Ugh, Facebook.

I haven’t logged onto Facebook in over a week (sorry if I missed anyone’s birthdays), which as sad as it sounds, is both an accomplishment and marks me hitting another stage of my life. There are so many things about Facebook that irritate me to the point that I am actually 0.000004 seconds from deactivating. 

The main problem that I have with Facebook is that I joined when it first came out, which was junior (?) year of college.  This was the era of the first-mover-Facebook-mania: In other words, if you saw someone at a frat party one night who happened to be your freshman roommates’ boyfriend’s best friend’s brother, you were immediately Facebook friends by the end of the night (and this was quite a feat since this occurred even before the existence of smart phones).  So I have way too many of these clowns as my Facebook friends and it’s to the point where if someone says, “Oh Amara! You know Joe such-and-such?” that 9 out of 10 times I’m thinking, “Wow, I do?” And then I look at his profile picture, think to myself that maybe he looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t remember anything about him nor how I could possibly know this individual. So I have some absurd number of friends (900+?), most of whom I don’t even know exist, nor do I care.

So when some major event now happens, like Jeremy Lin leads the Knicks to another win – I get this explosion of a Facebook newsfeed where 800+ individuals are utilizing every imaginable conjugation of Lin’s name to say the exact same G—Damn thing: “This is Linsanity!!!!” “We are in the midst of Linsania!!!!” “Knicks are Linning!!!!” 


Like seriously?! Is this necessary? Are you supposed to be showing us all how witty you are by coming up with this ‘novel’ conjugation of a last name? And if you saw that 800+ people have written the same exact thing before you did, is it absolutely necessary to jump on this bandwagon?

And then when it’s a special occasion- Ok, let’s take Valentine’s Day, for example… On such a day, the 400+ females on my newsfeed apparently feel like it is 100% necessary to promote the large bouquet of flowers that they received at work from their significant others along with several photos of said bouquets and the associated [and dreaded] social-media-PDA captions…  Captions like, “Look at what my baby got me!!” “Muah!!! I looooooove himmmmmm!!!!” “Best boyfriend in the WORLD!!!!!!!!!!” “HUGGIESSSS!!! KISSESSSSSS!!!” “Best Valentine’s Day everrrrrrrrrr, baby!!!”

 Wtf? I can’t look at this four-hundred times in a row. I’d rather stab myself in the eye with a pencil. It’s disgusting.

Ok, yes, I did blog about receiving a heart-shaped pizza on Valentine’s Day, but I reserved it for the 20 or so of my closest friends/coworkers that I speak to on a day-to-day basis, who care about my life and thoughts enough to read my blog (or at least I hope, lol – please inform me if this is not the case).

I was talking to Julie about this today and we were saying that Facebook has evolved into this new type of monster.  It has turned us into a society of self-important, self-consumed people that think that Facebook is a means of receiving validation for our actions from the 800+ people that we’ve ever encountered in our life.  It irritates me when I realize that I’ve absorbed myself into becoming a part of this narcissistic society.

Yes, there are definitely people that utilize Facebook as a useful, collaborative tool (e.g. as a catalyst for the Egyptian protests, etc.); However, the 95% that utilize this resource as a self-promotion mechanism instead, overshadow my newsfeed so that I don’t even get a chance to see information from the ones that actually use the site valuably.

I’ve decided that I’d rather get my news from following the WSJ, Reuters, BBC News, The Economist and the Financial Times on Twitter than from Joe-such-and-such who I can’t remember enough to determine whether he has any type of credibility in telling me about an earthquake that he thinks he experienced 2 minutes ago… but really it was only because he saw that 315 of his friends just posted the same thing.

And because of my later adoption of Twitter, my followers and the people I follow are confined to a close group of friends who are forced to adhere to a 140 character ‘status’ limit, which prevents them from overzealously embellishing on Valentine’s Day or the Knicks or about how awesome they are. And also, my close friends aren’t like that.

For this reason, I will shortly be saying goodbye to Facebook and maintaining my social media presence solely via Twitter.

I’m off my soapbox now.  My apologies for offending the Facebook enthusiasts.


Sorry, I'm not sorry.

To the Guy with the Tinted Windows and the "HANSOME" license plate:

Dear 'HANSOME' (I'm hoping there was no space for the 'd' left on the license plate or that 'handsome' was already taken... and it wasn't that you actually don't know how to spell this word),

I was driving on 76 this AM to work and I spotted your license plate, which obviously peaked my interest. Needless to say, I pulled up next to you hoping to catch a glimpse of George Clooney himself (or at least his stunt double).  However, much to my disappointment, all four of your windows were heavily tinted so I could not see the inside of your car.

There are a few things that I am wondering:
1.  Did you get the "HANSOME" license plate knowing you had tinted windows so no one could ridicule you when you turned out to be not-so-great looking?
2. Did you get the tinted windows because the "HANSOME" license plate caused people to laugh at you and you couldn't take it anymore?
3. Do you actually pick up females with this car? Because honestly, aside from the initial intrigue as to whether you lived up to the hype, if some guy picked me up on a first date with that license plate, I probably would have turned around and walked right back into my house never to answer his phone calls again.

Regardless, here are some of Amara's words of wisdom for you:
If you are wearing a sign proclaiming that you are all that and some french fries, you better noticeably be all that and some Chick-Fil-A waffle fries with Old Bay seasoning and a side of queso.  In other words, don't talk a big game and then hide behind some tinted windows.

Sincerely,
A deceived and disappointed female.

My form of PDA.

I’m not a very romantic person. I also absolutely despise PDA – both physical and via social media. However, I do appreciate when significant others show consideration and thoughtfulness on special occasions (and on not-so-special-occasions) privately.

So although I despise this public showing of affection, I have to give Eric public props for this past weekend.

Over the past four-ish years, Eric and I have constantly fought over the fact that I plan everything that we ever do together for every single occasion – whether a holiday or a random Saturday night.  And when I bring this up, Eric usually responds with something equally infuriating like “Well, you love planning so I let you do it,” which more often than not, leads to somewhat of an argument about how he never thinks about wanting to do something for me, blah blah blah.

Anyway, I wasn’t really expecting any Valentine’s Day celebration since we already had plans to go out to dinner this past Saturday. But when I got home from Zumba, Eric had this all set up for me at my apt:

…which was insane because I NEVER told him about this pizza that I previously blogged about (nor do I think he reads my blog…). So I thought that was SO cute. And the way to my heart is definitely with heart-shaped pizza, so he got 100 points for that one.

And then he tells me that he needs me to ride downtown with him to pick up some papers from the municipal building downtown for the building he owns. I was really tired and wanted to take a nap, especially after eating Lou Malnati’s pizza, running 2.5 miles and doing an hour of Zumba, all before 12 pm… so I definitely complained a little bit about the ride. Anyway, he pulls up to 19^th and Chestnut and tells me to get out because I have a spa appointment right there in 10 minutes. Double awesome.

I then come home to chocolate-covered strawberries (because he knew he couldn’t forget my favorite thing in the whole world on a special occasion) and a new pair of boots that he bought me. SO, I was on cloud nine all weekend.

And therefore, I will not complain about Eric not planning anything for me again… or at least for the next two-ish months.

Amara likes these..

Taboo might be one of the most competitive and argument-provoking games you can play while drinking. If you guys don’t know how to play – basically, you pick up a card and have to describe the word on the card to your team, without using certain other words/phrases to describe it (which are also listed on the card).

I feel like each game begins and ends (and usually a few times in the middle) with a screaming match between the two teams (most frequently between a male and a female) due to cheating accusations or the confusion of rules (which also leads to more cheating accusations).

Regardless, it’s probably one of my favorite games to play – mainly, because I’m extremely competitive and will argue back in a heartbeat and I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty awesome at it.

But my FAVORITE part of each game is the personalized, and often ridiculous, clues that are given for each word.

Here are a few of my favorites from the Chinese-New-Year-themed potluck that I hosted last night:

Clue: “This guy is a famous author…”

Answers:

“Shakespeare!”

“Charles Dickens!”

“Steven Spielberg!” (this was the answer…? which of course, led to one of the aforementioned accusations of cheating since Spielberg is, in fact, not an author)

Clue: “Chris thinks Amara is a…”

Answers:

“Alcoholic!”(this was the answer)

Clue: “Amara likes these….”

Answers (being shouted in this order):

“Black men!”

“Chocolate!”

“Black guys!”

“Country music!”

“African-American men!”

“Dessert!”

“Martinis!” (this was the answer)

...Oh yeah, this game also helps keep you aware of how much people actually know about you... -_-

Shout outs!

Before I first decided to starting writing in this, I was toying with the idea of creating a blog with Ryan on G-chat, and our conversation went like this:

Ryan: I would never read your blog. It would be like reading the constant emotional rant of a thirteen year old who just got her period. It would give me a headache.

Amara: no!!!  it’s not going to be like that!!!!!!!!

…but in actuality, it kinda is.  

Just double the age of the thirteen year old (and add another year and a half) and replace ‘who just got her period’ with ‘who is incredibly radiant,  intelligent and hilarious.”

Just kidding :)

Just wanted to give a shout out to the people that are reading my blog and giving me all this great feedback (including Ryan, who constantly quotes from my blog, despite his faking like he doesn’t read it).


-----


UPDATED conversation with Ryan after my post:



Amara: did you see my shoutout to you on my blog
Ryan: no i dont read your blog
Amara: you are such a fake
you just quoted it the other day!
Ryan: my abs hurt
cuz im so jacked
Amara: wait!
read my shoutout!
then we'll talk about your abs
(or lack thereof)
Ryan: I refuse to
Amara: why!!!
Ryan: I would rather read anne frank's diary than your blog, it probably has a happier ending


...i love him.

Lunchtime woes

I’m not sure if it’s just me (it probably is), but I get really stressed out when I go to a new, local sandwich spot for lunch in Philly and everyone else there is a regular and in a rush to order, eat and get back to work.

I’m there ordering my sandwich for the first time and being extra slow while squinting up at the menu… all like “umm… a #4 turkey and cheese sandwich” “would you like that toasted?” “umm no, I mean… yes, toasted” … “what kind of bread?” ”uh…whole wheat”… “cheese?” “swiss?” “no, we don’t have swiss” ‘ok uh.. uh… provolone”… “mayo?” “light on mayo”… “chips on the side or a drink?” “umm just a bottle of water.” while everyone else behind me in line has their arms crossed and is tapping their feet in frustration during this several minute endeavor like “this b---- needs to get her sh—together before she gets to the front of the line!!” 

And then I start to get frazzled because I realize how long I'm taking and I do something even more awkward and time-consuming like pull out the wrong amount of change and go digging through my way-too-over-sized purse for that nickel I knew I saw in there somewhere...

Meanwhile, everyone else gets up to the front of the line like “yeah, lemme get a #4 toasted on multigrain, w/American & light ranch, a bag of Doritos and a diet coke,” pays the regular amount that it always costs them, and then the next person is up on line…and rinse and repeat.

I feel like these occurrences put me in a very high-stress environment that I don’t generally enjoy being in, so usually I end up sticking to the lunch places where I’m a regular because I’d much rather be the one expressing a loud, visibly-exasperated sigh with my arms crossed, while tapping my feet and rolling my eyes at the newbie who just stepped up to order.