As promised, here are more eggs of knowledge courtesy of my 10 to 13 year old self:

8. Families are the best things ever.

9. If you need to leave someone’s house at an early time, make sure they don’t have an alarm that will wake everyone else up when you open the front door.

10. Never pressure people. Always try to make other people feel comfortable.

11. Don’t put yourself down, or others.

12. Don’t say bad things about teachers in an attempt at humor.

13. Old people CAN play volleyball. And it’s illegal to spike on a serve.

…
Needless to say, I was much wiser at age 12 than I am now.

Do: “Check Out “Clocky, a wheeled alarm clock you have to chase to shut off : )

Listen to: “Case In Point” – Andrew Bird

Watch: Growing Up Red. A true look at what it’s really like to be a red head in a non red-headed world.
(Courtesy of the talented Alexandra Franklin, Director)

Recently, I came across an old notebook from my younger years, circa age 11. In it, I had recorded thoughts and doodles and worthwhile experiences of an awkward adolescence. (Pretty much the same thing that I do here.) After each post in the journal , I had noted an important lesson that I learned during that day.

Lucky for all of you, I have chosen to share some of those lessons here today. Heed and enjoy.

1. Don’t invite yourself over parties anymore.

2. Don’t talk so much. Listen!

3. Don’t be a tool bag on your bike and try to come to a screeching halt because you will just end up clipping off a car’s side mirror. Brake with ample time.

4. Don’t talk online. AIM is an ingredient for trouble.

5. Do start conversations with guys! But don’t forget to introduce yourself.

6. Never mention a party or surprise party to ANYONE.

7. Don’t buy small underwear.
…
Check back later this week for even more insights from my tender youth~

See: 10 Misspelled Tattoos

Listen to: “Her Morning Elegance” by Oren Lavie

Inside any magazine targeted at 30+, or even 25+ women, are legions of advertisements and articles on how to “beat” aging and hold on to youth. Anti-wrinkle creams and skin-firming serums are an exponentially growing market, and the research to unlock the secret of age-defying skin shows no signs of slowing down.

But why are all of these anti-aging campaigns targeted almost entirely at women?

The anti-aging quest has almost become an obsession among women above 29, and the newest cream is enough to throw the mom next door into frenzy. And this phenomenon continues to be fueled almost exclusively by the female consumer.

Do men not age? Do men not wrinkle and gray? Of course not. It just seems that my dad and his friends and the rest of the men their age just don’t seem to mind.

Or do they? Maybe they just don’t let on to it. Maybe men in their 50′s really are concerned by what they see in the mirror, but they wouldn’t dare express worry over a sagging jaw line or apply an eye-firming serum, because, well, that’s what women do, not men. Perhaps we have accepted the fact that fighting age is something women do, and embracing age is something men do, and these ideas keep getting reinforced again and again until they just seem natural.

This can’t just be learned behavior. Of course, it has roots in evolution. An older man embraces his weathered skin because he looks seasoned and wise and strong. An older women fights to keep her youthful skin because she looks healthy, attractive, and fertile.  So it seems that women protect their femininity by fighting age, while men protect their masculinity by embracing age. (Indeed, is there, or is there not a new men’s hair dye that actually ensures hair remains peppered with grays? I think there is.)

But at ages like 45 and 50, when a woman appearing “fertile” to a man is not quite so necessary, can we still blame ideas implanted in us from evolution for this relentless obsession with youth? At some point, we must be reinforcing these ideas on our own, and targeting them at women.

So in the end we have a double standard that is learned, cultural, evolutionarily based, or just plain biased. But I think the problem here is that we are manipulating ingrained ideals to fuel our own cultural desires for impossible female beauty at any age.  I just wonder, to what extreme will we continue to scrutinize the aging woman’s face while granting laissez-faire to the aging male’s? Shouldn’t we just laugh at the the laugh lines, and celebrate the graceful signatures of age in both?

See: 10 Amazing Images That Are Actually Paintings

Listen to: “Furr” by Blitzen Trapper

Do:   Kiss Eva Mendez, Fly, and Hang out with Zach Morris. Basically, Learn How To Have A Lucid Dream.

Read: ShitAmericaNeeds.com, and find out what you’re missing.

Watch: Smoking Is Cool (JakeandAmir.com)

Listen to: “Stacks” by Bon Iver

Do: Get a gangsta name. Generate Yours Here. For the record, mine is

Chewy tha Buddha Balls

Read: A new look at the female sex drive (HeartlessDoll.com)

Watch: If I Were A Bro (CollegeHumor.com)

Listen to:  “Water and a Flame” by Daniel Merriweather ft. Adele

The English language has a painful deficit when it comes to terms for relationships and dating. With so many different levels of dating, exclusivity, “seriousness,” and commitment, no wonder things get confusing for couples and the people around them.

Even Facebook’s lighthearted attempt to add more freedom with dating categories such as “open” or “complicated” falls short of the ardent expansion in lexicon that the dating world truly needs.  

I hear all too frequently of couples fearing “labels,” or of couples rushing into “labels” but ultimately making things more complicated. Since when does naming, categorizing, and organizing make things more complicated? And since when are couples so afraid of the simple question “What are you?” The reason we are so afraid makes sense once we understand that, when it comes down to it, the dating world has really only offered two options for categorization:
1. Boyfriend and Girlfriend, or
2. Not (aka, “Oh, no no, we’re not boyfriend and girlfriend, but kind of, but not really. It’s complicated.”)

This is troublesome, confusing, and ineffective. And most of all it is unfair to couples who deserve “what are we?” security. For a long time, when it came to categories, we’ve had the option of Boyfriend&Girlfriend or Bust. I think it’s time to take a look at all the relationship/coupling/dating possibilities out there and legitimize them with appropriate nomenclature once and for all.

Within the next week, I’ll attempt to apply some order and categorical scrutiny to the currently haphazard world of dating labels. Perhaps we might just need to invent novel terminology for a this new generation of dating.  Look for an upcoming post.

Some examples to consider:

What would you call two people who haven’t pulled the Boyfriend/Girlfriend card yet, but go out on dates frequently, and are not yet exclusive?

Or what about two people who also have chosen to avoid the Boyfriend/Girlfriend title so far, but go out on dates frequently and are intimately exclusive?

Read: 20 Ways to Waste Your Money (MSN.com)

Listen to:  “Karen” by The National

Watch: Japanese Crowd Prank