Nervous Girl

Internet Inspired Word of the Day

I have coined a new word: frammer. Now that I see it there in print, it looks a whole lot dirtier than it actually is. The word, once it goes viral and begins to appear in print dictionaries, will be defined thusly:

• frammer:  (from friend +spammer) a so-called friend who e-mails one only when she needs to pass on one of those e-mails that "you must send to twelve friends in ninety seconds, and something wonderful will happen to you! DO NOT DELETE THIS! If you do, something really bad will happen to you. I know because it happened to my cousin's ex-wife's neighbor's Fed Ex guy's brother-in-law." And you totally know she's sending it to you only because she feels the irrational and superstitious need to pass the e-mail on, because something great might happen, and she doesn't want to risk doom if she doesn't send it, but also she doesn't want to risk irritating her real friends with crap e-mail, and you're in her address book, so what the hell.

I am so tired of getting frammed by frammers. I hate going to my Inbox and seeing an e-mail from a friend I hadn't heard from in weeks or months, looking forward to seeing what's up with them, and then opening up the e-mail and finding 12 Pieces of Ancient Chinese Wisdom that were actually written by a guy named Ted in Gobsmack, Nebraska in 1996, and the admonition to send them on right this minute or risk being infected with a painful and debilitating rash by vengeful Internet gods.

Just so you know, I delete every single ever-lovin' one of 'em. And the only bad thing that's happened to me so far is that I keep getting them.

Summertime, and the mama is lazy

So, it turns out I'm not passive-aggressive at all. I'm just passive. Far too passive to be aggressive. Almost too passive to be conscious. Dang, I love summer. I'm like a lizard on a hot rock--no motivation to move.

I never thought I'd say this, but the summer vacation seems to be flying by. The kids have been out of school for over a month, and I don't even dislike them yet. My son, when he's not practicing his operatic burping, is downright mannerly and solicitous. And my daughter, though she frequently ignores my admonitions to clean up her dolls, at least has the good graces not to ask where I've moved them to when they disappear. (Answer: the donation bin. I'll only ask you to clean up your dolls so many times. Like I said: I'm lazy.)

My next post will probably be about how the children are fighting like rabid badgers and making me so crazy I threaten to gouge out my own eyes with a spork. But for right now, life is good.