Ugh, why does this need to be said

I am now firmly one of those thirty-something year olds who laments when things were good. I get it, that's ridiculous and maybe I'm still too  young for nostalgia but nevertheless I have it. Early onset grump as Portlandia called it.

My friend from college who is now a professor at our alma mater posted this image the other day with a comment that she might actually start putting this with her syllabus because it includes items that actually need addressing on occasion - what?!?!  

We went to a highly competitive liberal arts college it is incredibly upsetting to think that anyone who makes it through high school could possibly thing this is okay when communicating with anyone other than their good friends.

Ugh...

Bikini!

You know when you get a puppy and you swear you won't be that weird person who dresses their dog up. But then you realize you can't help it, at all! And then you put your puppy in a baby bikini and you know she loves  you because she's cool with it...oh how far you've fallen.

That fine line

There is a fine line in online dating messaging where you are nice and enthusiastic about a date prospect and you come off as a weird clinger.

It's a bit fuzzy but the line is definitely there.  Anyone who participates in the ever-evolving mating dance that is online dating knows that there is an art to message writing. Some learned Do's and Don'ts:

• Do have a day or two of light messaging with the high level questions 
• Don't ask me to go camping with you immediately following my response of "Hi"
• Do ask about where I live or about something that you read in my profile.
• Don't ask things that require me to write a novel in response 
• Do understand that everyone has a lot of things going on in their lives that are outside of OkCupid - frankly I hope that you are someone who isn't able to check their profile and messages all the time, I won't be.
• Don't get angry or throw a fit if it takes me a bit of time to get back to you.  This does not bode well for our future interactions and I don't actually owe you anything after some messages online.
• Do check your grammar - I know I said this before but dear god please!
• If you want to, do actually ask me out.  Don't just reference the time that we're going to see each other.  Just ask, it's not like it's even a face to face interaction.

Like I said, a fine line, but a line that can tell you a lot about the people you are "talking" to.

Childhood tastes so good

The title is credited to my good friend and is so true. For some unexplained reason our office is currently stocking Ritz Handi-Snacks!

You remember these beauties, the crumbly crackers, the red stick, and the always bizarrely textured yet always delicious "cheese".

Don't worry I tasted them for you, they are still great.

I love this...all of this

Grammar Matters!

"Let's eat Grandma!"
"Let's eat, Grandma!"
Commas save lives!!


As someone who dressed up as the grammar police for Halloween last year you can see why I might think this.  I work in communications professionally, and participate in online dating personally, I cannot stress enough the importance of grammar.  On OkCupid, I sometimes fight the urge to discriminate against someone who can't tell the difference between "your" and "you're" (can't tell the difference or can't be bothered to care) but then realize that while it may be over-educated snobbery it is something that I want.  Not to say that someone needs to have perfect grammar or spelling all the time but I need someone who cares enough to double check themselves and fix it. So, while I now accept that I am okay with not liking someone based on the grammar in their self-summary I have restrained myself from correcting their messages to me (which I count as a success).

On a professional level I'm much less forgiving.  Every program you use has a spell check tool, most have automatic flags for when something is potentially incorrect. It actually takes work to not correct your own writing! Why?!?

I do love scanning the Daily Infographics every once in while and this is one that covers all these rules so nicely (if you can't tell I feel like "silly" is a nice word for what these grammar goofs make you look like):

Stay Creative