That is SO 2014. I hope.

Lately, when I’ve gotten online, I’ve found myself to be much less tolerant of…well…just about everything. I haven’t exactly been my happiest self recently, and when I’m like this, I tend to have decreased patience for people, children, noise, the internet, and my dirty house. It’s why I’ve all but disappeared from Facebook. The whole place makes me want to smack the shit out of people (not you, of course — I still love you…).

Anyway, here’s my list of blogging stuff I really don’t want to see in 2015. Don’t be surprised if certain aspects of it become null and void in the future. I have little doubt that I’ll turn myself into a complete hypocrite and start participating in at least one of these after I’m feeling “sunny” again.

That’s the beauty of complaining — the things you loathe the most are almost always the things you do yourself. But on with the list…

Lists of Anything

No, the irony that I’m making a list that bitches about making lists has not been lost on me. This, however, mainly applies to titles. I realize we’re all trying to get readers hooked. I realize there are about a billion new posts being thrown out into cyberland every day and we all need to stand out somehow. But I will write Buzzfeed and Upworthy on a wooden post and flog myself over the head with it if I have to see one more post about 15 ways to arrange couch pillows or 10 reasons why having a toddler is worse than ebola.

Anthologies

Remember when we were in college and anthologies were compilations of the year’s best short stories or poetry and there was, maybe, one of them each? Now everyone is in an anthology. And everyone is writing an anthology. Sure, I get it — you find a subject that you have one perspective on and suddenly you think, “Wow, this is so much bigger than just one blog post!” And sure, it made sense for everybody to jump on the bandwagon and churn them out for a while. But now? It’s like your friend who decides that gluten is bad and feels compelled to talk about it at every single gathering. We all act like we’re interested and we care, but we really just want an excuse to slink off and find the bar.

Actually, my next project is to get 10,000 writers together, ask each one for a sentence, publish them all, have the book print on demand, and then convince every one of them buy it. It’ll be the most epic circle jerk of all time.

Posts About How Being a Not-So-Great Mother Makes You a Great Mother

Okay. We get it. You make macaroni and cheese for dinner and don’t clean your floor for two weeks. Sometimes you yell. You don’t have pin-worthy teacher gifts. The kids stay in their pajamas all day.

You rebel, you.

Yes, I started out saying this shit years ago — but that was years ago — and it’s just gotten so damned redundant. So stop. Please stop. I’m even so sick of myself that I can barely stand it.

Can you tell I’m changing the name of my site soon?

Another Funny Parenting Book. Ever.

See above. We’re done. As I like to tell the kids, you may be able to get away with telling a joke twice. By the third time, it’s just sad.

Elf on the Shelf

This includes everything — the elf, the book, the paraphernalia associated with it. But mostly, I’m talking about the 5 million posts that dissect, demean, adore, explore, psychoanalyze, and generally just make us all wish that someone would create a time machine to intercept the manuscript of this book from the editor who green-lighted it,  just so we wouldn’t have to hear one more person break down the positives or negatives of why a piece of plastic and felt from China should or shouldn’t be in our homes — on a shelf — for a month.

 

So there you go. I was going to add something about nitpicking and complaining, but since that’s generally all I do, I figured it’d be a tough point to get around.  Suffice to say, if you don’t hear from me for a while, it’s because I’m hard at work on a post for a parenting anthology that lists all the reasons I’m still a good mom even though I don’t do Elf on the Shelf. Take care all. Have a happy, healthy 2015.