Gould Plated Self-Awareness

As I read Emily Gould's article, "Exposed," the lead story on the Times homepage this morning, my breakfast began its esophagus-burning procession back up my throat. It was all so familiar: the extreme exposure, the vitreous attacks and the gut-eviscerating self-doubt (which I can only assume she is feeling).

When I was twenty and a student at the University of Kansas, I wrote a candid blog about myself hosted by Lawrence.com. It was called Powder Room Confessions. Every time I posted I was pummeled by a barrage of hate mail. After four short months, my fragile ego couldn't handle it and I quit. Much like Emily, I later wrote a feature about my experience, and about the nascent blogging industry in general, for the student magazine (not quite the NYT, but still).

After finishing the article and scanning the 400-some comments, my first reaction was pity. Perhaps that isn't so. My first reaction was jealousy, as it often is when I see someone my age published in the New York Times. But after that, pity. And then a creeping feeling of schadenfreude. Watching someone else get chided in much the same manner that I did years ago was shamefully cathartic. So cathartic, in fact, that I think I am going to buy up all the tissues in Brooklyn so she has to wipe her porcelain, tear-drenched cheeks with paper towels.

But the jealousy? Yeah, totally over it.

C/O Democractic Party

The mile-wide tornado that tore through Northern Colorado earlier today was no doubt whipped up by the GOP in an attempt to instill fear before the Democratic National Convention in August. Next up: locusts.

Moldy Peach Dog Biscuits

Music artists lending their voices or songs to television commercials is as old as Madonna, and to be honest I don't even consider it "selling out." Really, was Aerosmith's aural offerings over the past two decades ever so sacred that a partnership with Dodge changed the band's already fledging rocker reputation?

So when I saw the new commercial for Atlantis resorts, set to "Anyone Else But You" by the indie twosome Moldy Peaches—better known as the song that Ellen Page and Michael Cerra cover at the end of the movie Juno—I thought it was problematic for other another reason, and that is cognitive psychology.

Flashback back to PSYCH 101. Cognitive psychology is a school of thought that emphasizes a patient's mental processes—the same paradigm that harbors Pavlovian theory. And much like Pavlov and his salivating canines, this commercial makes me think of bastard children and awkward teen sex, not giggling frivolously in a one-piece under a poolside cabana. But hey, that's just me.

**and Nick, I know this is probably a complete perversion of cognitive psych and Pavlov and those mangy, blessed mutts. I look forward to the inevitable earful.

Tom Selleck Has Nothing To Do With This Post

Upon careful consideration and a lengthy pros and cons list, I have decided to pack up shop and move to Wordpress Tumblr. Blogger is like living in black and white when everything else is in technicolor; like being on MySpace when everyone uses Facebook.

Now I just have to figure out how to pull off the ole' switcheroo. If I happen to come across any speed bumps, detours or overpasses, rest assured you will be the first to know. And in the unlikelihood of a water landing, your cushion can be used as a flotation device. Same goes for Tom Selleck's mustache.

Anatomy of a Viral Video

Earlier today, a clip of an irascible Bill O'Reilly from his pre-Factor days took ahold of the blogotron. While Billo will have you clinging to the pant leg of your own splenetic boss, whose rants will suddenly appear tame compared to O'Reilly's outburst, what is most surprising is the video's proliferation. Pop culture blogs were on it like flies on a dead hooker—and yes, in this analogy O'Reilly is the hooker. Let's follow the breadcrumbs.

I first entered the online media ring at Radaronline.com, which was sent to me as a link via IM. The poor schmucks at Radar magazine (who I would give my boyfriend's left nut to be) apparently don't have the gear (or perhaps the inclination) to edit out the College Humor logo in the lower-third, thus their source was clear. Skip to Gawker, where O'Reilly took the page view cake with 37,000-plus views by 7 p.m., a boon for Gawker night editor Ryan Tate who posted the video at 2:30 a.m. By 4:30, New York Magazine's Daily Intel blog, which sources all its gossip, had picked it up from Gawker and whirled it into a combo piece about curmudgeonly white men, leading with a clip of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg erupting at the press.

Four mega gossip sites, one mortified television personality. Is this enough for O'Reilly to crawl under a rock and never reappear?

'Bittersweet' Muff Diving

Certain songs you feel ashamed to love. You'll hear a catchy tune in passing, track it down and two days later "For You I Will (Confidence)" by Teddy Geiger is in your Top 25 Most Played. Shameful.

Such was the case when I came across "Bittersweet," a song even gayer than Ellen Page. The thing is I can't stop listening; I want to hear it over and over again until my ears are bleeding from Sapphic sentimentality and I just want to spoon.

Memoratorium

Me: What's that game called again? The one that you played as a kid with the farm animals and the cards, and you match them up?

Bruce: Um, Memory.

****

Earlier this week, I had that exact exchange. My ability to retain information is startling low. Like, chronic amnesia low. And as my pot intake has decreased over the past few months, it has become increasingly clear that the blaze wasn't solely to blame for the haze. In my case, it just might be a question of intelligence.

But there is hope. A recent study published on Monday in the The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (a title I would never be able to remember) describes the correlation between memory games and the increase of "fluid intelligence.

Will farm animals cards be able to undo that semester in college that I ate extacy as if it were Flinstone vitamins? Probably not. But would I be the lovably spacey, serotonin-deficient depressive had I not gone on weekend-long pill binges, thereby altering my entire identity? Definitely not.