Pinterested

Pinterest, to a college student:I promised myself I wouldn't procrastinerest away my day. Oh well.

Pinterest, to a dog: All that pinning of homemade dog bones and not a single one yet baked? Pinterest, to my grandma: Somehow I managed to survive the Great Depression and a World War without Pinterest. Pinterest, to the mother in Somalia: Is there a board where you have pinned solutions to civil unrest, lack of running water, babies dying from starvation? Pinterest, to our children: I didn't really want a Pinterest-inspired birthday party. I really just wanted you to be happy and relaxed rather than stressed about a Fancy Nancy candy buffet.

Pinterest, to clothespins: I don't always need to be painted and dipped in glitter.

Pinterest, to men: Women have finally found their spectator sports equivalent, and every day is the Super Bowl.

Pinterest, to everyone who never wore a scarf before: Pinterest made me do it. Pinterest, to social scientists: Quick, someone come up with a name for what this cultural phenomenon so we can sell a book about what people already know about themselves and their insatiable appetite for all the things. Pinterest, to Crayola: Crayon genocide by hair dryers is making us very rich indeed.

Pinterest, to HGTV, TLC, Nate, Martha: This is either the best or the worst thing to ever happen to us. Pinteresters Anonymous: Hello, my name is Pinny, and I've been sober from pinning for 6 weeks.

- Kendra Stanton Lee 2012

January Pep Talk

You! You long ugly 31 days are only ONE MONTH. Do you understand that?

You are but a vapor!

I know you! I've lived through 31 of you. You try to suck my ever living soul from out of my eardrums.

And you know what?

This year?

Not going to happen!

No sir!

I am OVER YOU, January!

Can you even deal with that in your heart, January?

You with your gray skies, all moping around like a disaffected overprivileged teenager. What's that? Bored with your toys from Christmas already, January?

Oh yeah! Well I've got news for you.

Take it somewhere else!

You are not going to force me to take 2 power naps a day just to survive.

I am NOT going to have to mind over matter the eating of Nutty Bar snack cakes for dinner.

I REFUSE to cast the stink-eye at the tan girl who got her hairs braided in the Bahamas over MLK weekend who is idling in the grocery store talking loudly on her iPhone about her 47 day cleanse (THEN WHY ARE YOU BUYING MORE FOOD?)

January? You are NOTHING. You are DEAD TO ME.

You mean zero dollars and zero cents rounded to the zeroeth power.

I will not fall down. I will not let you batter me. I will be the Frida Kahlo of January.

I don't know what that means. But January.

Get thee behind me.

There are too many awesomenesses to celebrate right now.

Dear American Girl Doll,

I have just finished perusing your holiday catalogue and I would just like to inform you that I will be buying everything. Which is to say that I will actually be buying nothing. Trust, I would rather purchase all the things that you hawk through the consumer periodical with the twinkly-eyed dolls that you send just often enough to ensure I haven't forgotten about you, and just infrequent enough that I haven't yet found a sugardaddy gotten a second job to finance my American Girl habit. For my daughter, of course. I mean, all of this is STRICTLY FOR HER.

Oh but how I want to own your whole collection of historical character dolls that inhabit stories set during important times in America’s past. As an academic, I consider this sort of educational play very important {FOR MY DAUGHTER.} Also, I think the cupcake bakeset is just kind of beast? I mean, again, for young girls. Not for me to play with whilst imagining my own New York loft where I would launch my own cupcake delivery post-dot-com start-up. And let's not forget the appeal of the contemporary Girl of the Year® stories, exploring issues of today. From these I believe girls learn they can do great things if they believe in themselves, which speaks to me as a child of the '80s who was all about self-esteem. Oh flip, your whole company is only turning 25 years old this year? Which means, like, I am not only old enough to be the mother of all of your dolls but freaking your company's older sister that wouldn't even have gone to the same school as you because I would have been in high school already, so it's almost like you would have been an only child if we had the same parents?

Hey, but nice job with the release of the new New Orleans circa 1853 dolls, Cecile and Marie-Grace. I had fun turning to page 30 to discover their world. I mean. Hey, nice visual spread on page 30--wow! That was really convincing.

Yours very sincerely, An American Girl who has been good all year,

Kendra Chattanooga, TN