The Daily Grind of a Work @ Home Mom...

Operation Un-Facebook

I've lost a bunch of Facebook friends over the last month. It started when I noticed that people were dropping off like flies, deactivating their accounts and choosing to live Facebook free lives. At first I was like, what is going on here! And then I realized, I can't say I blame them.

I'm beginning to wonder if Facebook is bad for our health.

I log on far too often and check out statuses. More often than not I'm like, "why the eff would she/he post that?" or "who the hell cares that your dinner caused you heartburn?" or whatever, or "why does the world need to know that you are desperately in love with your husband/boyfriend?" (who you probably hate enough to have to overcompensate by posting such things.) These aren't thoughts we would necessarily share during a "real life" conversation with random acquaintances, so why do we do it on Facebook?

Why have the minutiae of our lives become fodder for our own personal bullhorns?

Lately, some of the stuff I've seen has been really crazy. Updates lambasting other friends, a play by play on the imminent death of an acquaintance's family member, news on new couples - all in a status update. And I haven't even witnessed all of this myself. I got a call from a friend the other day - actually several this week alone - saying , "have you seen so and so's status update?" And I thought - OMG, it's update insanity. 

Appropriate? Who am I to say. All I know is I feel like these are things I don't want/need to know. Not as often as I do. They constitute the overshare in my book and they're not things I need to know about anyone other than close friends, who are confiding in me. The intimate details of your life make me somewhat uncomfortable.

But - it's my problem, not yours.

That's not to say that I don't enjoy seeing pics of your kids, yourself, your family, your trips. I do. I love the funny stuff, the jokes, anything that makes me LOL. I like the links to articles containing interesting stuff. I do enjoy keeping up with my friends - to a certain degree - via social media. But if you're breaking up with your husband and you want me to know? Gimme a call. (I've seriously been able to deduce divorce news from statuses.)

This week I started my disentanglement by "unfriending" people who have no place in my life. I mean like, at all. Not as a former schoolmate, not even a colleague (although most of the former ones went too). People who floated into my life for a hot minute and are now gone. Gone as well from my contacts.

Phase two of operation un-Facebook consisted of deleting the app from my iPhone. The point is to spend less time perusing status updates and more time focusing on whatever I'm doing. It's also a way to decrease my engagement with the otherwise addictive activity. Which, I've noticed, seems to be a trend among people I know IRL who have had actual addiction problems. Those people tend to turn into shadowy figures (what a profile pic looks like after deactivating) like clockwork. To me, this speaks volumes.

The goal is to spend more time in the real world. Focusing on my real life. With people who don't live in my computer. Because the results, I'm thinking, can only prove positive. And I can use as much positivity as I can get.

And yes, I'll be sharing this post on Facebook. The irony.

 

In Defense of Hannah Horvath

I love the show Girls. I told you about it in June and I still love it. I think it's awesomely funny, raw, and entertaining. The fact that it's written, directed, and produced by a 26-year-old girl woman who also stars in it is just the icing on the cake. I am so intrigued by Lena Dunham, in fact, that I used vacation time to attend a screening of her movie, Tiny Furniture, along with a Q&A with her and her mom, the artist Laurie Simmons, last week at the MFA in Boston. While I wasn't as taken with her movie as I am with her show, it was fun to be part of the intimate gathering.

Since Girls has become more popular in its second season, it's also become the center of an evergrowing maelstrom of emotion. Check out the entertainment blogs, even just the regular blogs, on a Monday after pretty much any episode and you're going to read comments written by folks who hate Hannah Horvath/Lena Dunham so intensely that they spew venom at her every chance they get. They even use her real name and her character's name interchangeably making the reader wonder if the commenter is so caught up in the root of their feeling that they are confused by the fact that this character, is just that - a fictitious character.

It's sad, really.

This past Sunday was a particularly "inflammatory" episode in which Hannah - not to be confused with her more polished, shabby-chic real-life alter ego, Lena - has a whirlwind affair (and by affair I mean tons of hot sex) with an older, hotter man. How she meets him is irrelevant but she goes on an instinct, makes the first move (confident women of the world, unite!) and proceeds to spend much time in her splendid, naked, glory with this buff, angular, rich guy, having hours of what is probably unpolished, dirty, sexy, sex.

Hannah Horvath is no Claudia Schiffer, she would probably be the first to admit it. Which is why I feel empowered as part of the non-Claudia Schiffer-women's club when a woman, deemed by society as less than perfect, gets naked (aka vulnerable) on TV. She even (GASP!) seems comfortable in her own skin! With a rich, hot guy no less! Isn't he grossed out by her imperfect abs? Her out of place brown hair? Her thighs that touch?

And all I could think was that I wish I had a quarter of Hannah's self-confidence when I was in my 20s. I wish it hadn't taken the better part of thirty-something years to focus more on being in the moment and less on how I look in the moment. I wish I'd learned far earlier on that if two people are naked together and one is worrying about flabby thighs or wavy arms, they're probably ALONE in their thoughts cuz the other person is probably thinking - laid! I'm getting laid! Especially true if you a heterosexual woman.

The haters hated. Slate writer David Haglund said, "I like when writers and directors push us to empathize with characters who are not likable—but then you have to make those characters interesting. This episode somehow put a hard-to-like character in a hard-to-believe situation which also, frankly, was pretty dull."

Haglund is certainly entitled his opinion - if he finds Hannah hard to like, that's his prerogative. One that I can't contest since I'm not experiencing the show in the shoes of a 40-something year old man. However...

Hannah is nothing if not interesting. She'll pretty much do anything for a story (a writer!) including take a cocaine-fueled journey through clubland with her gay ex-boyfriend, and is as adventurous as any character.  But the real question I have for Haglund is, why is this situation so hard to believe? Is it because Hannah is an average looking woman who makes a move on a 40-something year old rich, hot man? Or because this average woman had the confidence to go get 'em?

Is David Haglund secretly an average woman who has been rejected by hot, older men therefore lending credit to his words? Or is he a hot, older guy who rejects all average women (I think not. Just sayin'.) Hey David, men, even the good looking ones, dig confidence. It's a thing. Really.

I''ve seen Twitter steams and Facebook pages that call Hannah out as a vapid narcissist (along with anyone who enjoys the show. Hold on while I grab my tissues - not), a loser, gross, wrong, and just about every other negative adjective stirred up by our wonderful society crawling with perfect creatures.

Before watching the episode, which did, I admit, involve lots of jiggly boobie shots and a not-flat stomach, I saw Facebook status updates saying, "don't eat while watching Girls," and "Girls made me hurl" (who's vapid now!). And when I got around to watching the episode on Tuesday (it's been a busy week and my DVR betrayed me), I called back to my memory where I had seen these updates and low and behold my mind did go there. I thought, man, I sure as hell wouldn't want to see you naked.

Or maybe I was just offended that even the very ordinary people that I associate myself with are part of this elitist group that would never want to look at anyone imperfect - or real - on TV. And it made me sad. And it made me defensive. Because in spite of my brilliant writing (hehe), I am part of the 99% of us that are imperfect. In many, many ways.

So maybe this is why I love Hannah Horvath (Lena Dunham seemed cool, too, though I don't know her as well so hard for me to judge). Hannah is the every women (in their 20s). She's not gorgeously stunning or impossibly perfect. She's just who she is and to me, real beats perfect ANY day.

 

When a wonton is not just a wonton: lasagna cupcakes

I'm either really hungry lately or just really into creating food because I can't stop thinking about what I'm going to make next. Maybe it's both but either way, in my next life I think I'd like to be a chef. Seriously. So yesterday, in honor of the Superbowl Sunday, I made lasagna cupcakes and a bunch of other stuff, but I need to share this recipe because it was SO good.

Lasagna Cupcakes:

You'll need:

• small container of ricotta cheese
• grated parmesan
• grated mozzarella
• 24 wonton wrappers
• 1 store-bought tomato sauce
• 1/3lb ground turkey
• store-bought pesto (optional)
• cupcake tins for 12 cupcakes

First, brown the ground turkey, and season it with chili pepper and garlic powder (or whatever you have). Remove and set aside. Spray cupcake tins with cooking spray and line with wonton wrapper. Sprinkle with grated parm, drop a small amount of ricotta (I use part-skim), and cover it with a layer of tomato sauce and add grated moz. If you have simple kids (like I do!), cover with another wonton wrapper and add another layer, ending with grated moz. Otherwise, add cooked ground turkey over the ricotta and add a touch of pesto before the tomato sauce. Repeat.

 

Adult Version

 

 

Kid Version

 

I put them in the oven on 350 for about 15 minutes (keep on eye on them), and they looked like this:

And finally:

 

Dinner

 

 It was fantastic. They looked intricate and pretty but so simple to make.  Great the next day too. Enjoy!