Comment: No More Facebook.

That’s it. I’ve done it. I’ve quit cold turkey. I cut the cord. I’m done with Facebook.

You’ve seen me on here extolling its virtues and vices, so it should come as no surprise that my ambivalence is now carrying me in this direction.

What tipped the scales? I was getting too compulsive about it. I kept checking to look for people to talk to online, when I should be talking to people in person instead. It’s hard to admit that you’re lonely, and I am, but I’m not going to feel much less lonely talking to so-called friends who are, although all perfectly fine human beings, mostly not people I am in contact with on a regular basis. We’ve been out of each other’s lives for 20 plus years, what’s the hubbub now?

Simple. We connect because we can. And I will admit to a handful of rejuvenated friendships through Facebook (you know who you are) and one new local friend with whom I frequently Facebook, about all of which I am quite pleased. But ultimately? There are other ways to communicate: IM, email, the phone, a real live visit. I don’t want to deteriorate into someone who sits at home every night looking for someone to talk to online. I’d rather occasionally go out with actual people. But maybe that’s just me.

Besides, I was developing a side effect I didn’t like: Facebook Envy (FE ™) . That’s what you feel when you see that someone you hardly know but do like says “Tanya is…” and it’s something like, “Tanya is partying with her best friends in Tahoe!” and you’re sitting at home folding laundry or cleaning up dried puddles of urine from behind the toilet seat. Such a buzzkill.

I found myself one too many times looking at these overly cheery statements of alleged activity and wondering, are these people for real? Maybe they are. Maybe they aren’t. It doesn’t matter. What matters is what I am actually doing with my time in the here and now. Their here and now is their business. If they’re truly that happily active and fabulous, then fair play to them. If they’re not, then they’re deluding themselves to a wider audience.

See, I don’t really want to delude myself to a wider audience. I’m deluded enough in private, thank you very much. So when I started compulsively looking for people to chat with online when I could have been getting to know my neighbors or having coffee with a real girlfriend, I knew it was time to quit.

It may not take, I realize that. It’s tough. But I think my life will be richer, at least at this point, without Facebook. If any of my real or fake friends on my list want be in touch with me, they’ll figure out how to find me. Otherwise, so what?

Comment: Morrissey, Mon Amour

Morrissey has a new CD out.

He has not changed. This is a good thing.

“Something is Squeezing My Skull”, his song with lines like “it’s a miracle I made it this far” and “there is no love in modern life” is quintessential Morrissey. (And I don’t think there’s a better song title than that. He is one magnificent bastard. I bow down to his genius.)

It’s as if no time has passed since his vexed songs with The Smiths like “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” and “How Soon is Now?”, and his solo efforts like “Suedehead” and “Every Day is Like Sunday.” (If you want to kill the buzz on any public gathering, play this song. It may well clear a room, especially if it IS Sunday. Major downer.)

In this venture, aptly titled “Years of Refusal”, his songs are rocking harder than usual. He sounds angrier. Age is supposed to mellow a person out, but apparently, ever the contrarian, Morrissey is not calming down. He’s still morose as hell and evidently as desperate and consumed with angst as he ever was.

It is a great album. There, I said it, an album. You like that? That’s how I roll. Old school.

Seriously, what makes his stuff so compelling is the fact that Morrissey’s angst is real. This is what makes him so popular, even though he loathes attention and rarely performs live, as I understand. But put it this way: play The Pet Shop Boys right before you play Morrissey/The Smiths. That’s the difference between synthetic and authentic pain. Electronic, plastic angst versus raw, acoustic angst. (Sidebar: Did you know that The Pet Shop Boys were banned from entering the United States back in their heyday? They were considered too subversive to plant their feet on American soil. Guess they didn’t get to “make lots of money ahhhhhh” on US tours.)

Seriously, buy this music. If you’ve never listened to The Smiths or Morrissey’s solo efforts, you will encounter music that is hard to classify and easy on the ears. And the lyrics are easy to understand the first time. And if you know and love Morrissey, you won’t be disappointed. Or maybe you will be, but in the right way. Life sucks, remember?

Comment: Clothes Make the Mama

It’s important to have a reason to get dressed up once in awhile. Or at least change out of your sweats. I just finished reading Sandra Tsing Loh’s hilarious “Mother on Fire” and she makes a very specific point about our fashion sense as mothers. She talks about he ubiquitous sweat pants/loungewear/jammies seen on mamas from far and wide as they rush in and out of their cars picking up, dropping off, running errands, and sweating.

I’ve always been sweaty, but having children has brought my sweatatory glands up to gladiator status; man, a river runs through it, and I’m not even in peri-menopause yet (err, at least I think so, I’ll get back to you on that).

Anyway, the whole mother fashion thing. I know there’s a movement of young, urban, hip moms who drop nearly a grand on their bugaboo strollers and have matching Babystyle outfits with their offspring, but in the real world? We’re in sweats, or other outfits with generous elastic and forgiving seams.

The first two years of my son’s life I wore nothing but sweat suits. If you had told me when I was pregnant that I would be doing that, I would have both laughed and mocked. But I was already on the slippery slope of default-mama fashion. I was wearing floral maternity tops. Gah! Floral! It wasn’t that far to slip into velour sweat suits (me and George Costanza).

So I guess what I’m saying is, most of us end up in sweats unless/until we go back to work outside the home. If you’re lucky/brave enough to stay home full time with your kids, then your fashion range is, shall we say, limited. I looked at my closet and saw things that looked so alien to me, because I hadn’t worn them in SIX years. And there’s no sign of my wearing them anytime soon, if they even fit (which they may not) (Shut up! Only a woman can call herself fat with no consequences.)

When I’m cruising the aisles of Target and Old Navy, from whence all my children’s (and mine, and my husband’s) clothes come, I will on occasion see what I call “Teacher Clothes”, which are things I would wear if I were teaching, which is the job I held before I had my kids. I look longingly at the fabric and think, yes, those would be cute, I could wear them when I’m around grown ups, and other people with whom I can make sustained eye contact. I will wear make up and possibly shoes with heels, and funky earrings, and I will sit on an adult-sized chair.

So I think that some days, a person should dress up a little, just to keep the cool/swank dressing skills from atrophying. Maybe it will feel weird to wear full makeup and earrings for a play date, but what choice do we have? I say, dress up once a week at least. Let your children get used to you with eyeliner! Let them see you wearing shoes that aren’t rubber-soled! Show your children there’s more to life than fleece!

You owe it to yourself and your family, and your nation. Get dressed up!

Question: To Wii or not to Wii?

So the kids and I went on a play date (how I loathe that phrase; I'd rather call it an event, because that's often what it is) today and they were exposed to a very different world. They saw, for the first time in their young lives, a really really big screen TV. I think it was plasma, but what do I know? And they saw….Wii. We saw Wii.

None of us had ever seen anything Wii-related or Wii-ful, so this was an education. The seven year old host showed us Guitar Hero. There was a band singing “Dream Police” who looked NOTHING like Cheap Trick, and the three kids with whom we were visiting all sang all the words, as the oldest played the game.

It was ten shades of adorable watching a toddler sing “Dream Police”, but the whole experience left me a little cold. Because you don’t learn anything at all about playing guitar by doing Guitar Hero. It’s just another glorified video game. It’s probably good for your recognition and small motor skills, but so are marbles, FFS. So I don’t know about this whole Wii-volution. How interesting is it to push colorful buttons on a toy guitar?

Very, as it turns out. But I wouldn’t know. My kids didn’t want to try it and I didn’t get offered and it would probably not have come off so well if I hogged a second grader’s toy.

Let me say this: I do see the appeal of it; the music is totally GenX, so it’s fun for parents. And the little ones like anything with buttons and sounds. Maybe Guitar Hero is fun for the whole family. Maybe, even more so, it's a safe and drug-free way to indulge in our rock star fantasies.

If so, I say all hail guitar hero. But if it’s just another electronic game our kids can play while we try to ignore them, I’m not interested. Aren’t there enough things like that out there already?

So, Guitar Hero: brain rot or family fun n' fantasy fulfillment?

You be the judge.

Comment: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow (sorry)

When I’m under stress, I pick a song that I like and play it relentlessly on my Ipod. Should it scare me that I have yet another Britney Spears song on endless play?

What’s up with that?

I feel a lot of empathy with Britney. I’ve mentioned this before. I think I know how she felt when she shaved her head; she’d had enough, she wanted to just disappear and start all over again, and hopefully feel much better. I’ve felt that way many times. It’s a pretty universal feeling, at least for women. (If a man shaves his head, people don’t freak out, so it’s not an equal opportunity act of distress.)

Most recently I went and had my hair shorn of all the fake blond highlights I had assiduously put in, and even though I look like more like a guy than I did at age 12, I still stand by my decision. I needed a change, and I got it. I feel a little more like myself, whoever that is.

A really under-rated movie from the early 90s called “State of Grace” had one of the best quotes ever: the main female character is getting a major makeover to adapt to a major life change, and she sees a friend at the salon, and says wistfully, “Change your hair, change you life, right?” or something close to that. Truer words were never spake, spoken, nor spaken.

Seriously, your hair as identity is an obvious thing, sure. But look back to Britney, who has grown enough hair to get natural-looking extensions. She’s come full circle. She is going right back to the way she looked pre-breakdown. If I were her, I’d have gone for something significantly different; for example, a short red bob, or a black “Rain”-era Madonna pixie cut. Instead, she is trying to get back to where she was. I suppose if my living depended on what I looked like, I’d consider being more consistent with my own hair.

Does it say something about my personality that I can’t seem to grow my hair longer than chin length? What does it mean? I haven’t worn my hair this short since I was Miss Hotsy Totsy Boho Actress Waitress Punk Girl.

Aha. Britney wants to maintain her image pre-meltdown. She wants to capitalize on the blonde bombshell she was before her issues became more public. And I want to go back to the sassy, free-spirited punk rocker artist I was many years ago. Aha, indeed.

I should pay myself for these insights.

Question: At what point do you go from being a “Miss” to a “Maam”?

That was the question I posted yesterday on my Facebook page, in that section where we all try to be as clever as possible.

But it’s a sincere question. I want to know.

One friend said “I think it's right around the time you start getting up a 5 a.m., instead of heading to bed.” (That sounds right to me.)

Another friend, in her late thirties, says she’s been called maam for two years now. (She has kids.)

A smart assed male friend couldn’t get over being called “sir.” (Hyuk)

Another friend mentioned that it scared her, and that she still, at forty something, feels “like a kid at heart.” (Hear, hear!)

A friend with Southern Cred said “In the south, if you are an adult female, you are maam. Not an insult at all, but sure feels like one!” (Agreed.)

My Canadian expert said: "Here it's madame (or monsieur if you're a male). It happens about age 35 and I figure it's some physical change that only people 20 and under pick up on. After that, it's everybody under 30. After 30, we're on a first name basis. By 45 you're complaining about your knees and comparing medications." (Sad but true? Stay tuned.)

So apparently this is a hot topic. “The View” has nothing on me, baby.

The reason I brought this up was that I’ve been called Maam for several years now, and yesterday, I was called Miss twice.

I can’t lie to you: I loved it.

It’s not that I’m ancient, but I’m far enough north of 25 that a store clerk would be foolish to call me Miss, especially when I’m knee deep in children’s clothes, books and teeny tiny accessories. Obviously, I’m not a Miss. I have kids. Right? Wrong.

Plenty of young women have kids. Do you call them Miss because they’re young, or because you think they’re not married or don’t have kids? Does Miss in fact, have anything to do with marriage or kids?

I say no.

As my wise friends point out, it’s definitely an age thing. So when the darling young men (children, really) at Office Max called me Miss yesterday and helped me with my purchases, well, let’s just say that I was both flattered and encouraged about my future. Why? Because sure, to most people, I am most definitely a Maam-and-don’t-you-forget-it. But if they’re that nice to me when they call me Miss, think how helpful they’ll be when I’m twenty years into Maam. They’ll be carrying my pens for me, and my heavy reams of paper; they’ll be paying for my stuff and carrying ME out to the car. Thank you Maam, indeed.

Such are the perks of aging. When you’re young, you get attention because you’re young, and usually, cute. When you’re old, you get attention because you might need help, and you have some street cred by virtue of being alive. When you’re middle-aged, you’ll take a Miss anywhere you can get it, and look forward to years of deferential service as you age gracefully.

Call me Miss if you want to see me smile. I still have all my teeth.

Question: Why do most movies suck?

Is it just me, or do most movies just truly and utterly suck? And isn’t it apt that I’m writing this while scads of people are glued to their televisions watching the Academy Awards while having seen very few (if any) of said films on offer?

What is it with movies? Dude, you’ve changed, man. Or maybe it’s me.

Case in point: Ever heard of “Shortbus”? If so, I’m sorry. If not, you’re lucky. It’s a graphic, totally unsexy look at sex for twenty somethings, and people, if that’s how it is in New York for young people today, I thank my lucky stars I’m an old married lady. If movies and TV have taught me anything (and they have, albeit usually with gaping facts missing) then what I deduce from the first twenty minutes I saw of “Shortbus” is that New York is full of sexually repressed/deviant twenty year olds with not much else to do with their time. Guh. (Not to mention the actual positions some of those actors got themselves into; whose agent told them this was a good idea for their career? FYI future ingenues, budity does not equal art.)

I’m sure I sound ancient as hell now, but color me curmudgeoned, because it was just a waste of time. And this seems to happen whenever a movie is selected on Netflix in our house. Invariably, it disappoints. Are my standards too high? Are movies just suckier? Or did movies when I was younger just transport me, take me to new heights and vistas? Because I used to LOVE movies. And now? Not so much.

The comedies aren’t funny, the dramas are depressing (although the fashions can be fabulous) and the action adventures have plot holes so big you could drive a semi through them.

So what is a middle-aged grouch to do?

30 Rock.

Lost.

TV online.

I’m telling you, it’s better than shelling out the money and the time to watch close to two hours of what will generally just take time away from other more pressing things (quality time, , exercise, reading, sex).

Seriously, not only are movies a financial drain, but worse, in my opinion, they are a time suck. After I watch a lame movie I feel cheated; I’ve lost two hours of my life, and for what? To see a skinny English actress emote and have issues with a steamy Australian actor with nice pecs? Urgh.

I don’t really give a shit who wins any of the awards tonight, (with the exception of Kate Winslet, who I think has done enough solid work to merit an award, clothed or not) because ultimately it won’t push me to watch any of the movies anyway.

Online TV. It’s free, it’s on demand, and you don’t waste so much of your life.