That's gross. Period.

If you're feeling sad about all the big breakups—Ben and Jen, Gwen and Gav, Zayn and Perrie, Reba and Narvel—here's something worth remembering: Anna Kournikova and Enrique Iglesias are still together!

14 years strong.

Unfortunately, they're both really skinny at the moment, but let's not let that stop us from raising a toast their unwavering love.

In other news, a woman who just ran the London Marathon let her period blood seep out all around her crotch. My first thought was "GROSS." After reading her reasoning—"I ran with blood dripping down my legs for sisters who don't have access to tampons and sisters who, despite cramping and pain, hide it away and pretend like it doesn't exist"—I still thought "GROSS."

I kind of get her first bit of reasoning (raising awareness of girls/women who don't have access to tampons), but what about those who don't have access to a decent pair of running leggings? What message are you sending to them when you SOIL YOUR PANTS WITH UTERUS LINING?

Of course, if her goal was to raise awareness, I suppose she was effective. I must give credit where credit is due. But still, is this what the world has come to?

On a related note, when talking about the sentence-ending punctuation, British people say "full stop" instead of "period." I used to think they just preferred saying "full stop" (because they're fancy like that) but I quickly learned that's their only name for it. If you say something like "the third sentence is missing a period" or "I'm not going—period" they will giggle.

Your friend,
Marge

Down with education!

My sister Francie is anti-education.

OK, that's not fair. But she did bring up a great point yesterday: everything aimed at kids now gets the 'educational' label and it's exhausting! She was reading a flyer for a summer 'preschool' program aimed at two-year-olds (which, let's call a spade a spade, is just daycare) and each week had a different educational theme. Only on the final week—"camp" week—was the there any hint of actual fun.

Sure, kids need to learn. But they, like all of us, deserve a break once in a while. They can handle a bit of entertainment for entertainment's sake. I mean, imagine being forced to watch only the History channel or National Geographic and never any Bravo or E! shows. Only Civil War or marine mammal abuse documentaries, no Real Housewives or Kardashians. You, like Tilikum himself, would go crazy!

So let the kids have fun! Let them climb trees. Let them build crappy sandcastles and don't butt in to discuss better sand-packing techniques. Let them jump in a disgusting McDonalds ball-pit and risk coming out covered in another kid's poop like what happened to my cousin Ellen back in the day.

And let them figure things out on their own. If they have a question, they'll ask it. Trust me.

Image by Karl E. Jorgensen via Wikimedia Commons

When they're older, take them to Wild Waves or the Puyallup Fair or an IMAX movie.

Adios,
Margaret

P.S. If you do go to Wild Waves, maybe avoid the wave pool. That thing scares me.

Two controversial opinions for the price of FREE

Controversial opinion #1: Russell Wilson is crazy, and not in a good way.

Russell Wilson - so thirsty to be best man at God's wedding. He's not good at hiding the desperation.

Image by Mike Morris via Wikimedia Commons

I'm sure you saw that he said some stuff about his relationship with Ciara, most notably that they're doing it Jesus-style (translation: not doing it at all). That, I don't care about. None of my business. Plus, we all already knew that her goodies stay in the jar. Here's the bit that gives me the heebie-jeebies:

"She's a special girl. I met her I don't know how long ago...five, six months ago. And the funny thing is, I told somebody that's the girl I want to be with before I ever met her. Before I met her, I was like, 'I'm probably going to end up with Ciara.' True story."

OK, big ego much? And then there's this:

"I'll never forget: She was on tour, she was traveling, and I was looking at her in the mirror. I was sitting in the dressing room and she was getting ready to go, about 15 minutes before she went on stage and she was sitting there, and God spoke to me and said, 'I need you to lead her.' And I was like, 'Really? Right now?'

He goes, 'I want you and need you to lead her.'"

Whaaaaa? The self-importance continues:

"For me, I knew that God had brought me into her life to bless her and for her to bless me and to bless so many people with the impact that she has, that I have. We're not gonna be perfect, by any means. Life's not perfect. Nobody's perfect, but he's anointed both of us, and I know that he's calling for us to do something miraculous, something special."

Quick! Get Chris Harrison on the phone! I need a rose to pin on this guy's nose.

Full disclosure: I think RW is a great quarterback, really warmhearted guy and does a lot of wonderful work for charity. He also happens to be a nutjob. And that's OK. It's OK for someone to not fit nicely into a box. People are complex and RW is no exception.

Since this interview, there's been some inevitable backlash and then an even more inevitable backlash against the backlash. I'm here to say that the original backlash is warranted. He cray.

Controversial opinion #2: Prince George's style is whack.

Somebody needs to tell Kate and Wills that this dress-your-kid-up-like-a-collectable-doll thing is gross. Enough with the embroidered blouses, Peter Pan collars, knee socks and buckled brogues! Just stop it. You're embarrassing him.

I genuinely feel for the kid. Unlike other famous British youngsters like Klay Rooney and Cruz Beckham, George is going to look back at childhood photos and have no concept of what the styles were in the 2010s. He's going to be like, "Funny! In 2015, pleated navy shorteralls were totally a thing!"

Also, what impact will his ridiculous fashion have on history? Hundred of years from now, historians will assume that all toddlers dressed like they were going on a weekend yachting trip.


Hope you could handle that. It might not have been easy to read, but to that I say: grow up!

With love,

Grassy

Keep it simple

A grilled cheese is made of three ingredients: butter, white bread and American cheese. That's it. That's the way it is and always should be. Forget your aged cheddars and artisan rosemary loafs. A grilled cheese, like many of life's little delights, is a dish best served basic.

Yes, this plastic cheese is gross. But for some reason it just works in a grilled cheese. Grilled cheeses are its only reason for existence, and it's important we respect that.

Image by JeepersMedia via Flickr

Other items that fall into the 'keep it simple' category include:

• Mugs. I'm sick of the giant oval ones. Just give me a thick, white, slightly concave cup like the ones you'd see in a diner. 

• Pizza. Enough with the broccoli for Christ's sake. And no slimy roasted zucchini either. Barbecue sauce? Get out. Get out of my house immediately. 

• Eyebrows. Don't do too much to those guys, or else they'll turn on you and you'll never be able to get them back. If in doubt, just neglect them.

• Jeans. A few small rips is OK, but avoid the ones with bleached-in crease marks and fake paint splatter everywhere. 

• Email font. Are you one of those people who's changed their default email font to something "fun" like Bradley Hand in turquoise or Papyrus in a vibrant fuchsia? Yeah. We're all judging you.

Cheers, 

Margaret

My advice for Rachel Dolezal

Do nothing. Stay in hiding. Let those blonde roots grow long and take a luffa to your spray tan. Before you know it, the days will turn to weeks and the weeks to months. People will forget about you. When they do, move to a new city and start over.

After all, you're already a whiz a reinventing yourself and it worked for Don Draper (kind of).

That would be my advice to anyone caught up in a public controversy. Just wait it out. People have short attention spans. The best way to handle anything like this is to just. do. nothing.

Image via EWU.edu

But I'm fairly certain this lady likes attention. Why else would you (allegedly) lie about being the victim of multiple hate crimes? Yikes. Even if it's not an attention thing, she at least believes her opinion is important. The ego is strong with this one. So, I reckon she'll probably do a press conference tomorrow or the next day. And hot diggity dern if I'm not excited to hear what she has to say. I'd also love to see an interview with her hairstylist, who must have been in on the whole charade. 

So, for the record, I think Rachel Dolezal probably has major issues, good intentions and an inflated sense of self-importance. At least that's what I picked up from this interview. Also, between her weird parents and the various lawsuits, there's definitely more nuance to this story than what we've heard so far—the situation isn't black and white (BOOM! Mic drop). 

Meanwhile, the Duggars are breathing a synchronised sigh of relief. 

LYMI, 

Margaret

Where my INFJs at?

I did a personality test today. Cast your mind back to my dark days of employment and you'll recall I'm not usually a fan of them. It annoys me to be reduced to one of four colors when I'm as complex as the color wheel, as vibrant as the rainbow!

But there's a bit more to the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator model than the Color Code Personality Profile. In this one, there are 16 possible personality types and it's based on your preference of introversion vs. extroversion, sensing vs. intuition, thinking vs. feeling and judging vs. perceiving.

What do those words even mean? Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that I took the test and I'm an INFJ, also known as 'The Advocate'.

We are rare. We make up only 1–2% of the population. We're introverts masquerading as extroverts. We're creative, passionate, insightful and convincing. But hot damn if we aren't over sensitive. Criticize us and we flip out. SO DON'T DO IT.

Sounds about right.

What's alarming is the company I'm in. My INFJ compatriots include:

• Ayatollah Khomeini 
• Osama Bin Laden
• Chiang Kai-shek
• Robert Mugabe
• Adolf Hilter

Well, great. As they say, you can't choose your family.

But we do have David Schwimmer, so we can't all be bad. 

Image by BioPredator via deviantart.com

Also, the other thing to keep in mind is that it's all a load of BULL ROAR.

HA! I'm still not convinced. And you know I'm right. Even though it's fun to take the test and analyze yourself, the reality is that people are complex. There aren't just 16 of us, but 7 billion! This one may be better than the colors but, much like me and my faux extroversion, it's just old school clickbait masquerading as science. 

Still, I recommend taking the test for the entertainment value alone. You'll find some of the results are pretty spot-on. For example, it said that INFJs make good bloggers. I swear!

Also, it said that there are just enough Andys in the world (ESTPs) to keep things spicy, but not so many that it would cause a systemic risk to humankind. Phew!

TAKE THE TEST

Goodnight, 

Margaret

Manchild culture — let's end it

Over the last few years, Andy and I have observed a troubling trend. Increasingly, the media we encounter assumes we want to be treated like children. Note: said media doesn't just treat us like children, but it thinks we want to be treated that way, which is much worse.

Take, for example, the Britney Spears song I wrote about the other day. Britney singing about drinking shots and clubbing and wiping the floor with all the boys (not men, but BOYS) just feels inauthentic when I know she probably spends most her time at home, watching TV with her two actual boys. Why must she lie?

And now, this—a Hilary Duff music video where she and her friends swipe through Tinder and talk about boys being cute. What in the world? The whole thing seems very...young. It's basically a giant Tinder ad, but that's no excuse. The outfits and the bowling and the backup dancers—the whole video screams Christian high school youth retreat.




The worst offender of all is Buzzfeed. The listicle capital of the Internet is predicted to reach 'peak manchild' in 2016. Oh look, they actually did a post on '23 Signs You're Probably Dating a Manchild'. How meta.

So. Who's to blame?

Japan?

The music industry?

Video games?

That TV show called the Big Bang Theory?

The glorification of nostalgia?

Ourselves, for getting older?

Maybe it's the economy's fault.  Maybe the crash of '08 set us back and stunted our growth.

What do you think? I want to hear from YOU!

Your bowl-headed friend,
Margaret

P.S. And by 'manchild', I also mean 'womanchild'.

Should've been a cowboy

I wish I'd trained to be a cowboy, rather than going to college and majoring in journalism.

I'm not really sure how cowboys make their money, but you can't beat the lifestyle. Your office is the wild wild west. Your work clothes are jeans and cotton shirt. You're in naturally good shape from lassoing cows, jumping on horses' backs and repairing broken fences on your ranch.

What's not to love?

I'm two days into a three-week copywriting gig and I'm confident that the contemporary office environment is killing us. I know, I know. Scientists have warned of the dangers of a 'sedentary lifestyle' for years now. But I'm only just realising how right they are.

How on earth are people are expected to live happy, healthy lives when they're forced to sit at a desk all day? I'm perplexed!

Save your rebuttals. I already have rebuttals for your rebuttals. Rebuttal THIS:

• YOUR SOLUTION: Just walk to work, take lots of short breaks during the day, go to the gym during your lunch, walk home and plan fun activities in the evening.  

• MY REBUTTAL: Thanks, Yolanda, but that's far too hard. Especially in the winter when the only daylight hours are the exact hours you're expected to work.

• YOUR SOLUTION: Get a job with a company that allows you to work flexible hours and makes it easy for you to work from home when you need to. 

• MY REBUTTAL: Great idea, but those companies are few and far between. I could probably get a job at one, but I'm brilliant.

• YOUR SOLUTION: Sit on an exercise ball instead of a desk chair!

• MY REBUTTAL: I've tried it. Not sustainable. Looks stupid. 

Luckily, a lot of people I know actually do work for those nice companies that "care" about their employees' "work/life balance" and prove it by offering "perks". (Remember, those perks are the least they can do. Don't boost a company's ego by praising it for not treating you like a workhorse.)

Also lucky, I've managed to find a line of work that allows me to avoid the 9-5 grind most of the time. Still, I often wish I did more physical labour. I said that to Andy once and he read me the riot act. I was looking enviously out the window at some builders working on the scaffolding across the street. Here's a taste of that conversation:

Me: "I really wish my work involved physical labour. Don't you? I mean, like, I crave lifting things."

Andy: "No, absolutely not. That's ridiculous. Listen to what you're saying! It's easy to romanticise the idea of physical labour, but they're outside in the cold and you're inside in the warm. You get to sit inside, on a comfy chair, sipping tea and typing on a computer for a living. You should be grateful!"

Me: "But I mowed lawns for the Vancouver, Washington PUD for a month in 2009 and I loved it."

Andy: "You wouldn't love it for the rest of your life."

Me at the 'Couve PUD.
No, I never got to actually drive that thing.
Yes, I ate a Kashi 'Go Lean' bar for lunch every day and was rurrrrrl skinny!

Hmmm. Come to think of it, cowboys do have to smell a lot of cow poop. And again, I'm still unsure about how they get money.

Lots to ponder,

Margaret

Breaking News

OK, I'll admit. The title of this post was a real bait and switch. I don't have any breaking news to share. I just want to talk about the concept of breaking news. Sorry to get you here under false pretences, but hang with me.

We need to make a rule about what constitutes 'breaking news'. Here I am sitting on the floor after a vigorous 8-minute DIY yoga session and trying to read the very important comments thread on a very important article in The Guardian ("How to make the perfect cup of coffee"). All of a sudden, I'm interrupted by this giant red pop-up that says the head of Sony Pictures is stepping down following the hacking scandal.

Um, I guess that's interesting. But could it really not wait? Would it have been that horrible for me to continue reading the coffee comments for another few minutes before clicking back to the homepage and discovering that some lady quit her job?

Image via Wikimedia Commons

I still remember when KREM 2 local news in Spokane cut into the Orpah show to announce that, and I quote, there was "heavy puddling" on Spokane's streets due to, and I quote, "rain".

This is not the clip, and it's not even breaking news, but it does feature some vintage Orpah.

Oh, by the way, I'm not misspelling Orpah. I recently learned that's her real name. ORPAH. She changed it when people kept mispronouncing it, but I prefer the original. ORPAH. Say it with me. ORPAH.



Here's what you can interrupt regularly scheduled broadcasting for:

• Live hostage situations
• Death of a famous or interesting world leader (Obama, Merkel, Putin, Kim Jong-un, etc.)
• Alien invasion

Here's what merits a news ticker at the bottom of the screen:

• Death of a relatively unknown or boring world leader (Cameron, Abbott, Jinping, etc.)
• Bey/Jay official divorce announcement
• Stock market crashes (unless it's the next Great D'presh, nobody cares!)

Here's what needs to wait until the normal news show:

• Heavy puddling on Spokane's streets
• The mayor did or said something
• Lohan, Bieber or Bynes hit something with their car

In unrelated news, Andy (spouse) has what Freddie (nephew) had last week. Stomach flu. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say it smells like a dairy farm in here. All I can do is sit on the couch, nervously eat my dinner-for-one and wait for it to hit me. Every stomach gargle puts me on edge. It's the calm before the sh*t storm.

Good evening,

Margaret

Bogus health fads: Let's stop picking and choosing

I'm seeing a lot of articles on the detrimental effects of the anti-vaccine movement. The conversation has reached peak "duh" and we all agree that anyone still arguing against vaccinating your kids needs to put a sock in it.

But remember, it's not just that witch Jenny McCarthy who kicked off the harmful fad. Our beloved Oprah is also to blame. Oprah was the one who invited J-Mac on her show, set her up with a blog on Oprah.com and gave her a massive platform to spread her nonsense.

I still remember watching her on the Oprah show back in 2009 and thinking "Yikes. I don't want my kids to get autism. I hope they figure out whether all of this is true by the time I get to child-bearing age". Luckily, they did. They actually knew back then. She was making it all up.

Dr. Oz also turned out to be a quack. Did you know that?

Anyway, I'm preaching to the jazz choir, so enough on vaccines. The point I want to make today is that we shouldn't stop at the anti-vax movement. Let's also banish the other bogus health fads that have woven themselves into our culture. For example:

• Gluten-free — Unless you're celiac or actually have a gluten intolerance (it's rare), go ahead and gluten it on up. The truth is, 93.3% of us can eat gluten without any repercussions. Don't believe the hype.

• Cleanses — Juice cleanse, master cleanse, detox cleanse, colon cleanse, whatever. They're all bogus. Cleanses have repeatedly been proven ineffective, if not harmful. Your body already has a system for flushing out toxins. It's called your liver and kidneys!

• Blood-type diet — Nope! Not even going to dignify this one. Read here if you need convincing. 

• Carb-free diet — Of course you'll lose weight for a bit. But then you'll get hungry, sad, angry and maybe even FAT due to the appetite-boosting stress hormones your confused body is pumping out. 

• Gwyneth's vag steam — Oh Gwynn. Turns out that giving your wizard sleeve a mugwort steam isn't good for you at all! But kudos for creativity!

Instead of picking and choosing when we go with science and when we go with 'worth a try', let's just go with science all of the time. These silly health fads may seem harmless on the surface, but our culture's willingness to welcome them with open arms is worrying. It's this attitude that allowed people to entertain seriously damaging trends like the anti-vax movement in the first place.

One time I was convinced I had a parasite and went on a year-long supplement regime to try and rid myself of it. Nothing worked...until I moved to the UK, met Andy (who convinced me to stop drinking goat's milk, for a start) and eventually left my worm worries behind. Something was up with my digestion, but my guess is that it was one-part psychosomatic and one-part the result of my self-prescribed cleanse. I was making myself ill! I had Munchausen's!!! OMG. Amazing. Must add "Munchausen's survivor" to my Twitter profile.

From the Year of the Worm (2009).

Anyway, I know first-hand how easy it is to get sucked into conspiracy theories about health. I'm as bad as the next kook. This post is as much a promise to myself that, from this point forward, I'll approach health crazes with the skepticism they deserve, as it is a message for all you nuts.

Moving on. I baked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies today. The best cookie. I'm not claiming mine are the best, just that oatmeal chocolate chip is the best genre of cookie. When done right, they have the perfect amount of chew, crunch and gooeyness. #SnarfSnarfSnarf

Your friend,
Dr. Madge*

*Editor's Note: Margaret is not a real doctor. Neither in the academic or medical sense.

Word association

I don't have anything to say. But that's never stopped me before and it won't stop me now!

How about a game of word association? Yes! Let's do it.

WRITER'S BLOCK

OK, that makes me think of this block of salt I saw once when I was 10 and in Lake Chelan on a family reunion. My mom told me it was called a 'salt lick' and that it was for deer. They like salt a lot, so people put up 'salt licks' as the deer version of a birdfeeder. The thought of a deer coming across a giant block of salt in the woods and thinking "jackpot!" really tickled me. Still does.

SALT

I worry that my diet contains too much salt and that it's raising my blood pressure. High blood pressure is also a common side-effect of my migraine pills. So, this week I bought a blood pressure monitor on Amazon! It already arrived and so far my readings are normal. But I want to test myself after I take down a tray of nachos.

PRESSURE

Here's a good example of the small differences between America and the UK. In America, we would say "the Seahawks are pressuring the Patriot's defence". But in the UK, they would say "the Seahawks are pressurising the Patriot's defence". Pressurising! Same goes for "orientated" instead of "oriented" and lots of other words that I can't think of right now.

SEAHAWKS

I hope the Hawks win this SuperBowl and then become really bad again for the foreseeable future so that I don't have to care or support the NFL or argue with my future son about the danger of concussions. Blasphemy, I know.

Image by Tomasz Przechlewski via Wikimedia Commons

Live it up this weekend!

Margaret

Things to retire for 2015

Tomorrow is the first day of 2015. As Nina Simone would croon, "It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me...and I'm feeling goooood!"

Before we ring in the New Year, I've made a list of things that we might want to consider leaving behind going forward. "Going forward" is office jargon over here in the UK. For example, "Going forward, do you see us transitioning to an outreach-based approach?" Do people say it in offices in America? Let me know.

Anyhoo, the things on my list aren't necessarily bad. Some are even good (see: 'funny A-frame signs'), but that doesn't mean they should be allowed to flourish forever. With the exception of Kardashian kulture, too much of anything is not ideal. Even the best athletes have to call it quits at some point. The very best have their numbers retired and shirts draped in the stadium for future generations to admire.

So let's agree to leave the following stuff in 2014 and use these imaginative human brains of ours to come up with some cool, original replacements in the New Year.

Words and phrases

• That happened
• For why
• Facepalm
• Adorkable
• FTW (for the win)
• Nom nom nom
• Life hack
• Epic
• Go home [blank]; you're drunk.

Things

• Funny A-frame signs outside restaurants/pubs
• Nail art
• Ironic Amazon reviews
• Moustache-on-a-stick props in wedding photobooths (the rest can stay: feather boa, foam finger, London policeman's hat, etc.)
• Selfies or photobombs (we can only keep one)
• Giant plaid shirts tied at the waist (I'm looking at you, Khloe K.)

Opinions

• Gwyneth Paltrow is annoying
• Photoshop is ruining our body image
• Fox News is the reason the world is going to the dogs
• Kale is the answer.

In general, let's try to be a little less bandwagony, a little less ironic and a little more creative. 

Best of luck to us all, 

Margaret