(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.

It hasn’t been an easy year. In fact, it’s been a most uneasy year. I lost a major editing contract and have scraped and scratched for freelance jobs to fill the gap, and The Rock has never worked harder at bidding jobs that don’t come fast, or simple. This isn’t to say there haven’t been some opportunities come our way. I’m involved in some exciting projects, the likes of which thrill my creative brain, but the money hasn’t followed just yet, and it’s been tough while my fingers are crossed for an income (I’m sweet talking you, 2012). I also want to say that lest I seem ungrateful (tired, yes; ungrateful, not so), I’m so very thankful that each month, it somehow works out mostly pretty much, and jobs pop up right when I need them to pay for insurance or some such.

So.

This is about Christmas and family and more gratitude and blessings.

Because it’s been a…difficult year, the holidays were a bit stressful, you know? I lucked out (again, blessings!) and won a few bloggy giveaways that helped (the Louboutins I scored? A major bonus. Those are for my feet when I land on my big writing gig) and took it a bit easier than years past and emphasized the meaning of Christmas rather than the material, but still. You know. With kids? That last part gets tricky.

So.

I’m getting to the Christmas and family and gratitude and blessings.

This year, my siblings decided to rent a house where we could spend the holidays as a family; a holiday made richer by the fact that my dad cheated death in October and we all get the fragility of life and time spent together. Given that The Rock and I were largely unable to contribute in a “defray the costs of renting a house in Carmel” way, my brothers and sister told me to relax and enjoy Christmas without feeling the tension of fiscal suckiness. And by that, I mean, they gave us a Christmas of epic proportions without the stress of knowing you can’t afford it.

All this is to say we drove to Carmel last Friday and walked into a house filled with music and comfort food, a tree, and family. We spent the next few days alternating between “Hi! I love you!” and “Will you stop interrupting me!” and “I am NOT chunky!” and “Will SOMEONE CLEAN THE KITCHEN?” and most especially, “thank you, family, for a holiday beset with brothers and sisters and cousins and nephews and sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law, and a dad still around and generosity and knowing you’re there and escaping from spending money we don’t have just now.”

Thank you.

You made an uneasy year easier.

We’re surrounded by gratitude and blessings.

I’m going to write a book someday!

It struck me the other day as I was riffing with my writing partner that I loved the creative process. Even if the messiness of it gets to me sometimes. You know that without-hope part when you’re kicking ideas around and there’s too many — or not enough — and you lose focus and become done with it all and then a light shines at the end of the cave and you fumble toward it and next thing you know you’re out of the abyss of process and into the shine of idea production?

And then I remembered my first partner in creative ideating — Dawn (isn’t that name apt). We made an insane amount of ideas come to life, on cassette tape after cassette tape, which we’d play for our unwitting parents after we emerged exhausted and exhilarated from our “recording studio,” located in the far right corner of Dawn’s bedroom, across from the Barbie penthouse and Sunshine Family camper.

Those days soared. I lived smack dab in creativity and promise and was best friends with someone who got me.

So the prompt for today:

Describe your closest childhood friend.

This prompt comes courtesy of creative genius, this guy. Because although I think often of my best childhood friends and the road which led from them to me, I never prompted it, until he gave me the idea on Twitter last night.

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.

A few weeks ago I worked late on a Saturday and came home around 4PM greeted by a mish mash melange mosaic of Christmas cheer. Seems Toots and Booger bamboozled their dad into taking the holiday decorations out of the garage early so they could get a head start on fluffing our place with all manner of sparkle, glitter, and snow globe.

Lordy the place glowed! With bedazzled pine cones placed in heating vents and empty corners, holly draped on couches and sills and toilet tanks, and ornaments put wherever they’d stick. Strangely, that turned out to be every kitchen orifice and cooking appliance, but no matter: The place festively bursted with decorative accents lovingly placed in bizarre and dangerous locations! Have you ever been impaled in sensitive flesh areas by a pine cone? It’s a holiday tradition over here!

As I walked through the house and beheld each unexpected Christmas wonder, the girls trailed behind me in anticipation. “Mommy! Did you see where we put the Baby Jesus?” (On a lightbulb) “Can you find the glass ornament YOUR mom gave you as a special memento to remind you that even though you had a conflicted relationship she really loved you?” (On the third step of the staircase) and so on. And all the while because I’m a horrible OCD person unfit to enjoy the magic of Christmas unless it’s tidy, I mentally catalogued each misplaced decoration and re-located it in my head. Of course, sure enough over the course of the next several days, I’d surreptitiously transferred every ball, light, and sleigh to where they properly belonged. Everything in its place! Whhhheeeee! I’m so delightful and fun!

As soon as the kids caught on, Toots told me in disappointment, “We KNEW you’d move everything.”

Well after that “My OCD is going to kill us all! Alllllllllllll!” moment, I decided to let go and allow some items to be haphazardly re-placed in weird spaces. Which is to say, that around MY home, holiday decor is all about me being able to live with my kids’ version of holiday decor.

I’m really coming along. Because this totally didn’t freak me out too much:

But right? It’s messy religion-wise. Sending mixed signals. A Jesus holiday trinket on Buddha? Come ON!

Also, this is a Christmas decoration:

According to my children. And let me tell you, as a certifiably insane over-vacuumer, THAT is the hardest thing to let stand. Or sit. Or lay? What IS it doing? Scattering its infernal messiness all over my white carpet? DIE pine needles DIE! DISINTEGRATE INTO NOTHINGNESS! STOP DEFILING MY OCD SPACE!

Ha. HA. I kid. Just. Kidding. Kidding is me. Call me a kidding person. Of kiddingness. I’m cool, really. Cooooolllllll.

But this one hurt a bit:

At least the Made in China figurines are arranged from lowest to highest.

And THEN this happened:

Yes that’s a tree placed at a 90-degree angle. It toppled yesterday and we haven’t been able to upright it. Now as I’m someone who needs stuff to be aligned in a sensical fashion (note: only in my house, not in my head), this made me spit bile, but I lived. The kids think it’s awesome and want to keep the tree leaning that way. And all the infernal pine needles that flew everywhere when the tree dived into the window? Those are simply a festive nest of holiday amazingness. If I throw pine needles away, I am “killing the tree’s soul.”

All this is to say I’m trying to win a vacuum. (“I am sharing my holiday home decor and cleaning tips for the chance to win prizes from The SITS Girls and Great Cleaners.”) Because if I had a new vacuum, I could busy myself with sucking dirt up and not worry so much about Buddha’s bow.

To that end, I have a few/one holiday decor tip(s) for you:

1. This

is not holiday decor.

Which brings me to my cleaning tips:

1. Use vinegar and baking soda on everything. I do. I pour it down the sink, in toilets, and on carpet stains. It makes a little cleaning volcano that sounds clean while it’s cleaning. I like things to be clean. CLEAN clean. With cleaning.

2. Let some things go. Like your entire upstairs and the insides of things. This cleaning tip can get complicated if you use your second level or refrigerator.

3. Get a new vacuum. Because the one you have is full of disappointment and defeat.

I think that’s good for now. Because I don’t care to dissect why I’m gunning for a new vacuum when I just wrote about why I needed to de-OCD myself.

So: Merry Christmas! Enjoy, even if your holiday figurines are placed asymmetrically!