I miss the telegram STOP

Chris O'Brien at the Idea Lab sent me into a paranoid Luddite's nightmare: examining Twitter as the newsroom of the future. His argument is a valid one though. He looks at who Tweeted about the recent California earthquake first, making information available to millions before it was published on mainstream Web sites, and even long after, when those sites were flooded with traffic.

I was mulling all of this over on my commute home this evening, and am going to offer you this doodle:






When I was doodling, I thought it was a ridiculous prospect, but I grew more depressed when I just Googled "live blogging birth" and was met with a slew of relevant results. This tale of the miracle of life via Twitter updates popped up a lot.

The only people who care enough to read minute-by-minute details of a child's birth are probably already there at the hospital. Isn't it enough to recount every boring detail of your life on your blog? Do we really need it in real time? Who do you think is reading?

But in terms of breaking news of national importance, I guess Twitter and sites like it will grow increasingly relevant. What do you think? Anyone want to read my Tweets when I get my wisdom teeth out? Didn't think so.

Comments like these are why your mother cries at night

Overheard at a Kohl's dressing room:

Mother: Honey, I think those are too small.
Daughter: Your mom's too small!
(Long pause)
Mother: I don't have a mother...
Daughter: I know. Ha. Ha. Ha.

That dirty girl

I was always jealous of the women in white dresses. No, not brides. Just any woman in a white dress, worn tastefully after Memorial Day, as she struts down sidewalks or across lawns at garden parties, cottony fabric blowing in the breeze behind her. I've always harbored a slow, burning contempt for the woman who can wear a crisp white sweater that looks brand new after six-months of heavy wear and ample washings.

Because I could never do that. I am a chronic spiller, usually spilling something at least once a day, most often on myself. All of my garments are speckled with splashes of coffee, checkered with fluorescent highlighter marks, or mapped with wandering paths of ink from mid-thigh to knee.

I kept thinking this was something I would grow out of, like a little girl grows out of sitting with her legs splayed open in public, or belching the alphabet with her brothers. But it hasn't happened. I am a refined, young woman in most other ways. I paint my toe nails with some regularity, can apply eye liner with relative precision, and usually carry just the right amount of womanly accessories in my handbag. But I will always be the girl with stains all over her clothes. I might leave the house fresh as a daisy in the morning, and make it about an hour before the train unexpectedly jerks forward, and hot tea splashes onto my khaki pencil skirt.

On Tuesday, as I ate a salad at my internship desk, I pulled open the dressing packet, and emptied some of its contents onto the fresh bed of baby spinach, feta and green beans that was eagerly awaiting digestion in my tumtum. About halfway through, I decided more raspberry vinaigrette was in order, picked up the packet, and in a split second, squirted several tablespoons of the dressing all over my pants, and onto a new t-shirt. This was no discreet stain. It looked like I had been slaughtering hogs in my cubicle for a mid-afternoon pig roast.

When I asked an associate editor for her pass card for the bathroom, I saw her lips turn up slightly, and her brow furrow while she tried not to laugh at me. That poor dirty girl with the stains all over her clothes. She took pity on me and handed me the bathroom pass, while averting her gaze from the sanguine, oily mess that was dripping from crotch to knee on my pants, and chest to hip on my t-shirt. After several minutes of fierce blotting and furious towel-wetting in the powder room, the stain was no better; in fact, it looked considerably worse.

As I stood staring hopelessly into the mirror, an image of Kelly Ripa in the Tide-to-Go commercials flooded my head. NA NA NA NA HEY HEY HEY GOOOOOOOD BYYYYEEE. This mess I made was even too big for a Tide-to-Go stick. What would Kelly say? I bet even her tiny toddlers do not make such frequent and sloppy messes.

When I got home, my mother was ready with her stain-removing arsenal. She could take the spots out of a leopard if she wanted. While the clothes were soaking, she discreetly tucked a Tide pen into my work bag, and shot me a leveling gaze that only a mother can give. The gaze that tells you instantly, "You may be fully grown, but you will always be an incompetent four-year-old who needs her mother, and what would you ever do without me?" I muttered thanks and she patted my shoulder and said "I think you'll have more use for that than I will."

Yes, mother. I think I always will.

Wish it was Sunday, that's my fun day.

Sometimes idiocy just smacks you in the face. Lately, as I've been driving to and fro, bopping along to the local Top 40 stations, I've noticed a trend. Songs are getting dumber. Of course, I do think pop music has been, you know, going through a rough patch for several years, but some of what's out there now is really just appalling in entirely new ways. Aren't people embarrassed to be singing these things? I am only 20, but I find myself muttering "Kids these days" which only leads me into tirades about how much I miss the Honeymooners and milk being delivered in glass bottles to my doorstep.

Topics for another day, people. I would first like to bring a few pop music issues to your attention.

Usher, Love in this Club

"I wanna make love in this club (in this club, in this club, in this club)"

Are you serious? Can you imagine if Almonzo had picked up Laura Ingalls and said "I wanna make love in this barn (in this barn, in this barn, in this barn)"? I understand times have changed but this Usher is just too forward. Not to mention, could it be any less artful? If you are a music producer, and someone hands you these lyrics, what would you do? Give them a sticker and a pat on the head? Tell them that this is "good material"? I personally would cry for that person and then tell them about the difference between appropriate and inappropriate information for sharing. Telling me about your mother's Memorial Day cookout? Appropriate. Telling me about the sexual urges you felt as an eight-year-old in your third grade class room? Not so much.

This songs gets worse:

"You ever made love to a thug in the club with his Sice on
87 jeans and a fresh pair of Nikes on
On the couch, on the table, on the bar, or on the floor
You meet me in the bathroom yeah you know I’m trying go"

Okay. 1) Food and beverage are served on the bar and at tables, and I would hate to think about what sorts of bodily fluids might be mingling with my gin and tonic. Furthermore, I don't want to end up under a blacklight and have some mementos on my purse left by you overzealous whippersnappers. 2) You could at least take your shoes off. 3) Sice?

Elsewhere, fifteen-year-old Miley Cyrus has had a busy couple of months. First Annie Liebovitz convinced her to disrobe and look like a sickly refugee for Vanity Fair, then her song "See You Again" played non-stop on the radio. Naked teens sell! I love this song, so Miley, if you're reading, take no offense, but I would just like to point something out. Really just for my own peace of mind. This line:

"You asked what's wrong with me
My best friend Lesley said "Oh she's just being Miley"

It's extremely unlikely that fifteen-year-old Miley has a best friend named Lesley. Lesley is a name that went out with the Dierdres and Eileens of the 50s. It would be like if my parents named me Barbara in 1987. Or Eleanor. It just doesn't happen. This line is so distracting to me, really just for this reason. Am I being too nitpicky? You can tell me if I am. But every time she sings this, I picture Miley smoking cigarettes with a leather-skinned brass-blond forty-something and talking about "dishy" hunks on "their soaps!"

"Leavin," by Jesse McCartney.

If it's possible, I think Jesse McCartney got younger. Last time I remember seeing Jesse, it was during his Summerland days (p.s.- SO GLAD Lori Loughlin found work again in the new 90210) and he looked like the charming sun-kissed young man you see on the

left. Am I crazy here? That was taken four years ago, and the one on the right was taken quite recently. I'm scared. Scared for you Jesse. By the time your next single is released, you'll be wearing Velcro shoes and Grranimals. Also important, with his latest single, Jesse really wows us. He's really proven that he deserves to be on the music scene with brilliant and though-provoking lyrics like these ones:

" Hey baby girl, I’ve been watching you all day (all day x3)
Man that thing you got behind you is amazing (amazing x3)"

That thing you've got behind you? Does he mean the young lady's derrière? Because I am picturing a three-toed sloth attached to the girl's back. That thing you've got behind you! That jungle creature! It moves so slowly, yet is still so compelling.

He further confuses me with his all-too-hip Generation Q lingo:

"Girl we flying on the G5 G5
And I’m leavin’ never lookin back again."

I had to look up what a "G5" was on Urban Dictionary because I was afraid it was some drug I didn't know about or maybe a new brand of Hot Wheels. Apparently it's a business jet. Dually noted.

Then, Jesse ices the cake and sends me into a tizzy with these plagiarized lyrics:

"Don’t stress, don’t stress, don’t stress
Just tell him to the left left left."

Jesse, are you funning with me? You can't touch Beyonce. Who are you, you little weasel, to so blazenly rip off her lyrics? THEY WERE HER DUMB LYRICS FIRST! You especially should not steal them because it doesn't even make sense here. To the left of what? Why left and not right? It doesn't even rhyme. Listen sonny, how about this:

"Don't stress, don't stress, don't stress,
How old am I, can you guess guess guess?

or

Don't stress, don't stress, don't stress,
How cool is freedom of the presss???"

Just something to think about.

A loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires and baby

It's a little after six and the sidewalks of Boston are clear and walkable. Next to me, a little boy, barely two, is pushing a plastic lawn mower that blows bubbles. His little legs scurry behind it while the bubbles float effortlessly into the paths and over the heads of the people walking by. His giggles are infectious.

I am going to buy some bubbles.