Ms.Anthropy

23 posts
Awesome at life, short on time.

Lessons in Competitive Parenting: Digital Life

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Life takes dedication. As we all know, second best is really the first worst. To succeed in our uber-competitive world, where only the strongest survive to get into a decent preschool, it is never too soon to set the standards that others will follow. Thus begins our lessons in competitive parenting.

If you are expecting, or expecting to be expecting some day, you are lucky to gestate in the modern era. Thanks to social media, today’s expectant parents no longer have to suffer through months of anxiety and anticipation in silence. You can gain immediate validation and affirmation online, any time, for your literal navel gazing. Here are some guidelines for making social media work for you during your pregnancy.

Facebook is a must. If you are not currently on Facebook, or quit in disgust when all of your friends posted preggo updates all day, every day, now is the time to activate your account and enact your revenge! Be sure to friend everyone you know, however tangentially. And your professional colleagues want in on this, too. Trust me, everyone wants to share in your joy by watching your burgeoning belly expand, almost in real time. (Hey! There’s an idea…time-lapsed pregnancy videos!)

Be sure to post pictures of your belly each week. If you want to be cool yet servicey, give a nod to Dylan by holding a hand-numbered sign showing your gestational week in each shot.

People will notice if you skip a week, so do not let them down! Added bonus: shortly after each picture posts, your ego and hormones can be boosted with strings of compliments like, “You look great, Mama!” or “Even preggo, you are adorbs!” or “Love the new outtie! Your bellybutton looks so cute poking through your shirt!”

While uploading pictures, be sure to update your status. Today, people enjoy sharing their medical records! You’ll get plenty of quality medical advice about how to deal with swollen ankles and constipation from your friends and family and that girl from junior high who got a hot dog stuck in her hoo-hoo.

Don’t hesitate to crowd-source Facebook for product recommendations. Mobilize the armies of mommies online, poised at the ready to share their experiences with the least smothering sling or the crib painted with acceptable levels of lead paint. Uber-parents must get the best of everything and have it all before the baby arrives. Yes, people used to let their babies sleep in dresser drawers, but they also used to change their own oil and talk on phones with cords. This is now!

Start a blog. A blog is imperative. A pregnancy blog is the perfect place to expand in long form on your daily trials and tribulations while waiting anxiously for your uterus to explode. Really, you should have created one before you got pregnant to chart your attempts at conception, but it isn’t too late to start now. Use it to coordinate your multi-state, multi-event baby showers, guest lists, and gift registries. And while there are no limits to what you write about, keep in mind that most pregnancy blogs take one of two thematic approaches:

• OMG! What is happening to my body and my life?!, or
• I am so blessed to have the perfect family, spouse, job, house, life, and soon-to-be baby.

Twitter is perfect for pre-borns. Just because they aren’t free of the womb, babies should not be restricted from tweeting. Do sign up for a Twitter account in the baby’s name or come up with something really cute and creative, like BabyDouche. That way, your baby can tweet delightful missives from the womb: “Gross! I may need therapy. It was kind of dark and mostly muffled, but I’m pretty sure I felt ‘it.’” If you tweet as yourself, you should give a daily pregnancy update, two or three on sonogram days. Remember: moderation is out! There is no such thing as over-sharing.

Email is not totally over yet. It may be a dying art, but there is some value in securing an email account for your pending spawn ASAP. If your top choice of name is not available at Gmail, you can tweak the spelling of the child’s name or use another middle initial to get the right email address. Your child will have to live with this email address for life – it is important to lock it down now.

YouTube. Make a channel for your pregnancy videos. While you can’t upload actual birth videos, you can start making a digital scrapbook of clips of You! Being Pregnant! If you’re lucky, you’ll go viral with a hilarious video of your water breaking during your prenatal tap dancing class. Shuffle-toe-tap-swoosh!

Our lives will be lived out loud and online! Dive in, pre-parents! What could possibly go wrong?


CBS Correspondent Lara Logan Sexually Assaulted in Egypt

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While covering the celebration in Tahrir Square on Friday, February 11th, CBS News Correspondent Lara Logan was surrounded by a mob and brutally sexually assaulted and beaten. Logan was rescued by women in the crowd and Egyptian soldiers and was able to return to the United States. She was admitted to a hospital here, where she remains under care.

CBS released a short press release.

Before this, I thought Anderson Cooper was brave. As better-known correspondents, including CBS’s evening news anchor Katie Couric, were pulled from the region due to safety concerns, one wonders whether covering stories like this is an occupational hazard or whether news agencies have an obligation to use local media sources rather than injecting occasionally unwelcome U.S. journalists in to volatile situations or regions. Logan was not a war correspondent or an embedded journalist. Do the benefits of on-the-scene coverage outweigh the risks?

ETA: Logan is a war correspondent who serves as CBS’s Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, covering Afghanistan and Iraq as an embedded journalist for “60 Minutes” and the “CBS Evening News.” Her extensive and impressive bio is here.

Attitude of Gratitude

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Despite some spirited debate earlier today, I’m sure there is one thing we can all absolutely agree on: we are grateful for and indebted to BMC for creating and maintaining this site, our port in the storm, our new collective home, our ode to the power of community and camaraderie. Meat, as I so lovingly and deliciously refer to him, created this site after a crosstalk discussion about the shitty beta version of New Gawk months ago. While I take no credit for crasstalk, I do remember the discussion and I’d link to it if such a thing were possible. We were concerned that New Gawk was going to ruin the community we all valued so much and Meat, rather than merely fretting about it (which is what most of us did) or bitching about it (which is also what most of us did), took action and created this site as a life raft for the refugees. Thanks to the UNPAID work of Meat, TheGrandInquisitor (who is a chic and kicks ass, btw), and the wise and wonderful DogsOfWar, we have a place to be, to bitch, and to share. I wanted to take a moment to say thank you. I really appreciate it.

Now shower them with praise, people.

100-Word Movie Review: No Strings Attached

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You already know how this will end. And begin. And arc. What is surprising about this “romantic” “comedy” is the number of talented actors who agreed to appear as supporting players in this drivel: Kevin Kline, Lake Bell, Mindy Kaling, a bearded Cary Elwes, Greta Gerwig. If Kutcher’s only task was to look appealing, since acting is clearly out, this movie came about ten years too late in his “career.” Portman infuses a clunky script with some verve, but not enough to overcome a storyline in which making a period mix for an adult woman is considered charming. PMS is more fun.

Wait, what? No, no, really, what?

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What the frick can these two possibly have to say to one another?

CS: “I’m on a show. A television show?”
DJ Paul Mitchell: “I’m on a show, too!”
CS: “Maybe you’ve heard of it? On HBO? It’s called Big Love.”
DJ Paul Mitchell: “Heh, heh. I got me some big love here, if you know what I mean!”
CS: “No, no, you moron. Big Love. It’s about Mormons.”
DJ Paul Mitchell: “Yeah, yeah, like them singers. In like a choir or some such.”
CS: “No, no, you moron…well, yeah, like that. Look, my show’s ending, so how about I make you my next project? How attached to that hair are you?”
DJ Paul Mitchell: “My hair is totally attached to my body. Have you seen my body? It is my third best feature.”
CS: “I don’t even want to know what your first and second best features are. Just shut up and smile. They’re taking our picture.”

My hair hurts just thinking about this.

Award-Worthy Snow?

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Everyone knows that Roger Ebert has gone soft in his old age and ill health. How else do you explain THREE STARS for Gulliver’s Travels and only a mere half star more for True Grit? Facing the end of your life will do that to a sensitive soul and I love him, so I chalk it up to serious meds. Anyway, Ebert thinks this film of the holiday blizzard deserves an Oscar nod in the short film category. This is lovely, but all it really makes me think is “please spay and neuter your pets” (cut to 2:40 mark for my The Price Is Right reference).

100 Word Movie Review: Black Swan

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From the too-revealing trailers, you probably know that Natalie Portman plays an intense, unstable ballerina who might be losing her mind because she either is or is not – the psychological tension works either way – being undermined by a competing dancer (the gorgeous Mila Kunis).

What you don’t know is that Darren Aronofsky’s film is dark, off-kilter and tense throughout as it weaves together story elements taken from Swan Lake (duh), “The Double,” and stage mothers, real and fictional. Portman’s performance should not be missed; she embodies the emotional and physical frailty of a woman driven to the edge.