Julie Pippert: Using My Words

Lately, my kids have been competing for the award for Bickeriest Bickerton Ever. I find myself saying, constantly, things such as: If you start a sentence with No no no no no no, you are probably starting a battle. If you start a sentence with this sarcastic tooooonnnnnneeee, you are probably starting a battle. If you accuse someone of something awful -- you lied! you stole! you broke! you're so weird! -- you are probably starting a battle. I am trying to convince my kids that starting a battle is a bad plan. It takes time, wastes energy, creates an unpleasant environment, leaves everyone feeling bad, and doesn't accomplish a thing. I don't want them growing up feeding off negativity like drama vampires, you see. In point of fact, I don't want them to grow up to be thoughtless or bullies or only able to relate via "telling it like it is" and through harshness and cruelty. Lately, though, it's getting harder, and I think I realized my tolerance is at an all...

Not too long ago, I was reading a New York Times article about why people unfriend other people on Facebook and it got me thinking about a lot of things, truly. What does Friend mean, anyway? (And when did it get to be a Proper Verb? When did Verbs get Proper, anyway?) Don't you Friend people you like, and thereby, de facto, accept as they are? Who are you to deem someone else uninteresting? Okay let's start at the end. From the article : "The rules of Internet friendship seem to differ in other ways from their earthbound equivalents. There is a bluntness to unfriending that would hardly fly in real life: “As soon as you have a baby, you become uninteresting,” noted one survey respondent." Really? You think maybe, possibly, it could be that it's a case of the other person hasn't become uninteresting but, in fact, developed a new life focus that is just worlds away from your own, and that doesn't make either of you bad...it just means you don't fit the...

Last week, colors began appearing in people's Facebook statuses. I received several messages about it, some entreated me to join in and a few asked me what was going on. Most of the messages were the same coy message most other women -- and yes, just women, no men -- received. It begged that we, to paraphrase, titallate our fellow Facebook users, especially the guys, by posting our bra color without explanation. The concept, you see, was to raise awareness of breast cancer. Always a supporter of initiatives to benefit finding a cure for cancer, I decided to play along...in my own way. I dropped the coy thing, but kept the playful element. When I saw people ask "what's up?" I was honest. Initially, okay once, I stuck to the original message. After that, I began sending out my own. I said, to paraphrase, that the idea was to "check your bra to remember to check your breasts -- self exams monthly!" The next day, I went in for my annual check-up and I tweeted th...

Social media: Yeah, it's a little bit like this, if busy children in a tunnel could be considered tweets. Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start... A long time ago I worked in technology. I know, me, the technophobic Luddite. But back then it was exciting, rather than overwhelming and was also the place where the money was. I was tired of the fun but poverty-stricken jobs of "back up script writer for TV show/talent wrangler/gofer/PR and copywriter/fan mail answerer/WTFever they needed me to do" and "poorly paid and much-abused political writing hack." Not to mention the thrilling "bill researcher and translator for rich people worried about what politicians were doing with their money" and the can't beat it "no job whatsoever despite college degree and extensive efforts ACK ACK ACK!!" jobs (or lack thereof). Although I gained extensive experience and talents in forging (whether it be handwriting or way someone...