dianaschnuth

Facebook is a one-stop shop for all varieties of friends and acquaintances. Want to find your best friend from elementary school? Probably on Facebook. Curious about your first crush? Probably on Facebook. Wondering what the valedictorian made of him/herself? You can find out on Facebook.

That’s how I use Facebook: I’m a voyeur of sorts. Some people enjoy the games and quizzes and other apps. Some people use Facebook as their primary means of communication with friends and family. Me, I’m pretty passive about things. I have all my online activity feed through to my Wall automatically — my blog and Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Google Reader, et al. I check my News Feed daily. And, on occasion, I go hunting for old friends and acquaintances.

It’s fun to see how people have changed and matured over the years, and to see how people’s impressions of you have changed. One person said that she could tell exactly who I was from my profile pic, despite my new married name, because I hadn’t changed a bit since high school. Another person said that I looked “fantastically different,” in a good way. (I wish I could find her full quotable, but Facebook isn’t very searchable when it comes to comments.)

While I can’t claim to have rekindled any old friendships or made any new friends via Facebook, I have managed to stay in touch with family and close friends a little better. My Mom is on Facebook every night, farming her Farmville and yo-ing her Yo-ville, so I know she sees what’s going on with me, since all my blogs and updates feed through automatically.

I also enjoy reading the updates of people who knew me way back when, who no longer play a major role in my life, who may have forgotten that I’m watching. Some of them are so much the same people they’ve always been. Some of them are fantastically different.

I rarely write about my reactions to and interactions with people anymore, just because there’s that chance, albeit slim, that they might read my blog and take offense. This person already knows I was offended, though, so I’m not terribly concerned with whether he sees this or not.

I’m not one to hold a grudge, and it’s very rare that something specific affects my mood for, say, more than an hour or two. But this has been bugging me since lunch.

It shouldn’t have really bothered me. One of my co-workers told the rest of us (four other guys and me) that he’s signed up on a couple of dating sites, that he’s looking for women a good ten years younger than he is… and that he’s ignoring the profiles of overweight women. My reaction should have been, OK, he’s just a douchebag. Nothing personal against me, as an overweight woman. It’s not like *I* was going to date him or anything.

Still. It bothered me. It bothered me that he was that superficial, and it bothered me that another co-worker reacted to my obvious indignation by saying that it isn’t shallow to want to date someone who’s physically attractive (insinuating, as my single-and-searching co-worker had, that overweight women can’t be physically attractive). It bothered me that prejudice against overweight women was happening right in front of me.

And it bothered me that it was completely valid and true. Like one of my college friends once said: It’s ultimately the inside that counts, yes, but it’s the outside that gets a guy interested.

When it became obvious how irritated I was, Single Guy tried (unsuccessfully) to steer the conversation another way, by asking me if I’d always been overweight. Gee, thanks. Actually, yes, I have; the kids on the playground used to taunt me and tell me that I was “as fat as the whole universe.”

Finally, finally, one of my other co-workers came right out and said, “Let’s change the subject,” and another started talking to me about video games. I must have looked pretty pissed, since everyone on my end of the table had started running interference for me.

I came home and told my husband what my co-worker had said about his online dating experiences so far, and he basically shrugged and agreed with Single Guy: Nobody wants to date an ugly fat chick. Which made me start to doubt the validity of my indignation. Was I right to be pissed? I’ve had guy friends before who prefer skinny, waify chicks, and I’ve resented that, but it’s just their preference. I prefer tall men; does that mean I discriminated against shorter guys when I was dating? (Actually, no, it doesn’t, come to think of it — I did date guys my height, but I just preferred the taller ones.)

I’ve never wanted to flip someone off so much as I did at that restaurant today. But I’m still conflicted as to why I’m so pissed. Is it just the general injustice of single women being dismissed without even a chance, or is it more that I remember what it was like to be overweight and single? Or is it that I still self-identify as an ugly, fat chick? (Face it, folks: modeling is NOT a career option for me — not even plus-size modeling.)

I don’t know. But I need to let it go. Being angry doesn’t suit me.

Just noticed a new Explore feature on my Google Reader. When I clicked the little arrow beside one of its suggestions for me, this menu popped up:

Is there some way I can apply this sort to the reports I develop at work? Or maybe I should just pull this terminology out of my hat sometime when there IS no sort: “Oh, yeah, that’s actually not sorted by last name or by medical record number. It’s sorted by MAGIC.”

*snort*

As much as I love cats for what they are, they’re not exactly the trainable type. As their “person” (because, really, can anyone actually *own* a cat?), you’ll be lucky to get them to actually do anything on command, and it’ll happen mainly by getting the cat to do something they already wanted to do, anyway.

For example, the cat I had during middle school and high school, Sylvester, used to sit on top of the fridge and turn his head upside-down. We thought it was so cute that we started catching him at it, telling him to “be cute,” and giving him a treat. After a while, he would “be cute” on command, especially if you were already armed with a treat.

Cats can definitely recognize and respond to certain vocabulary words, though not quite as many as a dog can. They can also tell time — some cats better than others.

When Aaron and I got our cat, Mei, about five years ago, I took it upon myself to train her to know when it was time for dinner, and to say please (or at least “meow”). It took Mei quite a while to pick up on this as a kitten, even though I repeated the same words and the same actions at the same time every day. By now, though, it’s our evening ritual.

[Download: kittydinner.mp3, 660KB, 42 seconds]

Postscript: I played this mp3 so many times — to edit out the hum of the refrigerator, and to test the niftyplayer I downloaded — that I confused the shit out of Mei, since she kept hearing my voice say “the words,” even though it’s well after “time.” So, I gave her kitty treats.

When I was still using the free version of TwitterFon, I got a couple memorable ads for IQ tests online. They were so memorable, in fact, that I took screenshots so I could share them later. I’d hoped to collect more inane ads, but I’ve since upgraded to TwitterFon Pro, and I’m successfully ignoring the ads that pop up in other apps (like Weather Channel, USA Today, QuickTip, Shazam…)

Anyway, these are the two that caught my eye:

Can you FAIL an IQ test? I don’t think you can! So, yes, I can pass an IQ test. With flying colors, in fact — thanks for asking!

I think I’m smarter than you, Mr. I Work At An Ad Agency And Don’t Know The Difference Between Your And You’re.

*facepalm*