Leahj77

One

This morning on the train it occurred to me that I’m a convert and I remembered that I chose this. When I converted, almost 10 years ago, we were entering a decade of peace in Israel and the question of antisemitism seemed academic. “Are you ready to sign yourself up to be hated by the world? Are you ready to sign up any children you might have to be victims of antisemitism?”

Yes, I answered. Yes, because even with all the existential and academic threats, I thought my life would be better if I were Jewish.

On the train today, I was reading another long essay, thinking about my friends in Israel and I realized that my Jewish identity has shadowed over my identity as a convert. I don’t remember daily that there was a moment when I could have said, “you know what, forget it. The risk is too much, I’ll stay as I was before. No need to go to mikvah.”

Two

So many friends, acquaintances and strangers on the internet seem to be troubled that more Israelis haven’t died in this conflict. They seem upset that Iron Dome and the bomb shelters that dot every block in Israel have kept Israelis safe.

These are, in part, the same people who take off their shoes and empty their water bottles at the airport. People who abide by the security theater of the TSA because it protects us from another September 11th.

Iron Dome and bomb shelters aren’t security theater. They are security measures that actually work. Security measures that are keeping people alive and stopping rockets from landing in civilian areas.

Three

The month that I lived in Israel (November 2009), I gave a series of presentations about social media to people who worked at non-profits. One of those people was on the staff of the newly created Lone Soldier Center. Founded in 2009 in memory of Michael Levin, the Lone Soldier Center was going to try and provide a safety net for immigrants who joined the IDF but who didn’t have family in Israel.

Josh invited me to their Thanksgiving dinner in Tel Aviv, which turned out to be a house party with a few semi-thanksgiving themed dishes. It was one of the first Lone Soldier Center events, but now the organization is the real deal. Providing housing, meals and a safe space for off-duty soldiers. The safety net their families can’t provide.

Four

I love Israel. I’ve been in a mad love affair with the country from my first visit in March of 2006. I didn’t expect Israel to become so central to my life, but I’ve been 9 times since I converted and plan on making a 10th trip in December.

I’m not blindly in love with Israel. I make a point to read nuanced essays on the current conflict. I wrestle with the reality of what is happening to the citizens in Gaza and the need for Israel to survive as a state. For the most part, I don’t discuss the current conflict, because so many people are either uninformed or backed into a corner with no room to wrestle with all of the competing realities.

Five

I still believe my life is better for having converted to Judaism. For loving Israel. For loving my Israeli friends. For learning to bake challah and learning to pray in Hebrew and learning to order a beer in Hebrew. My life is better for knowing how to navigate Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. For knowing what the Old City smells like after a snowfall and for knowing what the waves of the Mediterranean sound like late at night.

Six

My first night in Tel Aviv, during Tel Aviv 1, a few of us from the Chicago delegation went on a walk along the beach. Someone in our group steered us to the Dolphinarium and told us what happened there on June 1, 2001, when a suicide bomber killed 21 Israeli teenagers waiting in line to get into a disco.

The next day, we went to Yad Vashem and in the children’s memorial I remembered that I chose this. I chose this life, this religion and this second home for myself and for any children I might be blessed with, because I thought my life would be better with Judaism in it.

Go Go Gadget Web Browser… because Bullet Sunday starts… now…

   
• Penny. NEW CHRIS WARE AT THE NEW YORK TIMES!

You. Are. Welcome!

Nobody does what Chris Ware does. And why would they? Everything he creates is perfect.

   
• Shift? Bwah ha! This has to be one of Apple’s biggest embarrassments. I frickin’ HATE that I can never tell if my shift/shift-lock is on or not in iOS…

So now there’s a new website in case you need a reminder! Sweet!

   
• Mail. Okay. Okay. I’ve used a lot of email programs. A lot. And while the features are tweaked from app to app, they all pretty much work the same way once you get down to brass tacks… no matter how different they look. Enter Unibox. Now THIS isn’t just a different approach to email… it’s different different. The biggest change? No inbox. There’s a filter for your contacts, any attachments you’ve received, and that’s it…

For my personal email, where I receive a cornucopia of crap every day, I prefer the “inbox approach.” But for my work email? Where everything revolves around people? This has proven nothing short of revolutionary. Once I got used to it, I was amazed at how much of a timesaver this unique approach to email has been. If you’re in a similar email situation and have a Mac… Unibox gets my highest recommendation.

   
• Flight. Every minute of this video is gold…

I don’t know a better way to wrap up my Sunday than that.

   
• Good. Well, okay… maybe with this commercial from a Thai life insurance company…

Pretty much sums up why I love Thailand.

   
And… hope your weekend was a good one!

Fiskars and the Fiskateers. If you’ve been in the word of mouth industry for any period in the past, oh, I dunno, nine or ten years, then you know about this case study. It’s still talked about as “best in class” and the right way to build community, engagement and passion around even the most mundane of products (scissors). Articles and chapters in books have been penned about it. And even the social media kids still talk about it in their public speaking engagements.

But things have changed.

Before we go any further, I’d like to make a couple of things crystal clear. The first is that, to my knowledge, Brains on Fire (my former employer where I helped build the Fiskateer program) hasn’t been a vendor of Fiskars Brands for some many years now. The second is that this post is not meant to cast anyone in a bad light – especially the good folks at Fiskars. They are a company full of smart people and I don’t have the insight to why these changes were made – which could be any number of legitimate reasons.

You see, the Fiskars community – as heralded as it was – looks nothing like the community that was created some years back that led to a 600% increase in online mentions. Or the one that caused a 300% increase in sales in key markets. Or the one that brought a community together online and off to create unbreakable bonds.

The beginning of the end goes something like this: the internal champion of the program left the company to pursue other opportunities. And when that happened, things began to change. The program began to be dismantled. The structure of the program – especially the role of the lead ambassadors, devolved from four, to one, who is now more of a community manager instead of a true lead ambassador. Originally, the leads were encouraged to talk about anything that was going on in their lives. Now? It’s all about crafting and products, causing it to blend in to the noise.

The biggest blow to the program came last year, when the decision was made to move away from the dedicated online community platform to just a blog (with no comments) and a Facebook page. So gone are the threaded forums with members issuing fun challenges to one another or doing random acts of crafting. Gone are the thousands of uploaded images of beautiful crafts that capture amazing memories of the members lives. Gone is the assigning of your unique Fiskateer number or the special one-of-a-kind pair of scissors that you receive in the mail and cherish as a member.

To be honest, everything that made the program special is no more.

But if you want to find a silver lining on this rain cloud, I recently learned that a small group of Fiskateers has gone rogue and started their own private Facebook page. About 150 of them, or so I’m told. They are keeping the idea of what was originally built alive. They are talking about their Fiskateer numbers, their lives and encouraging one another in all aspects of their lives – which is the very foundation of what the movement was originally built on. It warms the heart, to be honest.

The lesson learned here is that when you’re thinking about helping bring together a community – a TRUE community and not in the Facebook sense of the word – you have to think about the life of it. Yes, how it will change, but also how it will change to fit the needs of the members instead of how you can change it to fit the needs of a brand. When you strip away the awesome, you’re left with mundane. When you pull out the things that connect people, you’re left with the status quo. And when you kill the passion, you’re left with just another blog and Facebook page.

Long live the Fiskateers.

I wrote a list of 18 blog posts that I’d never write, but this one got some requests… so here you go.

This summer, I spent more time than I’d like to admit researching table cloth lengths, looking at centerpieces for Vegas themed parties and consolidating RSVPs between a Google Doc and Evite. I was co-hosting a black tie birthday party for a friend and putting every event planning skill to the test to ensure that we pulled off a nearly perfect event. I picked up all the tips and tricks hosting Shabbat and holiday dinners, throwing low key and high key parties in my home and working at a  Public Relations agency.

In 2014, I’ll be channeling that energy into grad school, but here are 13 things that I’ve learned hosting parties in my 30s.

1. Table Runners Matter

For the birthday party in question, I bought red table runners and black tablecloths on the internet. The tablecloths were great – a heavy fabric that looked more expensive in person and set the stage for a black tie event. The table runners looked every $1.99 that I spent on them. Cheap, chintzy, ugly. It’s embarrassing how much time I spent worrying about table runners in my head and out loud to friends, but I wanted the party to feel as fancy as the dress we requested people wear. In the end, I found a red paper runner to layer under the chintzy cloth runner. Doubled up, they looked great and made the centerpieces pop. The waiter even complimented me on how nice the runners looked.

Why do table runners matter? And tablecloths? And centerpieces? They set the stage for an event. People may not remember that you layered paper and sheer cloth, but they will remember the feeling of walking into a well appointed room that matches the invitation.

2. Slider Bags are Your Friend

A week before the party, I did a trial run of the centerpieces. Each was a low profile bowl with red glass blobs, plastic diamonds, dice and floating candles. After I decided they looked okay, I bagged ’em up. I divided the red glass blogs, diamonds and candles into 10 bags. The night of the party, I didn’t have to try and explain my vision to helpers, I just put out the box of bowls and bags of stuff, then said, “just add water.”

I also did this for Christmas with stocking stuffers, just to make things easier when it was time to be Santa. So if you can portion it out in advance to make for fewer decisions or explanations the day of the party, it’s worth the time.

3. Be Specific

Sometimes I fail at this, sometimes I succeed, but if you want your invitees to bring something or wear something, be specific. For the big party, we just wanted people to dress up, leave presents at home and arrive on time. So we communicated that again and again. For smaller dinners and events at my house, I try to be very specific – a vegetarian side dish, fruit, something sweet, red wine, name tags (yes, I’ve asked for name tags), gluten free munchies, etc.

4. Run of Show

For events in PR, we make what’s called a “Run of Show” for our events. It lists all the things that have to happen at specific times for the event to be a success. So now for bigger dinners and parties, I make a run of show for myself. What are things that I need to do in the days before, the morning of and evening of the events. This includes shopping lists, tasks that can be given to someone else and when to put things in the oven (or pull them out of the freezer). For the bigger party, it also included phone numbers of everyone involved.

5. How Much Clean Up Do You Want To Do?

At Rosh Hashanah this year, I asked people to sign up to help set-up or clean-up. Since I was going to have help for cleaning up, we used real dishes and silverware. When nobody is going to stay to clean-up, I use plastic silverware because I loathe washing forks and knives. I always use real tablecloths and paper napkins, because it’s the right amount of laundry for me. I prefer real glasses to plastic, in part because real glasses are easy peasy in the dishwasher.

The lesson here is to strike a mix between “looks good and feels good” during the party with “spent less time cleaning than hosting.”

6. The Bathroom

Someone is going to have to use the bathroom, so I try to make sure that I’ve got extra toilet paper in easy reach, clean towels for hand drying, Kleenex, a lit candle and an easy to find plunger. Anyone who plugs a toilet should have the option to try and fix it for themselves before they hunt down the host.

I say that as someone who used the toilet after the guy who plugged it at a party at a crush’s house… In total horror, I watched the toilet bowl not empty as it should, then I searched his bathroom for a plunger. When I couldn’t find it, I had to elbow through mutual friends and strangers to find him and tell him that IT WASN’T ME, BUT I HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT THIS THING IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW AND OMG YOU WILL NEVER FORGET THIS WILL YOU?

Make the plunger easy to find, folks.

7. Aprons

Let’s call 2013, The Year of the Apron. This is the year I bought one and realized that it serves a real purpose. For both Rosh Hashanah and Hanukkah, holidays when I am in and out of the kitchen all night, I wore an apron over a nice dress. Kept my dress clean from food spills, but let me cook in my special messy way.

8. Prep in Sneakers

You’re cleaning alone in your house, prepping veggies in the kitchen and running upstairs to get the candles and you’re doing it all barefoot. If you’re me, that means you’ll be immobilized the day after the party with a sore back and the “dogs will be barking.” Save yourself the pain and wear good shoes while you prep. Hell, wear good shoes to the party, too.

9. Room for Elijah

I’ve found that the space will grow to accommodate extra guests, just make sure you have enough chairs or that you know which guest will happily bring extra chairs.

10. Introductions and Name Tags

I’m not above making friends wear name tags at my parties or doing around the room introductions at a sit-down meal. If you have someone who only knows you, make sure to introduce them to guests or provide some activities that make it easy for solo guests to join in. At the Big Party this summer, it was a beginner’s table for Black Jack.

11. Leftovers/Single Men are always “growing boys”

As the night winds down, make sure that extra food finds a home if you aren’t going to be able to eat/freeze it. Over the last few years, I’ve learned which friends love leftovers and which don’t. In general, single men are always “growing boys” who will take food home, just don’t let them take your good Tupperware, they will never bring it back.

12. Pet Allergies

Some of your friends are allergic to your cats, so make sure first timers to your house know the score on animals and have a pet-hair-free zone for their coats.

13. Spontaneous is Awesome, too

For as much as I’ve hosted planned dinners and parties over the last few years, spontaneous parties are my favorite. A few years ago, I hosted an impromptu Eve of the Eve party for my lady friends. This year I had a “You’ve never seen Before Sunrise or Before Sunset???” emergency viewing and “come drink all this leftover beer” night on my roof. Spontaneous nights are usually heavier on the potluck and have a more random guest list, but they are worth reveling in.

So, there you go, 13 things I’ve learned from hosting dinners and parties over the last few years. I deleted the lesson about supplementing home-cooked with catering, but it’s okay to order in for part of a big dinner. It’s totally okay.

It started innocently enough. I saw that Jasper Fforde had a new to me book out and I bought it immediately. Turned out that Shades of Grey wasn’t a Thursday Next book, but it was a delightful romp through a dystopian future where class is based on degrees of color blindness and assessed at age 16.

The friend who had introduced me to Fforde in the first place suggested that if I’d enjoyed the dystopian future of Shades of Gray, I might enjoy Neal Stephenson. Stephenson is a prolific writer of cyberpunk and dystopian novels. I then settled in for a year spent in parallel universes and not so distant futures.

I started with Cryptonomicon, then Snow Crash and Diamond Age. Later in the year I read Anathem and I just finished with REAMDE. In the middle, I took breaks for Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, Daemon and FreedomTM by Danny Suarez, and the Engineer Trilogy by K.J. Parker.

(There were also a few non-fiction books thrown in there and a thousand pages of academic reading for school).

Here are a few sweeping recommendations from my year of science fiction, cyber punk, dystopian futures, parallel universe histories and stuff.

Always read Jasper Fforde’s books. He paints delicious worlds with unique rules and vivid colors, even when the book is about color blindness.

Neal Stephenson has a few tropes he’ll always go back to. There will be totally random sex in the book that has little to do with the storyline, but it’s always there. There will be a scene that features near suffocation and you’ll wonder what happened to him as a kid. There will be a few parallel story lines that eventually intersect in ways that I never see coming, but I like to be surprised instead of figuring out the mystery before the final chapter. And the Sys Admin or hacker will always be the hero.

Ready Player One was the most fun book I read this year. The author turned a night of 80s trivia into a fun romp of a book, dipping in and out of movies, music and video games. Yes, it takes place in a massive multiplayer online game in the not so distant (very depressing) future, but it is fun.

Danny Suarez’s books are very violent, but worth the read for the vision of society he presents in book two. The friend who recommended these two (along with all the Stephenson) warned me that there would be some things that I wouldn’t like (murder and rape), and he was right, but he was also right that in the end it was worthwhile.

The Engineer Trilogy was a slog for me, but since I’d already bought the whole trilogy in paperback, I finished it. It takes place in a world’s Medieval/Byzantine era where countries are based on trade (engineers, shepherds, farmers, mining) and an engineer is excommunicated from his homeland. The three books cover the wars he starts to get back home, but it seems to be written in real time. Instead of a quick summary of war preparations, it includes incredibly detailed chapters on engineering, sieges, army training and fencing. I found it tedious, but still finished all three books in less than a month, so at some level I enjoyed the books.

There’s a part of me that thinks the future of marketing is hidden in a science fiction or cyber punk book, so I combined this reading diet with grad school. I’m about to start my second quarter at DePaul in the Digital Communications and Media Arts program. So far I haven’t been able to take a class on cyber punk fiction, but maybe in the next few years I’ll be able to.

What should I read next?

i signed up, despite having a bike. i'm member 327! i'll get a shirt and a special key. i don't really care what the color of my key is, but i do care that the bay area is FINALLY getting in on the action (as a pilot program).

go here if you want to join. they have different pricing programs, including those who will be visiting the area. the cities so far include SF, Redwood City, Palo Alto, Mountain View, and San Jose. i don't visit those cities much, but it's cool to think i can caltrain without fearing "being bumped" and ride around those cities if i so choose. looking forward to the additions of berkeley and oakland, i do not know what the status is of those cities though.

screenshot by sf streetsblog

the sf bike coalition has a dedicated page to discussing the bay area bike share. comes with cute graphics seen below.



note the 7-speed hub. bay area baby. nyc only gets 3 speeds. heh. screenshot via inhabitat.



fingers crossed this works out! we need more than a pilot program with bikes! bart has a pilot program with bikes, and now this pilot program. they will work, just put forth the program. people will use it, and it will be successful. especially if this is any indication...



now just get a pic of ryan goseling on a citibike and oh haaay gurl!

UPDATED the pic of leo. whatup fan girl? hehe.

On Friday, my friend was protesting the hearings at the Texan Statehouse about the law to restrict abortion clinics—the same law that Wendy Davis famously filibustered for 13 hours against two weeks ago.  According to her Facebook status update, she and her friend had their tampons confiscated upon entry into the Statehouse.  My initial reaction was that I thought she was kidding.  Thirty minutes later, Rachel Maddow’s blog was being shared across the social media about how tampons were getting confiscated but not guns at the Texas Courthouse.  Apparently, the logic for the confiscation was that the tampons could get used as projectiles.  Of course, as a thinking person, I did not understand: Isn’t a gun by definition a projectile too?

Then I connected this policy to a situation years ago with an African American male friend of mine when we were trying to enter a posh bowling alley in downtown NYC.  He was not permitted in, because he was wearing Timberlands. Yet, I was allowed in with my black heels.  I asked the doorman about the Timberland policy, and he responded that the shoes would scratch up the floor.  As a thinking person, I did not understand: Won’t we be changing our shoes to those ugly red and blue shoes to bowl anyway?

What does banning tampons and banning Timberlands have to do with each other?  These policies are about keeping certain groups of people out and allowing certain groups of people in.  In a lawsuit era post-Civil Rights legislation when certain groups of people can’t be banned from spaces of public accommodation, other policies can be developed to ban certain items that are associated with certain groups of people.

The tampon ban is not about protecting legislators from projectiles, just like how the Timberlands ban is not about protecting floors from bad shoes. The tampon-ban policy is about deterring women—specifically young women—from circulating in public spaces where decisions about their bodies will be made.   Timberlands are similarly associated with young men of color.  The anti-Timberland policy is about keeping men of color out due to the stereotypes that they “will cause problems” and “shake up the peace.”  Does that not sound familiar with the Anti-Tampon Policy?  The perception is that the women—specifically menstruating young women—“will cause problems” and “shake up the peace.”

Men generally don’t need or carry tampons, but younger women in their childbearing years do.  Similarly, men are more likely than women to carry concealed guns. According to Texas Department of Public Safety, 77% of concealed weapons permits in 2012 were issued to men. It is obvious:  the Legislature wanted to ensure that men could enter and participate in the legislative process on abortion, but women would be deterred from participating.

We continue to live in an era of Jim Crow with bans of our Timberlands.  But, it is also an era of Jacqueline Crow with bans of our feminine products. How many other groups have to suffer under these bans designed to keep us out?  When we are told that we can’t speak Spanish or wear certain colors or brands in certain spaces, we are essentially telling groups that their identities as part of a group do not matter and that they are not wanted to participate in a certain space as part of the collective identity.  Most importantly, when we limit groups like women and people of color from public spaces like the legislative process, we will perpetuate the sexist, racist, and classist laws and structures that will oppress the very people that should participate.

“I was reading an article in [New Scientist/Scientific American Mind/SEED if that still exists] about this study by some anthropologists [or evolutionary psychologists] who studied two isolated tribes, one in South America and the other in [Micronesia/Polynesia/Papua New Guinea]. It said that at night, when the families would retire to their thatched hutches, one of the family members was tasked with announcing through hatches in the huts, sometimes in song and sometimes just straightforwardly, what the members of family were doing, to keep everyone in the village up-to-date. The updates were kept within a certain number of syllables as a matter of propriety. So now that’s why we have Twitter because of that.”

I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now, but social media is tailor-made to feed that big ol’ monster in all of us called “ego.”

Think about it. Look where I am. Listen to what I’m doing. Look at this cool hotel where I’m staying. Here’s a picture of my food. I’m hanging out with these people (even though we’re all looking down at our phones right now). Look at this great picture of me. I’m shopping at a store now. Check out this thing I wrote. I’m thinking about buying this. I bought this. I’m sharing information with you that I found out about first. I just got upgraded. I’m at the gym. I’m at a concert. Buy my book. Come see me speak. Let me impart wisdom on you. Check out what I’m listening to. I’m planning a trip. I’m on a trip. I just came back from a trip. I just met with very important clients at a really big company. Look at what a great husband/mom/wife/dad/brother/sister/uncle/aunt/or other relative I am.

It’s endless.

The social app/platform developers caught on early – whether they realized it or not – to this need for humans to feel good about themselves and have others like them. Foursquare. Instagram. Twitter. Path. Spotify. Vine. And hundreds of other apps that allow you to share every single pixel of your life every single moment of the day to anybody who will look or listen. And so we do. We share.

In presentations, I often say that “everybody wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves. It’s hard-wired into our DNA.” Which I still stand by. But also hard-wired into our DNA is the need to feel loved and accepted (actually, the two are intertwined). Just ask Maslow. So it only makes since that when we’re out there trying to engage customers on social media, we should play to their ego.

Some smart folks wrote a paper in 2011 entitled “On Brands and Word of Mouth,” which Geno Church and John Moore do a brilliant job of breaking down in this presentation. The basic premise is that the top three reasons people share content online is (in this order): ego, information and emotion. Or, EGO, INFO and EMO as I like to think of it. So when I’m working to build a program or even create one piece of content, I think about it in these three buckets. Will my efforts fill one (or more) of those buckets? It should if I want it to spread.

But for the purpose of this post, we’re taking a look at ego and how it relates to content. So, to put it simply, we should create pieces of content that feed customer’s egos. Because it will be shared. It’s why the “Fan of the week” posts on brand’s Facebook pages are so popular. It’s why when a brand or outlet picks up your blog post on Twitter or Facebook, you retweet/post it to your wall. It’s why when a brand engages with a customer, they tell all their friends and followers (online and off) about it and the “special” attention they received.

Yes, most brands to a really great job on social media talking about themselves. And to an extent – as it goes with advertising – it’s needed to inform customers and potential customers. But – and that’s a BIG but – we need to turn that spotlight on our customers on a regular basis. So instead of “Hey, look at me!” It’s “Hey, look at this customer of ours and how cool they are!” Which, of course, will give them something to yell, “Hey, look at me!” And the word of mouth roars on.

So the next time you’re in a meeting to develop content for your social channels, make sure you fill the ego bucket first. Then watch what happens.

Minneapolis-based creative agency Carmichael Lynch created a spin-off collective whose sole mission is to make really inspiring tomfoolery. The bug memorial project is absolutely brilliant and does the job it was intended to do. Make a dude like me smile on a Tuesday.

Rest in peace Mr. Roach.

There is no weak project on the site. Check these guys out.

Related Posts

1. The Manholes Project
2. The Soliloquy of the Bud-Chucks
3. Skull Vomit

After stumbling across destructive advice, licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Kelly Flanagan writes a letter to his daughter about what really matters in a relationship.

Dear Cutie-Pie,

Recently, your mother and I were searching for an answer on Google. Halfway through entering the question, Google returned a list of the most popular searches in the world. Perched at the top of the list was “How to keep him interested.”

It startled me. I scanned several of the countless articles about how to be sexy and sexual, when to bring him a beer versus a sandwich, and the ways to make him feel smart and superior.

And I got angry.

Little One, it is not, has never been, and never will be your job to “keep him interested.”

Little One, your only task is to know deeply in your soul—in that unshakeable place that isn’t rattled by rejection and loss and ego—that you are worthy of interest. (If you can remember that everyone else is worthy of interest also, the battle of your life will be mostly won. But that is a letter for another day.)

If you can trust your worth in this way, you will be attractive in the most important sense of the word: you will attract a boy who is both capable of interest and who wants to spend his one life investing all of his interest in you.

Little One, I want to tell you about the boy who doesn’t need to be kept interested, because he knows you are interesting:

I don’t care if he puts his elbows on the dinner table—as long as he puts his eyes on the way your nose scrunches when you smile. And then can’t stop looking.

I don’t care if he can’t play a bit of golf with me—as long as he can play with the children you give him and revel in all the glorious and frustrating ways they are just like you.

I don’t care if he doesn’t follow his wallet—as long as he follows his heart and it always leads him back to you.

I don’t care if he is strong—as long as he gives you the space to exercise the strength that is in your heart.

I couldn’t care less how he votes—as long as he wakes up every morning and daily elects you to a place of honor in your home and a place of reverence in his heart.

I don’t care about the color of his skin—as long as he paints the canvas of your lives with brushstrokes of patience, and sacrifice, and vulnerability, and tenderness.

I don’t care if he was raised in this religion or that religion or no religion—as long as he was raised to value the sacred and to know every moment of life, and every moment of life with you, is deeply sacred.

In the end, Little One, if you stumble across a man like that and he and I have nothing else in common, we will have the most important thing in common:

You.

Because in the end, Little One, the only thing you should have to do to “keep him interested” is to be you.

Your eternally interested guy,

Daddy

♦◊♦

This post is, of course, dedicated to my daughter, my Cutie-Pie. But I also want to dedicate it beyond her.

I wrote it for my wife, who has courageously held on to her sense of worth and has always held me accountable to being that kind of “boy.”

I wrote it for every grown woman I have met inside and outside of my therapy office—the women who have never known this voice of a Daddy.

And I wrote it for the generation of boys-becoming-men who need to be reminded of what is really important—my little girl finding a loving, lifelong companion is dependent upon at least one of you figuring this out. I’m praying for you.

 

This post was originally published here.

Image credit: patrick_bird via Compfight cc

This is a promo video for a new book on how to Get the Guy. It’s pretty funny, but also a little creepy – because it doesn’t seem all that farfetched. Then again, I was having conversations not too far from this by the time I was 11.

Those in favor of very early marriage should appreciate this.

Best line: “We’re not getting any  younger.” 

Related posts:

1. Online Dating Sites Find Selling Serial Monogamy More Profitable Than Marriage
2. Early Indoctrination

In college I took exactly one sociology class. It was called Silence and Social Power and focused on how minorities were silenced as a way to keep the status quo and power structure. We also focused on how using your voice gave you power and could help lift your people… however you define, “your people.”

As a final project, the class was divided into two groups and given the instructions to get the oral history of a group of people, then bring their stories to life in a final presentation. Our team was assigned LGBT and we went to work.

I remember interviewing one of my residents about how she came out in high school, but I also interviewed a woman who was in her 50s. She said that she was married to a man, or maybe she was getting a divorce, when she saw a photograph of a lesbian couple on the front of a magazine.

“I want to be in love like that,” she said to herself. There was something in the photograph that communicated straight to her soul and she recognized what she wanted from her life. By the time our paths crossed in that interview, she was in love like that.

I assume the primary lesson wasn’t supposed to be that sometimes a photograph or essay will suddenly focus your needs, wants or desires, but for years I’ve heard that sentence ring in my head. “I want to be in love like that,” and wondered what or who my “like that” could possibly be.

***

Roger Ebert died today. Only yesterday he published a noticed that his cancer had relapsed and he would be taking a “Leave of Presence” from the Sun Times. As I watched the remembrances fly by on Twitter, I didn’t really have a similar story as many of my friends.

I remember growing up watching him give a thumbs up or a thumbs down on TV. I certainly watched on a regular basis. When he joined Twitter, I remember tweeting once that it was a shame he had fewer followers than I did at the time. There was a hot second when I was almost hired to teach him how to better use Twitter, but then he learned how to tweet on his own.

There was one of his epic blog posts that stuck out in my memory. My Name is Roger, and I’m an Alcoholic. Reading that post gave me a window into the sixth member of my immediate family – AA. My dad recently had a public celebration of 30 years of sobriety and volunteer leadership among the friends of Bill W.

An A.A. meeting usually begins with a recovering alcoholic telling his “drunkalog,” the story of his drinking days and how he eventually hit bottom. This blog entry will not be my drunkalog. What’s said in the room, stays in the room. You may be wondering, in fact, why I’m violating the A.A. policy of anonymity and outing myself. A.A. is anonymous not because of shame but because of prudence; people who go public with their newly-found sobriety have an alarming tendency to relapse. Case studies: those pathetic celebrities who check into rehab and hold a press conference.

That was the post that made Roger E. someone I could have met at a New Years Eve or Super Bowl party down at the Old Jail… had Roger E ever attended meetings in my hometown.

***

Today when I found out that he died, I read his obituaries and started reblogging quotes onto my Tumblr.

About his wife, Chaz…

“She fills my horizon, she is the great fact of my life, she is the love of my life, she saved me from the fate of living out my life alone,” he wrote.

About traveling with his wife,

Romance in the winter in Venice is intimate and private, almost hushed. One night we went to the Municipal Casino, carefully taking only as much money as we were ready to lose, and lost it. In a little restaurant we had enough left for spaghetti with two plates and afterward lacked even the fare for the canal bus. We walked the long way back through the night and cold, our arms around each other, figures appearing out of the fog, lights traced on the wet stones, pausing now and again to kiss and be solemn.

About choosing a partner,

Never marry someone who doesn’t love the movies you love. Sooner or later, that person will not love you.

Chaz and Roger about marrying each other,

Chaz had been married before, so she knew what taking that step would mean. “I think that I am better in marriage. I like taking care of people and having someone there in my corner and being in someone’s corner.” Roger, on the other hand, had been single into his forties. But looking back, he doesn’t recall any trouble adapting. “I had been single long enough,” he says.”

Finally, a friend posted a link to his epic 20th anniversary post Roger Loves Chaz. Just go read all of it. I’ll wait.

***

I want to be in love like that.

We formed a serious bond rather quickly. It was an understood thing. I was in love, I was serious, I was ready for my life to change. I had been on hold too long.

I want to be in love like that.

I saved every one of her letters along with my own, and have them encrypted on my computer, locked inside a file where I can’t reach them because the program and the operating system are now 20 years out of date. But they’re in there. I’m not about to entrust them to anyone at the Apple Genius Counter.

I want to love like that.

We were sitting there talking in a little cafe at the end of a happy day and I became overwhelmed with the desire to propose marriage. Chaz filled my mind. She excited me physically. She was funny. She made a reading of my life rather quickly, understood what I did and how I had to do it..

Like that.

I resented her unceasing encouragement. I was lazy. It was ever so much preferable to sit and read. But she was making me do the right thing. She did it all over again after my next three tours through the Rehabilitation Institute. Four times I learned to walk again…

And I want to be in love like that. To be in either shoe. And like Chaz seemed to so gracefully do today, to say goodbye to the love of my life when our time together is over.

***

Roger Ebert didn’t teach me to love movies or inspire me to write, but he and Chaz certainly inspire me to love and show that there is room for love and partnership in the dizzying space of a demanding career. Maybe, just maybe, I can make room and let a man into my life and have a love like that.

***

May his memory be a blessing.

Today marks the release of the final downloadable song for Rock Band. Harmonix has chosen Don McLean's "American Pie" for the honor, which, as I've already said, is an absolutely perfect choice.

Read more...

Some of the folks reading this blog have endorsed me on LinkedIn. This is automatically going to turn me into an ass monkey in someone’s eyes. Fine. I’m an ass monkey.

But I’m an ass monkey that wants you to stop using LinkedIn Endorsements. For. Fuck’s. Sake.

**Note: the language doesn’t get any cleaner from here on out. You’ve been warned.**

First, I’m going to talk about why LinkedIn Endorsements are about as meaningful as having Paris Hilton teach etiquette classes to pre-teen girls. Once I’m done spouting off, I’m going to teach you how to turn them off. You already know how I feel about unqualified connection requests (and apparently, most of you feel the same way).

The Idiocy of LinkedIn Endorsements

Here’s the bottom line about LinkedIn Endorsements: who cares? I know they’re bullshit. You should know they’re bullshit. If you don’t know that they’re bullshit, let’s define why they’re bullshit once and for all.

There are many reasons to connect with people on LinkedIn. Not all of those connections will be people who have direct knowledge or experience as to what’s it’s like to work with you.

The only “barrier to entry” for offering a LinkedIn endorsement is being someone’s connection on the LinkedIn platform. Now, I’m sure that the passengers on the Titanic would not be endorsing Edward Smith for his sea captaining skills. Did they directly work with Smith? No, but I do feel they’re likely a good judge of his experience. But he’s dead. Just like 1,502 passengers on the ship. But that still leaves roughly 700 people who could likely vouch for the fact that Smith missed a giant chunk of ice in the Atlantic martini.

Which brings me to another round of WHO FUCKING CARES?! When the barrier to entry on a LinkedIn Endorsement is only that someone’s clicked a button to acknowledge that they accept a connection, who the hell is giving any credence to Endorsements?

Here’s a snapshot of my Endorsements on LinkedIn:

Now, the only endorsement I really give a rat’s ass about is the one highlighted in red. Guess what? I created that category myself, fully embracing the sheer idiocy of LinkedIn endorsements and figured to hell with it. If people are going to offer me an endorsement on a skill and they’ve never met me, by gawdalmighty, here’s one they can click with fucking certainty.

Blogging? Thank you. After nearly 700 posts since 2006, I hope I know what I’m doing. But then again, shouldn’t other people be the judge of that when they stop by my blog?

Online Advertising? I really know fuckall about this. Facebook ads, their promoted posts, and a deep interest in LinkedIn advertising are the extent of it, I’m afraid.

Published Author? Yes, I am. Twice. But then again, so is this guy. Now you can see how useful broad categories like this are. Kill me now.

It all comes down to an ego-centric circle jerk. Every time I see a fresh Endorsement notification, I feel like the girl who got invited to a random “no, no, I swear it’s NOT an orgy” party and I get stuck hiding in the corner behind a ficus for the entire evening because my ride is involved in a kind of sandwich they don’t sell at Subway.

I’m leaving the Endorsements party. It’s creepy and I didn’t ask to be here. Maybe you’re ready to leave, too.

Let’s carpool.

Now — how do we get these fuckers off our LinkedIn profiles?

How to Remove Endorsements from Your LinkedIn Profile (or disable them completely)

Removing Endorsements from your LinkedIn profile is so damn easy that I feel like a chump for not figuring it out on my own. A big hat tip goes out to my friend Rich Mackey for giving me the gist so I could share this illustrated guide with you.

Step 1: Click on Edit Profile

 

Step #2: Scroll down to Skills & Expertise (cough) and click the EDIT pencil icon

Step #3: Opt to hide Endorsements in 3 simple steps.

You’re done. All that will show are skills that YOU choose to have displayed on your profile for search purposes or whatnot.

People can no longer offer their nonsensical “vouchings”. And you, my friends, are now free of those useless notifications that someone’s endorsed you.

Want real endorsements? Ask your customers and clients for testimonials. Put them on your website. Make them easy to find and make sure they depict the work you do and how your clients feel when you do it for them. LinkedIn isn’t the only game in town when it comes to building a credible portfolio for your brand of awesome. Stop letting others — the platforms and the people — define how others see you.

That’s your domain, friend. Take it back and make the rules.

 

Comments

• By: How to Turn Off and Remove LinkedIn Endorsements – NOW | Erika … | Empower Network Blog by How to Turn Off and Remove LinkedIn Endorsements – NOW | Erika … | Empower Network Blog
• By: LinkedIn for Business | The Online Business Builders Guide | Online Business Builder by LinkedIn for Business | The Online Business Builders Guide | Online Business Builder
• THANK YOU! by Jennifer M Green
• My first reaction to these was to respond in kind – then I ... by 3HatsComm
• By: Dodging The Linkedin White Lie | Social Media Commentary | Brian C Watkins by Dodging The Linkedin White Lie | Social Media Commentary | Brian C Watkins
• Plus 5 more...