You know how you might have a super intelligent friend who is book smart, but a little dim when it comes to stuff like life?

For instance, one of my dear friends, an attorney, is very smart and savvy. He wins every case. I would turn to him any day for legal advice.

But he’s a big dope.

After work, I’m pretty sure his brain falls out.

His sense of direction is deplorable, and his boundaries are wobbly. In 1997, one week after my mom passed away, he introduced me as, “This is Deb! Her mom just died!”

But I love the guy, I really do. He and I get pretend married a lot, but then our respective spouses remind us that if we were to marry, we’d end up dead in a gutter. Because we drove into it thinking it was the garage.

Which is to say, I am also a big dope.

And you may remember my inability to say “no?”

I mean, I’m no molecular bioengineer, but I know my way around things that aren’t stupid. Until it comes to saying no. Then my mind slushifies and I’m no good to anyone who might want people to be smart.

This is what’s been happening:

For some reason, this month many solicitors have knocked on my door (word of my idiocy might have spread). I am patently unable to turn them away because I feel bad for these salespeople and their little babies they all seem to have just had. Not only do I open the front door, I allow the solicitor to talk and talk and talk, about their newborns and their hard luck, and how everyone in their family will die of beans for dinner unless I buy a magazine subscription.

If The Rock is home, he will yell at me silently from the corner and threaten me with gutter death if I don’t shut the door pronto, but usually The Rock is not home at the time of these solicitations.

So most recently, I invited a young chap inside to tell me about AT&T U-Verse. A crappy service we had about five years ago that blew ass. However, this time I was assured that all the kinks were worked out, and the customer service had improved, and everything in my life would be better — my Internet service and television viewing choices especially. The salesguy spent about 20 minutes convincing me that I needed AT&T (and about five minutes showing me pictures of his new baby), and when he left, I had his card pressed into my sweaty, stupid palm, and my pitch all ready for The Rock. It was time to change cable service. Maxwell the salesguy said so. Plus! His wife just had a baby!

I worked on my husband for two weeks, I’m not even kidding. I told him about the faster Internet service, the sheer volume of cable channels ripe for the plucking, and how we really needed to give Maxwell his commission because: baby. The Rock hemmed and hawed. Said no. Said HELL NO. Said remember the crappy service and blowing of ass from five years ago?

Unfortunately, I wore him down. Eventually, we switched over to AT&T and it was worse than ever. Nothing we were told would happen, happened. The Internet remained slow, the TV froze often, and the ass blew. Even worse, we spent 89 collective hours on the phone with customer service to resolve the issues which weren’t issues until I changed perfectly fine cable service over to something horrible simply because I can’t say no.

So I was warned. The Rock was not happy. He told me to never open the front door to people I don’t know, ever again. Or the next door I opened would be to a divorce attorney.

In the interest of staying married, I tried to follow through with this new plan of cowering in my home when the doorbell rings because I’m a big pussy. I did pretty good for awhile, too. The guy selling meat? See ya later. The fellow hawking magazine subscriptions? Bye bye. The Jehovah’s Witness? That one was tough, but I turned a blind eye to my salvation.

Then my defenses came down. There’s only so much a dopey, gullible person can take. So this week, when the doorbell rang, I opened it to find a young woman with drug addict hair, dirty nails, and a Bebe half-shirt holding a muddy bottle of blue cleaner and a skanky rag. This cleaner would change everything, she said! You’re the youngest person I’ve seen on this street, she said! You’re house is so clean, she said! She would know because I let her inside to clean an oven burner. Like a dumbass. I mean, I knew I had no intention of buying this cleaner for 80 DOLLARS a gallon, but I didn’t have the heart to say no. Her baby needed crack.

It ended up that I found my resolve at last and told her no, but man, was she pissed. Now I’m locking my door at all hours because I’ve recently been informed that there’s a team of crazy crack addicts roaming the neighborhood pretending to clean your oven burners but are really just casing your house.

I learned my lesson. Until later when a young man came to the door raising money for the Smithsonian and blah blah blah, he lived down the street, and blah blar, and his parents know us, and bleer dee bleer bleer. Does it occur to me to ask who his parents are? No. Do I think to ask where on the street he lives? No. Have I ever seen him before despite living here for almost three years? No. Did he have a newborn? Thankfully, no. Did I say no? No.

I gave him 20 dollars to go away.

Don’t tell The Rock.

Something befuddling happens to me every five years that I’m hard put to explain. I get a most strange tingling in my hair follicles and am compelled to cut everything off my head. In other words, I go short. And every single solitary time, I hate it, and every time I forget I hate it and do it again five years later. In 2007, it wasn’t so so bad, just kind of shaggy and lopsided. It was 2002 that I regret with all my heart. There was curliness involved, a rat tail, and too much nape exposure.

Which brings me to now, because if you’ve done the math, you’ll deduce that 2012 is the fifth year.

Somebody grab my head and keep it somewhere safe until the year passes without a shortening incident.

As for you, please describe a hair atrocity. What horrible hairstyle did you once wear? (Pictures, please!) What haircut were you compelled to try despite all conventional wisdom? Did you ever dye your hair a color not represented in nature?

Please do tell.

Post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.

First time to PROMPTuesday? Read a bit about it here. Want to see what’s been written in the past? Catch up on the PROMPTuesdays archive here.

My girls chitter chatter in front of me as we walk to school in a jagged tangle of excitement. Hopping, running in stops and starts, both of them planning to be in line exactly when the bell rings at 8:55. I shuffle behind, waving to parents I know from the street, or the park, or anywhere in the benevolent bubble we call home. My girls’ backpacks bounce on their narrow backs; flowers, peace signs, hearts fuzzy in a kaleidoscope of wide eyes. It’s comforting here, and I glance like I always do at the kind hills that ring our suburbs as sentries. I’m still grateful for this place where we can stay awhile.

My daughters haven’t known another elementary school, and this will be my oldest’s third year here. My youngest started kindergarten five months ago, already on a first name basis with the playground and the classroom, because her sister had the same teacher two years before. I’m new to all this familiarity, since I moved from school to school as a child. I’m happy for my girls that they know some measure of stability, even if I know that I am who I am because I didn’t have it. Still I’m there with them, delighted at knowing all the teachers’ names, the routine, who’s who and what’s what. It feels rooted, solid and strong; a little scary for how quickly that can turn. A bit of that fear rests inside each cell, activated for the other shoe dropping when I moved the first time at age three. But for now, I smile at the bouncing backpacks.

The girls run to the front of the school, like always, find their lines and place. I remain behind, as always too, taking it all in, waiting. A group of girls catches my eye, and I see how a coiffed, side-ponytailed child clutches at another girls’ arm, with both hands circled at the other’s elbow. They walk in step, as four more follow a foot behind. I see a desperation in how the first girl holds on to the second, as if marking territory, as if holding off interlopers. The other girls seem to want in, or to be a part, and indeed they are, but the gatekeeper has them at a distance. Her friend is hers first. She whispers in her chosen’s ear. The ones behind aren’t meant to hear, and they know it. I see sadness and insecurity and vulnerability.

I know all this is coming, and I understand it’s mild and non-threatening at first. No bubble is safe from the jealous, fearful people who might turn into mean girls or bullies or sticks and stoners. Many won’t turn into anything quite so horrible, but they will unwittingly hurt my girls’ feelings, even if that’s not the point. The point is how do I cast iron my daughters’ egos, how do I strengthen them, how do I make them impervious, how do I give them to know that all this does not matter, does not, and so often it’s not who walks at the front, it’s who you are when behind.

I count myself lucky in that I escaped much of what I worry about for my kids, even for all my moving. I didn’t bear the brunt of teasing, of bullying, or excision from a group. And whatever secret ingredient I had — where I lived? who I befriended? when I grew up? — I wish I could repeat for them, step by step. I think I would take away their painful lessons if given the choice. I view that as a weakness I’ll never shed. They learn these lessons on their own. We can only prepare.

You’ll be OK, you’ll be OK, I repeat as I walk. I can protect you, I can line your insides with armor, I can take the whispers away.

But even the hills know, so solid and sure and ringing us in, no one ever can. I realized that early on.

I let them line up, and the girls wait.

(The above is a vent. As is the below.)

Guess what time of the month it is?

That’s right!

Pretty Much Snarky time!

That special block of days on the calendar where I say what’s on my mind and regret it in a week!

So, let’s get started with an informal, but bitchy list of…

ANNOYING SOCIAL MEDIA TYPES

The Be-Bopper

This person doesn’t know who he/she wants to be. One day he/she’s a political expert, then a wine aficionado, then a travel pro. He/she tweets/blogs/Facebooks the du jour persona faithfully (and annoyingly often) until he/she is onto the next thing, and newfound social media identity. It’s one thing to write about different subjects that interest you, quite another to designate yourself a “guru” or “expert” in each thing, especially when your expertise is clearly not expert.

You’ll recognize this type by tweets such as:

Looking forward to unveiling my new design! I’m changing blog focus!

(Then four months later):

Can’t wait to show you all my re-design! Going in a different direction!

(And four months after that):

Working on a new look for my site! It’ll be something totally unexpected!

In a nutshell:

This person wants one thing: Recognition. But he/she doesn’t know for what, so he/she jumps on whatever bandwagon he/she thinks will get them noticed. The problem? Loss of credibility. My unwanted advice? If you’re in this solely for the “fame,” get out. You’ll always be spinning your wheels, and it will be difficult to truly engage with you because you’re all over the board and serving yourself instead of your reader. (We get that, you know.)

The Angster

This person is blogging about what he/she loves and/or believes in, but gets frustrated when more people don’t read or re-tweet his or her stuff. Although The Angster doesn’t want to care what other people think, and to blog for the love of it, he or she can’t help but feel sad when attention doesn’t come his or her way. This person gets mad at herself (DID I SAY “HERSELF?” I meant “YOU!” I MEAN “HIM!” “HER!” Don’t look at me!) for caring about numbers and stats and ego, but cares anyway.

You’ll recognize this type by tweets such as:

Forget it. I’m sick of this blogging game. I’m throwing in the towel.

Thinking about ditching my blog…

Thanks for the memories, everyone. But I’m done with {INSERT ANGSTER’S BLOG TITLE HERE}

In a nutshell:

This person just wants to know you care and that he or she matters. By threatening to close his or her blog down, he or she hopes you will beg him or her to keep going. The sad tweets are just cries for help and validation. Not that I’d know anything about that.

The Elitist

My least favorite social media type, the Elitist is better than everyone — except for those he/she accepts into his or her circle for exhibiting the general amazingness that he or she imagines him or herself to have in spades. This person regularly puts “dumb” people down in veiled, smug, and faux intellectual tweets that he or she hopes others in his or her circle of general amazingness will decipher and praise.

You’ll recognize this type by tweets such as:

New for 2012: Start using the word ‘defenestrate’ more often.

This whole mommy blogger division reminds me of the Hussite Wars, which as we all now know, was hardly a revolution.

If you want to know why America is where it is now, maybe you should read “America’s Ass: An Exegesis of Hitting Bottom”

In a nutshell:

I imagine this person furiously scribbling in some moleskine journal, collecting overly clever tweets on paper, tapping fingers like a mad scientist after he or she busts them out one by one on his or her Twitter stream, and sitting back to wait for the “that was amazing!”s to roll in. This social media type is master at calling attention to his or her many accomplishments in carefully constructed apathetic tweets like “Just wrote a book. Why isn’t there a cold beer in my hand? #authorproblems” This person also thrives on obscure references and likes to invoke comic book hero names a lot. You know, because he or she is indie as well as superior to everyone in the world. If you still can’t identify an elitist in your Twitter stream, look for his or her avatar’s ironic smile. He or she almost always has one — this is because he or she is too cool for this game, but plays it anyway. Because the universe should know his or her genius.

The Implementer

This person reads all of About.com’s social media how-tos and implements the bullet points faithfully. He or she especially read the part where it says “Engage with your followers! Ask questions to boost your Twitter authority!” so this person regularly poses Cosmo-magazine-type queries to get responses and obtain more followers. You will also recognize this person by his or her constant Klout observations. This person is a little like the Be-Bopper in that he or she isn’t *really* engaged with his or her audience, but he or she is operating under the guise of being so, so he or she can reap the rewards of a big following (whatever they may be to that person…usually it’s recognition for the sake of recognition).

You’ll recognize this type by tweets such as:

So peeps: Boxers or briefs?

Tweeps! If you were a sandwich, what sandwich would you be?

Can’t believe it! I went to the bathroom and my Klout score dropped 10 points!

In a nutshell:

This person isn’t a jerk, he or she just doesn’t know how to “truly” interact with people. For whatever reasons exist in this person’s past, he or she just wants to take over the Twitter world…benevolently. It would just help if he or she had you know, a purpose. I think of these people like I think about the Kardashians.

The Obscurinator

This social media type regularly posts vague references to something BIG happening but refuses to spell it out. He or she often implies that he or she is onto something enormous that everyone is sure to read about soon in the news or on TMZ.

You’ll recognize this type by tweets such as:

Can’t believe I’m in the company of all these celebs. I must be doing something right!

Lots of amazing things happening! Can’t wait to hit the big time!

Good stuff on the horizon! Just gotta finish my conference calls with all these publishers!

In a nutshell:

It’d be good if this person just shut up. Either tell us what you have coming up that’s so freaking awesome, or take your meaningless, hinty words and go on MySpace.

And there’s a few other types that hurt my brain: The Narcissist (please Instagram more photos of yourself wearing a doily frock and crossing your toes inward like an ingenue!), The One-Sided Promoter (constantly asks you to re-tweet, Stumble, “like,” and comment on posts, but doesn’t interact with you in any other meaningful way, and never returns your DMs or emails unless they directly benefit him or her in some way), The Influence Seeker (sends out many tweets to the “big dogs” in an effort to be noticed by them), The Passive-Aggressive (What?), and perhaps the most nefarious of all, The Befriender, because this is the person who approaches you under the cover of friendship, but is really only seeking something (contacts, reputation, name) you have that they want. This fakester is in it to advance him or herself to some level of social media stratosphere which, if you look at the ground below him or her, is littered with “human debris,” the people he or she has used to get to the top. You will know him or her by the people they are currently chatting up and pursuing. These people will change based on the Befriender’s current social media focus.

To sum up: Just be real. I’m tired of motives and agendas and strategies.

If you’re interacting with me, I want to be authentically interacted with…not some rung on your social media ladder. I’ve seen a lot of gurus and brand ambassadors and social media people do it right — and authentically. The difference between them and many of the types I write about here? They truly care to provide a service or information or entertainment to followers and readers. They have identified their purpose and goals and always, always keep it in mind. Even if it’s to tweet for fun (What?).

…And that concludes Pretty Much Snarky time!

(More Pretty Much Snarky Time posts:

S@x and PR

Eight Facebook Lies We Tell)

(Photo from here)

I absolutely know I’ve posted different flavors of this PROMPT over the years, but I’m revisiting it now. Becoming who I’m meant to be is way on my mind these days because I’ve been fuzzy and auto-piloty for awhile. Like forever. I just did stuff. I let life lead me mostly, instead of leading life. I used to have a quote under my blog avatar that read:

“I’m a kid who never thought she’d be married or a mom.

And that’s just fine with me.”

And while the above is true, it’s also a fact that I never DID plan to be a wife OR a mother. I didn’t plan to be anything really, other than a writer, but I wasn’t so sure what that looked like. I believed that I was in a boat carried along by the tide, but not really creating my own waves.

And now? I’m sticking my arms out and generating a tsunami.

It’s …unsettling because I don’t want to move away from my family while I’m traveling closer to me. It feels a bit…selfish. As if carving out my own identity takes something away from them. Which it does, as in time and attention, and that pulls at my heart. But I so love what I’m doing now — which is finally writing what makes me happy and making it a “thing” that brings in an income (ever so small so far) — and is that wrong?

Lord, I hope not.

I mean, I’ve made money from writing before, just not the kind of writing that sustains me and grows my faith in self. I feel…like…I’m shining at the edges and expanding into something greater than me. And that I’m ready for it. Maybe that’s the difference. I feel like it’s…time. Perhaps this is the year for all of us. I want to believe that. I want your bliss to come to you STRONG and BRILLIANT.

Meanwhile, THIS is my bliss:

Making a living from writing. More than a living, a life. I want to create words and stories and be paid for them, although I’ll still do it unpaid (but don’t tell the Universe that…). I want my imagination to be made real. I want to afford and design a home for my family with beautiful living spaces inside and out — that we own, and keep to a schedule that allows me to feed my soul and my family. I want greater synchronicity with my husband and children. I want to keep learning and doing. I want all of us — each of us — to find our bliss and live it. This means, I want my girls to explore what interests them and pursue it if they want. I want my husband to find his thing and leave the stress of everything else behind. I want us all to be who we are meant to be.

As for you:

What does your bliss look like?

Please post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.

First time to PROMPTuesday? Read a bit about it here. Want to see what’s been written in the past? Catch up on the PROMPTuesdays archive here.

P.S. Please know that my friend, Jen, does this cool “Word of the Month” series, and the word THIS month is “intention.” Head over there if you’re feeling ambitious and link up!

I hope you’ll check out some of the great recommendations from this week’s PROMPTuesday. There were several new-to-me book and song suggestions that rocked my boat, not to mention the inclusion of 2011′s inspiring lessons and 2012′s roads ahead for so many of you. Meanwhile, I played my own PROMPT game and answered the below with what made the year so special. In a sometimes painful, mind-widening way.

Favorite book of 2011.

I admit it. I haven’t read a lot this year, which blows. But the best thing I read this year? The Hunger Games trilogy. Not because it was literary great shakes, but it was absorbing and imaginative and escapist. And the latter for me in 2011? Was necessary.

Favorite song and/or album of 2011.

G. Love’s Fixin’ to Die. This is not the G. Love of your past. It’s gritty and folky and right up my alley. I dug the whole CD hard. And guess who produced it? My loves, the Avett Brothers. Good stuff.

Favorite blog you discovered in 2011.

By Any Other Name. I love Julie Gardner. She’s warm, and funny, and my best friend. No she’s not. BUT I WANT HER TO BE!

Favorite moment of 2011.

When Jessica asked me to be a part of Two Funny Brains. I talk often about doing stuff, but then just wax poetic on and on without action. Jess and I DID SOMETHING with Two Funny Brains, living out something that’s fun and creative and so very challenging in a soul-expanding way.

All the other favorite moments involved my kids and husband. And that my dad lived! Those were not sponsored nor token sentences.

Best learning moment of 2011.

When I resisted many things having to do with Two Funny Brains (But I don’t have time! But the kids! But the money! But the leap of faith!) and did it anyway.

And how far we’ve come since that moment.

What you’re leaving behind in 2011.

Getting in my own way. I have a tendency to obsess over where I’m going, where I’m headed, where I’ve been, and why, why, why? Am I here. So this year, I want to do more, obsess less.

Where you’re headed in 2012.

Toward self-actualization, belief, more lessons, FINANCIAL SECURITY gained by following my bliss.

It’s funny. 2011 broke down a million of my preconceived notions about myself, and other people. Sometimes others weren’t who they showed themselves to be, and sometimes, they were so, so much more. Truth? I went through the year crying a lot. And destroyed in so very many ways that are unimportant. Because when you put it all together? I came away with a stronger sense of self and a more tenacious foundation. Miles to go, miles to go. But one foot in front of the other, am I right?

I came across this 2011 recap yesterday and just dug it to kingdom come. I love the idea of cataloguing the year’s bests in one place (especially when there’s fashion involved), and decided it’d be something I’d like to do myself.

So for neatness sake (you know what my good friend told me yesterday? “STAY OPEN” and she’s so right. I find I’m way more linear than I’d like. And sure about how things *should* be that I miss the messiness in the cracks, where the beauty can be found), I’m giving you a few starting points for this PROMPT. But, you address it any way you want. Because I’m OPEN.

Favorite book of 2011.

Where you’re headed in 2012.

Please post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.

First time to PROMPTuesday? Read a bit about it here. Want to see what’s been written in the past? Catch up on the PROMPTuesdays archive here.

For Christmas, my dad gifted me with a beautiful silver box, sealed, personalized, and full of my mother’s ashes. Each of us children received such a present and the unexpected feeling of holding something so precious and real, but uncomfortable all at the same time. I know my feelings about the soul, and how I so surely sensed it leaving at the time of my mother’s death, but still it seemed so much like I was holding her again all these years later. Because in that box, were bits of bone I’m sure, and pieces of DNA and pulverized detritus of her. And it’s that body gone and the space it took in this world that freaks me so. I’m absolutely mesmerized by how we live and how we die and the rippingness of it all.

Anyway, several months after my mom passed away, our family came together to disperse her ashes as she wished, in sea waves, with birds circling in blue and dipping to wind music, and I thought that was it. The last of my mom. In the physical sense, you know? So it came as a bit of a surprise to know my dad’s had something of “her” still, even after 14 years.

It reminds me of an episode from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (I know), when Buffy’s mom died unexpectedly, and Buffy had to call 911. On the phone, she told the dispatcher that someone had to come get “the body.” And then her face froze with the shock of having to refer to her mother that way. As a “thing” almost and no longer a person. For an hour or so, Buffy sat with “the body,” and waited. Soon enough, people came to collect and Buffy watched with relief and desperation as the lifeless figure was absconded with, and taken forever. That is, until her sister tried to reanimate the body with an ancient spell and bring a half-alive mom back from the ground, dirt clumped to bloody heels and all, and this is where the analogy kind of falls apart, except I’ve often thought, “What IF I could bring my mom back?”

What this all means to me and its circumspectness is no great revelation to anyone who has read my blog for any length of time, but my question is: What do I do with this box? Because it’s as if my mom came back.

Given my enduring ambivalence about having my mom taken so early and my obsession with the darkness of death and how I don’t face reality easily, it’s hard to imagine propping the box up on a dresser and seeing it every day. But it’s what I’m driven to do.

Or put it in a drawer? Hidden but there?

I welcome all ideas. Except ones involving re-animation.