I Guess I Do Care

Last night I was browsing around on Pinterest. Whenever I do this, I spend about 80% of my time finding lovely things that I want to remember and pinning them to my many boards of lovely things. I spend the other 20% finding things to make fun of. For those of you who don't know about my Pinterest Snark board, that's what the 20% is for. I started the Snark board because I was just in a crabby-ass mood one night and instead of being all grumpy to my husband, I decided to take it out on random pictures on the Internet. The first picture I ever considered snarking was this one:

In actuality, I love this room. I saw it and thought it was lovely. I loved the photographs on the wall and loved them as main art. But I wasn't going to pin it though, because I am past the point where I will ever be decorating a baby's room again. (My second and last child is eleven months old.) And then I noticed that in this room, with a child that is at least standing and probably cruising, is a dainty, white table with a vase of daisies in it. Really? Daisies? But I let it go. I didn't have a Snark board back then. Then I came across this picture:

I really liked the dress, but instead of being annoyed at myself for being too damned overweight or self-conscious to be able to envision myself looking lovely in it, I took it out on the picture and the Snark board was born. (Snark board comment: So now even mannequins are not thin enough. I have to drool over this dress because I know it looks better on AIR... literally) Then I went back and snarked on that baby's room. And then a dozen or so other random pictures from around the Internet.

I get a one or two comments a week, through Twitter or Pinterest from people telling me they really like my Snark board, and truth be told, that makes me pretty happy. I can't really explain it to people who haven't read it, because it sounds pretty lame (It's a place where I make fun of stuff.), but I think it's kinda funny and I like that at least a few other people think it's funny, too.

Anyway, getting back to last night when I was cruising Pinterest, I noticed something on someone else's board: one of my snark pins. Someone repinned my pin and kept the comment. This is the default behavior for Pinterest, so I didn't think much of it. Then I noticed that there was a whole discussion on this person's page about my comment. But because of the way Pinterest works, no one would ever know where the original comment came from. My first thought was, "Heeeyyyyyy!!!! That's MY comment you people are talking about. And you don't even know it's mine!" My second thought was, "Really? This isn't Shakespearean poetry we're talking about here. Do you really care that people don't know that it's you that's making fun of the dude in the sperm basket?" So I took a look at my most common repins from my Snark board. This is still absolutely number one:

Snark Board Comment:
This thing is sweeping Pinterest. Really? How do you get into it? How do you get out? And that guy... really? He makes me want to get a really big pair of scissors.

This thing has been repinned 23 times with my comment. (Plus several other times where people changed the comment to "LOVE" or "I want this".) BTW, I love the sperm baskets. Please someone buy me one. I'm just not going to install it over a river.

Well, I've thought it over for about a day now and here's what I've come up with. Yes. Yes, I do care. I hate to admit it, but I'm pretty proud of that little Snark board. And I'm happy to have you all repin those pins to your heart's content. I'm even happy to have you keep my comments around when you do. But when other people repin them and then other people repin those, I'd kinda like it if those people down the road knew it was me who had a rare moment of clever.

So I've gone back to my Snark board and added my name at the end of all my comments. It may be silly, but that's what I've decided. And in case you noticed and wondered why I did it, now you know.

Snark Therapy: Socks and Sandals

So I posted a couple weeks back about my newly invented form of therapy that I have created for myself called Snark Therapy. Basically, I feel better when I get to bitch about stuff. Sometimes the target is stuff I love, sometimes it's stuff I think is nuts. You really never know. Just because I snark it, doesn't mean I don't still want it in my house. I've begun collecting my random bitching on my Pinterest Snark Board, but since many (most) of you probably aren't on Pinterest, I'm going to occasionally take some time here on my blog to share with you some of my favorites. Here you go.

Where the heck do I even start? How about just this: If you are decorating your bathroom and leave more floor space for a feathered gown than for your sink & mirror area, I really don't know what we'd talk about if we ever met.

Trust me on this: This will not look as cute in your house as it does in this picture. In your house, it is going to look like you're using old colanders as light shades. Also... it'll probably be pretty dark. (Colanders are not very translucent.)

WTF were you thinking? Were you just bored off your ass one day? And even then, who wants to turn their lips into a fox? This is just nuts. And oh how I wish there was a picture of this woman's whole face. Because that would be priceless.

Check me out. I'm leaning on a stuffed zebra. (A little part of me really wishes she was wearing that headdress, too, even though it totally does not really go with the shoes.)

This... is not a joke. This is a real product being sold by a real website that really sells shoes. Part of the description of this item includes, "Wearing socks and sandals used to be an absolute fashion faux pas; now, it's a chic statement!" WTF happened to truth in advertising? They should be legally obligated to say: "Some of you will want to buy these. We want you to buy them because we want your money. But you should know that you're going to look like a total douche. But who cares what the world thinks? Now you can wear socks and flip flops!"

Full disclosure, if any of the above items appeal to you, you can find links to their actual websites on my Pinterest Snark Board. Word of warning though: If you repin something from my Snark board, I'm probably going to check out the other things on that board, and I'll probably snark those. But take heart, if I do snark you, there's a 50/50 chance that I really, really love it.. :)

Snark Therapy

I've been in a particularly crummy mood the last few days. (Probably the last few weeks if you asked my husband, but you didn't and he's not available at the moment.) I've got a ton on my plate at work, I haven't been sleeping much, and when I do, I've not been sleeping well. And when I am tired, I get cranky. Really cranky. To be honest, I've kinda felt bad for the people who live with me these days. I try to be less cranky, less snarky, I really do. But it's like asking a hungry person to stop being hungry. Tired me = snarky me. It's just a fact of life that my poor, poor husband has to deal with.

Luckily, I have found a new form of therapy that is proving to be truly helpful. I'm calling it "Snark Therapy." It's based on some basic character "traits" that my husband has helped me identify:

• You really do have an opinion about everything, don't you?
• Do you have to criticize everything?
• Do you really need to share every criticism out loud?  

The answers to those questions are: yes, yes, and yes. (I know! You are totally wishing that you were my husband right now, aren't you?) Funny thing is, most of my criticism is directed at things I'm generally pretty happy with, things I enjoy, things I love. I don't view it as criticism so much as "room for improvement."

But since I know that my constant fault finding with all that is not quite perfect in our home gets really old really quickly, I have decided to turn my snarkiness toward the Internet, specifically Pinterest. (If you don't know what Pinterest is, it's basically a website where you can "pin" pictures from anywhere on the Internet. Pictures of things you love, places you want to go, books you want to read, words that inspire you, stuff you want to buy, etc. You just collect cool pictures, group them into pin "boards", and then look at other people's boards to see what cool stuff they've collected.)

At the peak of my grumpiness the other day, I created a new board: Snark. I haven't gone more than a few hours without pinning something to it since then. And let me tell you, this is working wonders for my mental state. I'm getting all the snark out of my system. I go back and look at the board and (yes this is true) I crack myself up. So then I not only have eliminated some of my snarkiness, but I've also smiled in the process as well.

What kind of things have I been snarking on? Well, here are a couple examples.

This thing is sweeping Pinterest. Really? How do you get into it? How do you get out? And that guy... really? He makes me want to get a really big pair of scissors.

Trust me, this is JUST what your guests want! They WANT to crawl around on the ground in your backyard so that you can prove, once again, that you can kick their ass at Scrabble.

Oh crap, ladies. Really? At this point I'm just going to assume that you WANT the world to hate you. The bodies, yes, we're all jealous. But the pose? We really just want to slap you now.

Now am I supposed to think that this is a great boat for displaying my pillows or that these pillows will look great in my boat?

Do I really need to tell you what the guy across the street thinks about the Hello Kitty townhouse?

Finally! I am so tired of having to keep my extra dryer in the living room!

Well, that's a sample. Gosh. I feel better even now and those aren't even new! Ahhhhhh. Oh this has definitely become my favorite board on Pinterest.Watch out people of Pinterest, the Internet, and the world: you may soon be snarked.

Psst. If you do end up on my snark board, there's a good chance that I really LOVE what's in the picture. For example, if you didn't hang that basket thing above a friggin' body of water, I would love to have it in my backyard... in case anyone is looking for my next Christmas gift. I would totally dig a backyard scrabble game. Those women, yes, I'd like to slap them, but I'd also let you slap me every day for the rest of my life if I could have either of their bodies. There are approximately three things in my house not from PotteryBarn, so if they decided to start selling that boat that they display their pillows in, I'd probably buy it, too. I'm not really sure what's going on with the three washers/dryers, but if I had that kind of money, I think I'd just pay to have my clothes laundered instead.

But the pink house.... yeah, that's just a crappy thing to do to the neighbors.

Anyway. I'm gonna keep on snarking. Feel free to follow along: My Pinterest Snark board.

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