Friday Feels

The motherhood and surveillance edition:

Big Charlie is watching you

Writer Lauren Sandler is blowing up my internet this week, talking about only children.  It seems like everywhere I turn, there is buzz about her book, One and Only: The freedom of having an only child and the joy of being one:

•     Why one child is enough for me - as an only child, myself, I can see the pros and cons of this.  There   were times that I was a little bit lonely as a kid, but I think it made me more imaginative and thoughtful.  Or maybe it made me selfish and deeply introverted.  Whatever.  All I know is that after one round of childbirth, I'm probably going to think, "Wow, let us never do that again" so I really can't see myself having more than one child, and these are great justifications to have up my sleeve.

•     The secret of being both a successful writer and mother: Have just one kid - Maybe this article should just be called, "Why it's a mercy that these unstable creative types only f*cked up one child"

Why Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes And why Scandinavian people are awesome.  I'd move to Finland just for those adorable onesies, if they came in my size.  Everyone knows that the Finns are winning at textile design.

Why should we even care if the government is collecting our data? I'm inclined to agree with Solove's interpretation of this issue.  I don't really feel like I have anything to hide from creepy old Uncle Sam, but at the same time, I don't want him peeping into the metaphorical windows of my life and filing away little non-contextualized bits of data for his government spank bank.  Sweet fancy Moses, now I'm gonna get it.  Worst, most rapey analogy.

Google's 200 Ranking Factors

Following up from a link I posted last week, Some people DID finish the article!  Full disclosure, I didn't finish this one.

Have you seen this Mean Girls parody set in Compton?

And last but not least, this:

Antoine Dodson makes an appearance in the Mean Gurlz video.  How is it that this song is almost three years old?!  I remember playing this and Double Rainbow incessantly during the summer when we were first married and living in Idaho.  What does it say about the pervasiveness of the internet in our lives, and how desensitizing it can be, if I'm getting happily nostalgic over a meme about a woman in the projects getting raped?  But the song is so catchy!  This morning I found myself randomly pulling up the video on my phone so I could listen it while I got ready.  The chorus is really so triumphant.  I know it lifted my spirits.

Sidenote:  Was the bed intruder ever caught?


With that, I bid you adieu.  May your weekend be filled with puppies, parenting, and privacy.  If you're into any of those things.