speaking with sparkling water expert Michael Mascha. Says Mascha, “The good thing if you become aware of premium bottled waters is that you don’t have to choose one best water. You can enjoy many different waters for different occasions and food pairings. As always one should be aware if the water is naturally or artificially carbonated.”

2. Choose your regions according to personal taste.

Just like wine, the terroir of a sparkling water is so key, and you’ll have to decide if you’re more of an Alps kind of foodie or have a little more low-key, New Zealand style. Notes Mascha, “I love sparkling water and prefer it with tiny and small bubbles but sometimes a bold sparkling water can be the best match.”

3. Invest in the right stemware.

It’s just as rude to serve sparkling water in the wrong glass, like a tumbler or cup, as it is to pour someone a mug of wine. As Mascha has noted in a previous interview, you need a special glass: “A water glass needs a stem and straight sides to distinguish itself from wine glasses, though they should be of the same quality as the wine glasses used.”

4. Learn the correct vocabulary.

To fully understand the nuances of all sparkling waters, educate yourself in some the basic vocabulary, put together by Mascha on his site, Fine Waters:

Balance – Balance refers to the strength of your carbonation, and can vary anywhere from still to effervescent to bold. This is what you will want to consider when pairing with various foods, the bolder bubbles perfect for highlighting crispy pre-dinner appetizers.

Minerality – Amount of mineral dissolve in the water become the gauge for the water’s minerality. The higher a mineral count, the more distinct a water’s taste, making water with low minerality comparable to white wines and higher minerality similar to bold red.

Vintage – Unlike wine, sparkling water doesn’t need time to improve. But its age or vintage does affect its taste, with younger waters having less time to absorb minerals and therefore having a lower minerality, which in turn gives a lighter flavor.  Note however that age is less of an indicator of minerality than local geology.

5. Educate your friends.

You can’t enjoy sparkling waters from around the world in your bedroom alone, so ensure that you’ve got company by spreading the sparkling water word. You could become a water sommelier, though there’s currently no organization offering accreditation. Explains Mascha: “This is a project of love and passion and the best way is to experience as many different waters as possible. Being a foodie helps and being used to matching food and wine is a plus. It’s not a rocket science rather an opening of new experiences.”

6. Recognize the retail opportunity.

Mascha notes that sparkling water is popular in Europe but less so here in the States. It’s a problem of noise. “I see a huge potential in the U.S. with many people discovering sparkling water with smaller not so aggressive bubbles as Perrier. Right now Perrier is a synonym for sparkling water and most Americans don’t like the loud bubbles.” With many Americans catching on to the street food craze, one potential market opportunity might be to start a sparkling water food cart.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

Image: EverJean

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Shop safely, America. But do shop.

The Christmas shopping season is almost upon us, ready to claw open our clamped, unwilling mouths and cram them so full with cheer that we collectively choke on our own merriment and saliva. Many retailers have maximized their potential hours of profit by opening their stores in the morning before closing the night before, including 80% coupons in the small plastic bag of giblets found in most frozen turkeys, chaining cashiers to their stations with lightweight chromium steel “efficiency tethers” and allowing would-be shoppers to sublet entire portions of parking lots for tent cities, RVs, and small condo shares.

Of course, you can and will do at least a portion of your holiday buying online, but the safe point-and-click of the Internet shopping cart carries with it none of the thrill of victory, or the savage pleasure that comes from hearing the pathetic, mewling shrieks of the defeated. Black Friday unites the twin American obsessions of waiting in line and staying inside, while elevating the act of purchasing bargain electronics to a savage yet sublime battle of wills. With that in mind, here are a few tips to ensure that this year you crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women. You know, secrets for shoppers.

10. Prepare for distractions and have an exit strategy. Let nothing deter you from achieving your goal. “Can you please move these trampled corpses out of the aisle? They’re blocking the Call of Duty display.”

9. Odds are that things will get violent, and that sooner rather than later. Bring a knife. They’re best for close-quarter combat situations, like jockeying for position in line at the Best Buy. A knife can also double as a box-cutter if you reach a display before the employees have had a chance to remove the products from their manufacturer’s casing, and of course, nothing’s going to push that mother of three away from your iPad 2 faster than a quick, lateral thrust to the kidneys.

8. Plan your route. Is it more practical to take your own vehicle, or commandeer somebody else’s once you take to the streets? If you take your own, you’ll have to do your own modifications, and active protection systems don’t grow on trees. What kind of self-propelled artillery will you need? Do you plan on plating your vehicle with composite armor or are you sticking with steel? Bearing in mind that every major transit artery will be blocked solid from now until January, does it make more sense to fund and develop helicopter support? These are things you should be thinking about now, not when you’re trying to navigate the fume-filled and gang-dominated blood mazes that once comprised your local downtown area. Of course, you may already live in Los Angeles.

7. Hydrate. Forget the Sunny D; these times call for Gatorade. Get it in you.

6. Shed your innocence. If you think you’re going to find a single parking space without screeching horrific obscenities at numerous elderly disabled veterans, then you don’t have the stomach for this. Why don’t you just stay home? You could order all your presents a week before the holidays and present everyone with a printed invoice (“So it was supposed to ship on the 22nd, but I guess something in the warehouse got tied up – anyhow, I hate to spoil the surprise, but here’s the receipt – you should be able to expect it by mid-January, the lady on the phone said”) or knit everyone an incredibly itchy scarf. Accept your limitations.

5. Hone your focus. What do eye contact, verbal speech, and the human ability to experience the feeling of mercy have in common? There is no place for them this day.

4. Remember that this is a marathon, not a 5k or even a half-marathon. Promotional sales have been extended over the last few years from Friday-only to cover the entire weekend. Some even begin on Thanksgiving Day, an absurd and tragic reminder of the arbitrary nature of brand pricing.

3. Multitask. Worried there may be a better deal online than what you’re being offered in the store? Oh, my friend, you had better believe that there is an app for that. Now you can shop online while you are shopping in person. Efficiency. Singularity. Unity. Soon, our gracious corporate overlords will find a way to make every day like Black Friday, and every technological device a potential Target. We’ll always be shopping. All things single, all things alike. It’ll be like the movie Groundhog Day, only real and wonderful and full of bottom-priced DVD box gift sets of Sex and the City with all nineteen movies and interactive Stanford Blatch-voiced Crocs.

2. Retain the element of surprise. Upon retiring for the evening, steal your family members’ cell phones (or alarm clocks, for the older set) and reset the time. Won’t they feel like suckers when they wander downstairs as late as 7 a.m. only to see you surrounded by your numerous purchases and covered in the blood of strangers.

1. Alternately, keep your head down, pick up a drink, and pray for January. Better make it two drinks, just to be safe. It’s going to be a long winter, but all winters eventually come to an end.

Image: afroboof

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ColumnDo jeggings make the list? Read on to find out.

You say judgment, I say intuition, or, in the words of one of our editors: “It’s just marketing!”

Few things feel as gratifying as judgment. If, like me, you are saddened by the lack of respect judgment gets these days, is this post ever for you. Getting away with being judgmental anymore is really just a matter of finding the right things to be judgmental about. I’ve learned a lot about this lately, what with inadvertently enraging video gamers and cyclists and fans of the Apostle Paul and people who cannot stir. There are acceptable things you can judge these days, like the Housewives of Beverly Hills and augmented breasts and hair extensions, but maybe I’m being redundant. And then there are all the unacceptable things you can judge, or rather, the things you cannot judge, and the danger mainly lies in not knowing what these things are until the people who are great fans of these things let you know. Here you thought you were safe in judging canned cold spaghetti, but you’ve actually revealed yourself to be a pasta elitist with no appreciation for the common canned-spaghetti-eater’s reality.

Judgment may be all right for hosts on Bravo or Simon Cowell in spite of his awful haircut or the Supreme Court (but only during some administrations), but how dare you, mere fellow human, exercise any hint of intelligence and experience and wisdom and insight and taste and perspective. Everything is equal and wonderful and good and moral and beautiful, because someone else said so. Their judgment is not a judgment the way your judgment is a judgment. One word: Buddha. He really clears things up.

Anyway! Here is a list of acceptable things to judge no matter what, because the truth is that we all need to judge and with the current judgment against judgment, it’s getting harder to find things we can all judge together equally in correct fairness and unconditional acceptance and comprehensive agreement and inoffensive unanimity, safely.

Think of this as judgment with a condom on. We’ll start with judging the homes of others, because that’s where the heart is, and move on from there.

Fake Fruit.

We, the people, are going to judge your fake fruit. I am not talking about the handmade blown glass pear on the mantle. It’s not my style, but it might be yours. Besides, I have a glass bird on my mantle, so who am I to judge? Fake fruit in bowls that could serve actual fruit, on the other hand? You’re just leaving yourself wide open for judgment. How would you feel about someone’s kitchen island being anointed with bowls of fake cottage cheese? You’d think it was pretty dumb. That’s because it is. And so is your fake fruit.

Fake Christmas trees.

Fake Christmas trees. On second thought, possibly not okay to judge. Probably not best to take the niche approach to judgment of others’ holiday decor choices, at least in this case. As a child, I felt sorry for the families that had fake Christmas trees, until I learned it was because some people are allergic to trees but not to pliable byproducts of the crude industry. As an adult, I am not sure which is less green and therefore more offensive: chopping down trees for a holiday or making them out of plastic. You know what? The Christmas tree is actually the worst possible thing to attempt to judge that I could ever come up with. We’re not judging them, plastic or living, we’re just not. Let’s move along from this entirely before we’re accused of being in favor of the Christmas Tree Tax.

Fake flowers.

The 80s were filled with them because the 80s were filled with two things: bouquets of iris and crafting. If you lived through the 80s, you might remember that they were mostly about wreaths. Crafting, especially the crafting of wreaths, evolved to using real preserved flowers around 1989, but for a time, fake flowers were more abundant than the real thing, and it wasn’t until 1994 when everyone became allergic to dust en masse (this was pre-gluten) that fake flowers fell out of vogue. Sadly, they are still present in many healthcare waiting rooms, but we don’t judge the people who save our teeth or our lives because it’s a little rich asking them to be good decorators. Your neighbor, however? Free game.

Lawn flamingos.

Stick squarely to strongly disliking fake flora and fauna, and you can sleep the deep, safe sleep of completely irrelevant judgment. Absolutely okay to judge. The only person on earth who will take umbrage at your judgment is Jonathan Adler, and?

Anything sort of old but not too old.

Can you believe we all used to like [insert any activity, hobby, show, celebrity, fashion item, personal accessory, gadget, scientific inaccuracy, religious belief except you’ll still want to leave the Ark thing alone, the witch drowning is completely okay grounds for judgment though, pain reliever, tennis shoe, brand slogan, movie, jewelry trend, haircut, one hit wonder, music subgenre, political sound bite, other things and stuff most people had and did but don’t anymore between 9 and 14 years ago]? So ridiculous.

Now that’s what I call a list. It’s the kind of list they’ll make movies about. The kind of list children will study in textbooks. You might have been expecting a longer list, but the beauty of perfection is that it is simple.

Celebrations in the streets. Rain. Art. World Peace. Kumbayah. The Future. Go forth and judge.

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life.

Image: Keith Trice

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ColumnSurfin’ USA.

They say the internet is a radical tool for changing the world. Often cited in this lofty claim are Wikileaks and Twitter. The Internet-capitalized is also a scapegoat for the people with excess ear hair to blame the Websites for all that is wrong with The Youth, a disappointing step up from sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. For the inexperienced and Glenn Beck, the internet is a scapegoat for assigning blame for pretty much everything in general. For real journalists working in print media, the internet is a cesspool of aggregation and amateurs in pajamas – but then, we’ve already touched on the people with excess ear hair.

For everyone else, the internet is a sparkling tool of infinite practicality. It’s just not a sparkling tool of infinite practicality for the things you would assume, like online banking or changing your seat assignment. Useful is nice, but, like mayonnaise on a cheese sandwich, pointless is better. The internet serves only one purpose that truly matters, and that is that it is the most effective way in the world to avoid working while at work.

People like me who make internet for a living know that this is why the pageview exists and also why you get the most of them between 9 and 5. You have to entertain all the people manning the companies that don’t have the money to advertise on your website. Far from being the glamorous racket my friends in more respected professions like law and investment banking are convinced it is, media is really kind of a thankless gig.

In between their conferences and hearings, lurking behind their Powerpoint decks, the truth comes out: cute puppy pictures on Tumblr; ex-stalking on Facebook; browser-window shopping on Jcrew.com. They do not make the connection that while they are tremendously busy at work forwarding chain emails exposing the truth about that dangerous chemical compound that develops when cheese is placed on a saltine cracker in certain states during the months of August and September only, I am slaving over their next viral time-waster. Like this column, for example. But have they thanked me even once?

In a fit of jealous rage after my third sugar-free Hazelnut Vanilla cream latte yesterday afternoon, for which I’m sure there’s a chain email, I decamped for the other side of the screen. Wasting your day on the internet seems to be working for everyone, in the sense that no one’s working. (Which should anger no one. I cite the much-Facebook-liked fact that we are the most productive people on earth as argument. Google it.) It was time for me to give it a go. But where was I?

Oh yes! Here are the things I did on the internet instead of writing my column. I was careful to take scrupulous notes so you can experience the experience for yourself.

7:30 a.m. As the French press steeps my coffee, I stare bleary-eyed at my Facebook wall. A friend’s status update incoming! Something about his cat. Task put off for another time: checking work email.

7:35 a.m. Today I decide I’ll actually open all the email newsletters I subscribe to, and read them.

10:03 a.m. Amazed at the amount of time wasted, I sign up for 17 more daily deal newsletter services. There are more, but I decide I only need one yoga group discount offer a day. Taking a break after the first nine for a bit of aimless scrolling through The Sartorialist and Desire to Inspire, I am inspired to reorganize all my bookmarks into boards on Pinterest, but then I lose interest and decide to check out Facebook again.

10:40 a.m. After updating my Netflix queue and friending three new friends in the Flickr group Bacon Porn, I settle in for an hour of tearing through 30 tabs at the Huffington Post. I feel dirty and liberal afterward.

Noon. I check Facebook again. I am rapt to see my friend has posted three more updates about his cat.

12:03 p.m. Have deleted my first Reddit account after getting into a flame war about doughnut holes. Intense. Going to caption lolcats now. My submission: Kitteh Litter.

3:30 p.m. Facebook. Again with the cat. Of course. It all makes sense now.

3:36 p.m. Phone in to conference call with writers late, blame slow internet. Omit the part about it being slow because of the three browsers, 78 tabs, two streaming episodes of 30 Rock and (what else?) cat video I am watching. I hear the words “Find your own hyperlinks for a change,” which I say out loud in real life. While pretending to listen, I post my scrupulous day-of-surfing notes to the anonymous WordPress blog I built and launched during lunch.

3:49 p.m. My kid brother instant messages me a video about a guy with a bike, which I post on Twitter, where I learn that Jackie Chan has died.

4:00 p.m. The day has simply flown. With an hour left in the workaday, I tuck in for some more Huffington Post but am interrupted by a text from our managing editor: “What the hell was that tweet?”

4:20 p.m. Perusing Reddit, this time under the name surfinusatoday, I notice a reference to 4:20. I look up the meaning on Urban Dictionary.

4:47 p.m. An email from a physician friend who has just saved two people’s lives with her afternoon and wants to grab dinner. “What did you get done today?” she writes. “Oh, you know, the usual,” I reply.

This is the latest (quasi-fictional) installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, politics, and anything else. Cheers and spellcheck!

Image: Aine D

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