shut up. tell me. by katie heaney.

I’m so bored and I don’t know what to do and I need...

Wed, 23 May 2012 14:30:00 -0500

I’m so bored and I don’t know what to do and I need to find something to do that takes me out of this goddamn apartment on a fixed, regular basis and I guess that is how I ended up on the Minnesota MUFON website.

The good news is that no Minnesota cattle have been mutilated by aliens since 1999.

This is so tiny you can hardly tell but our master’s...

Wed, 23 May 2012 11:18:00 -0500

This is so tiny you can hardly tell but our master’s graduation group photo got emailed around today and the cap on the head of the person in front of me is in my face and it therefore looks like my mouth (and whatever was coming out of it) had to be censored for this photo. So I love that.

thisisnthelpful: finished THE CUTEST POSSIBLE THING

Tue, 22 May 2012 19:54:14 -0500

thisisnthelpful:

finished

THE CUTEST POSSIBLE THING

And now the ways to be annoying on Facebook (there are at LEAST 11).

Tue, 22 May 2012 09:42:34 -0500

10. Merge your account with the account of your new spouse.

What’s next, sharing a bank account and a home? Fusing your DNA strands with your spouse’s DNA strands and creating new human beings? Do you people have to do EVERYTHING together? No, look: if you love each other so much that you no longer see the point in having your own Facebook accounts where you can keep in touch with your presumably somewhat separate networks, you love each other too much for other humans to handle. That’s it. You probably shouldn’t even have ONE Facebook. You should be living in a heart-shaped tree house, whispering sweet nothings to each other (and to the woodland creatures that make your clothes) 24 hours a day.

More “11 Things You Should Never, Ever Do On Facebook“

I meeeaaaaaaaan….RIGHT?? ETA: Kreayshawn’s...

Mon, 21 May 2012 15:33:00 -0500

I meeeaaaaaaaan….RIGHT??

ETA: Kreayshawn’s “Breakfast” just sped up the beat (and stole the subject matter??) from “Fried or Fertilized,” added “Teach Me How to Dougie,” and made it all one thousand times worse, didn’t it?

Q. “Is it okay to ask a stranger to watch your laptop in a coffee shop? Otherwise, what should...

Fri, 18 May 2012 11:41:00 -0500

Q. “Is it okay to ask a stranger to watch your laptop in a coffee shop? Otherwise, what should you do when you have to pee? And can you tell somebody NO if they ask you, because you’ve got better things to watch, like a Rihanna music video?”

A. “…Most people want to help each other out as long as it doesn’t take too much work, and what could be easier than occasionally shifting your eyeballs a few inches over to check on another person’s laptop? So no, you can’t say no if someone else asks you. I forbid that. If you are trying to get out of doing a literally effortless favor, you are a sociopath. Watch that stranger’s laptop because it is the easiest security you will ever provide. Pretend you’re a spy if you have to, I don’t care! And if he doesn’t come back after ten minutes, you get to keep it. No, I’m just kidding. You have to wait, but if he takes too long, you can make fun of him when he comes back, like, “Haha what were you DOING in there? Do you have bowel problems or something?? Haha!” Then either you two will become fast friends, or he’ll never bother you for a favor again and warn the other patrons to avoid you, too. Win win.”

My BuzzFeed column this week scolds you if you are a mean coffee shop-goer.

This is an unacceptable image.

Fri, 18 May 2012 10:06:28 -0500

This is an unacceptable image.

G-chatting with my roommate!

Wed, 16 May 2012 17:32:00 -0500

K: Why is there a giant fake diamond ring sitting in your bowl of jelly beans?
K: (By the way, I went into your room and stole some of your jelly beans.)
R: Oh, just to make it look like treasure.

West Bank Story

Tue, 15 May 2012 11:58:00 -0500

On Sunday I graduated with my masters’ degree and, a few hours after the ceremony, went to our school’s informal grad party at a bar on the West Bank. I had a celebratory tequila shot in four (4) nauseating attempts, and it was pitiful. My friend who bought the round kept trying to tell me that this was nice tequila and that you should just sip it, but it was basically clear José Cuervo and I don’t care what anyone says, tequila is tequila and it always leads to problems, even when you have just one shot in four tries.

So eventually we headed to another bar and on the way this hipster biker GANG overtook the sidewalk and whizzed past my friends and I, and it was very dangerous, so we yelled at them and they yelled back and all of a sudden we were in a street brawl. Wellllll not a “brawl” because they didn’t stop or anything, there were no “fisticuffs,” but it was the most heated street exchange I’ve ever been a part of.

ONE of them was very outraged because my friend had yelled, “Get off the sidewalk, asshole bikers!” so his other friend was trying to calm him down, all while biking. He was really drunk I think! Or else inexcusably defensive about his bike! But anyway he kept yelling weirdly mean and misguided things at us, like saying that we were “fucking rich kids,” presumably because we had our nice graduation clothes on. I think we represented “The Man” to him. So then I yelled “YOUR BIKES ARE STUPID SHAPES,” and while that was true (they were all, like, elevated with extra bars everywhere), it was not the most effective thing I’ve ever said. Then, awkwardly, we were all going to the same bar across the street, at the same time. :-/

People Still Struggling to Understand "Digital Etiquette"

Mon, 14 May 2012 12:57:34 -0500

K: Do you have any questions for my tech column?
Little brother: How do I get my old laptop to work again?
K: No...like, etiquette questions. Or advice about using technology.
LB: ..."How do I tell someone I love them using a Rumba?"

Send YOUR questions (Rumba-based or otherwise) to katie.fwd@gmail.com.

"Manually RT-ing praise to “reply” to a follower/fan is the single most masturbatory way to receive a..."

Mon, 14 May 2012 10:42:00 -0500

“Manually RT-ing praise to “reply” to a follower/fan is the single most masturbatory way to receive a compliment. You think it makes you look receptive, modest, and kind, but it actually makes you look like a self-obsessed lunatic. It is the sort of thing Genghis Khan would have done, if he had survived into the Twitter ages.”

- 11 Ways You’re Annoying On Twitter. I speculate wildly about what Genghis Khan would have been like on Twitter in this, but we all know it’s so true.

When I was a junior in college, I got a streak of my hair...

Fri, 11 May 2012 14:03:00 -0500

When I was a junior in college, I got a streak of my hair bleached and dyed pink. I went to this random hair salon in a Chicago suburb, because my friend Emily and I had driven there for the weekend to visit Rylee, and for some reason we decided to get haircuts while we were on “vacation.” The salon we went to was asking customers if they wanted to get pink hair streaks for breast cancer awareness. I don’t remember if any of the proceeds even WENT to breast cancer research or anything. Emily and I both got them anyway, because it’s hard to turn down unnatural hair color streaks when you’re in the salon chair already. The only impulsive decision-making I ever do is when I’m in the salon chair.

I was pretty attached to my streak. I went to a beauty supply store and bought the Manic Panic shade they had used on me in the salon, some bleach, and some plastic gloves. At first I had to re-dye the streak every two days or it would turn into a pukey orange-pink tone from being washed. Then I started wrapping the streak in tinfoil when I showered, which had the added bonus of making my floormates think I was crazy, but ultimately didn’t stave off the need to re-dye my hair by more than a day. It was all a giant pain in the ass, but I also felt really, really cool.

I dyed over it after a few months because it got to be too much work. When I was a senior, having allowed enough time to pass that I forgot about the bad and only remembered the good, I decided to dye the under layer of my hair navy blue. By myself! In the tub! The problem is that when you hang your head upside-down in the tub to rinse out the excess dye like you’re supposed to, that excess dye runs through all the REST of your hair, and you end up a brunette with a navy under-layer of hair AND tiny light blue highlights throughout your entire head. I cried. And then I dyed over it.

Three years later and I feel too old for anything involving hair bleach, but still find myself wishing I had some way to look cooler than I am. I don’t ever do anything rebellious. I physically cannot break rules. I get nervous jaywalking and I stand up straighter around cops. I smile at them because I want them to know that I respect their authority and, though I haven’t broken any laws, if they wanted to arrest me, I would not run. Someone asked me to go to a show that starts at midnight tonight and I was like, “What drugs are you smoking? Midnight is a time things END, not BEGIN. Do I look like a bat that sleeps in the daytime to you??? Criminy!” Etc. So when I saw these (real!) hair streaks at Sephora that you can just clip into your actual hair, I was sold. You can even curl them to match your curly hair, if you have curly hair!

It’s not quite as cool. It’s not very edgy to have alternative lifestyle markers that you can remove. The fifth-grade goth girls I once tried to be friends with (…when I was in fifth grade, not recently) would have called this sort of thing “poser-y.” But whatever! I like it. I can have my normal hair and, like, button-downs and sweater vests. But I can ALSO, on some days, look a little extra tough if I need to. (This is my toughest face.)

"Q: What’s the proper protocol for making somebody a playlist or mix in the age of Spotify..."

Fri, 11 May 2012 12:29:00 -0500

“

Q: What’s the proper protocol for making somebody a playlist or mix in the age of Spotify everything? Is a CD acceptable anymore? HOW DO I EXPRESS AFFECTION WITH MUSIC?

A: One thing you definitely do NOT want to do is make a crush-y poppy indie mix CD, put it in a bubble envelope with a carefully written little note, and mail it to a boy in another state who a) has given you VERY little encouragement on the flirtation front, b) has been known to perm his hair, on occasion. I can only IMAGINE that that would be really embarrassing for you. I can imagine that, years later, your friends might still send you pictures of him, with the subject line reading only “HAHA.”

”

- My column is never, ever based on personal experience.

Since U Been Gone

Wed, 09 May 2012 10:05:07 -0500

E: BASICALLY he told me he didn't really like me but felt like he led me on??
K: "Felt like," haha. That is EXACTLY what he was doing! How hard is it to cut off a dating sitch early on? NOT VERY!
E: IT'S REALLY FUCKING EASY.
E: Whatever
K: Ugh. I wouldn't have expected any better from someone who bikes so goddamn much
E: People who have foot shaped running shoes are not to be trusted. It's over, anyway
K: Good riddance! I hope he runs his bike into a tree and then that tree comes to life and crushes him in its arms
E: I hope someone at REI gets so angry that they stab him with carabiners
K: Basically he deserves to die at the hands of something excruciatingly hipstery, like a vinyl GAYNGS album slicing off his head
E: Beard overgrowth infection
K: His beard eats his face and his toe shoes eat the rest of his body from the feet up
E: Ugh do you think mcds is still open?

kristinnoeline: blinkanditsover: A mouse diced with death...

Tue, 08 May 2012 15:59:07 -0500

kristinnoeline:

blinkanditsover:

A mouse diced with death when it stole some food from under the nose of a leopard at the Santago Rare Leopard Project in Hertfordshire.

Instead of pouncing on the mouse, the 12-year-old African leopard, called Sheena, simply watched as it fed on scraps of meat thrown into its enclosure.

Guess how many tears I cry at pictures of two animals from wildly divergent species hanging out/being nice to one another? ALL OF THEM. It’s just like…we are all the same, you know???

One of the weird things about New York City is that, even when...

Tue, 08 May 2012 11:25:00 -0500

One of the weird things about New York City is that, even when you think you’re a person who would never want to live there, and even when you feel vaguely proud of the fact that the city doesn’t hold that sort of glamorized power over you, you can STILL find yourself imagining what it would be like, and realize that you are only thinking of scenes from Sex & The City. Those ladies, by the way, never took the subway even once.

Last week I rented the movie Friends with Benefits from a RedBox because, well, I don’t need a reason for why I’d pay $1.29 for a terrible movie. And in that movie Mila Kunis’s character (I have NO IDEA what her or Justin Timberlake’s characters were named, that’s how good the film was) talks JT into moving to New York by showing him the “real” city. She says it won’t be like every movie he’s seen, and it’s funny because they are IN a movie right now! But then they end up in Times Square anyway, for a flash mob, because Mila Kunis knows “the guy who runs flash mobs.” That’s what she actually says. THE guy! Who knew it was a one-man shadow organization?

ANYWAY my point, if I have one, is something about the fact that half of my understanding of NYC is from Sex & The City and crap movies like Friends with Benefits, and the other half is from Law & Order: SVU, which, when put together, portray a very scary expensive place with crazy shoes. I understand that there are a lot of revelations being had at the tops of skyscrapers that you sneak into, as well. But it is also where ALL of my Internet friends and colleagues live, seemingly without attending movie premieres and/or being murdered everyday.

I know a lot of people consider the Midwest “flyover country,” but I hope they know that we have our own misgivings about our coastal friends, even as we sometimes think about running away to be artists out there. It’s precarious out on those edges - you could practically slide right off into the ocean at any moment. I am safer in the middle. I am safer on even, flat ground. (Except for the tornadoes, haha.) I, as a Minnesotan, am ALSO state-centric.

So which is worse: being a New Yorker who (and this is another TV/movie stereotype) can’t conceive of life happening elsewhere, or being a Minnesotan who CAN conceive of life happening elsewhere, but who prefers things to stay as they are? How do you know how much of your decision-making is based on fear and how much is based on genuinely knowing what you want?

These are things I think about for LONG PERIODS OF TIME, when I wonder if I’ll ever find myself in New York and what the hell I’d do with myself once I got there.

This week on BuzzFeed FWD I answer just two questions, but they are 1) important and 2) in VERY LARGE font. (When do I give up text-flirting with a girl I like, and can I use G-chat with coworkers/supervisors?)

Fri, 04 May 2012 13:32:13 -0500

This week on BuzzFeed FWD I answer just two questions, but they are 1) important and 2) in VERY LARGE font. (When do I give up text-flirting with a girl I like, and can I use G-chat with coworkers/supervisors?)

Always judge people-books by their covers, or something

Wed, 02 May 2012 19:18:00 -0500

I was listening to the episode of WTF with Chelsea Handler and finding myself actually kind of liking her, and that was surprising to me, and I was proud of myself for being able to change my feelings towards people like some very mature and thoughtful ADULT, and everything was going great, UNTIL Marc Maron pointed out how sexist it was that everyone always thinks Chelsea Handler slept her way to the top, and he asked if she agreed, and SHE SAID:

“No. Sexism is bullshit to me. I don’t even buy into that anymore, I mean, men and women are equal and that’s that, in my mind.”

AAAAAND that’s why I always say, never ever ever give people a second chance!

Comments that miss the point entirely - and that have alarming...

Wed, 02 May 2012 09:45:00 -0500

Comments that miss the point entirely - and that have alarming definitions of sexism, apparently! - are FUN!

Whitney Cummings Is Not The Devil

Tue, 01 May 2012 17:15:15 -0500

Whitney Cummings Is Not The Devil:

Damn you, sexists, for making me defend people I don’t even LIKE!