These are a few of my unfavorite things.

Two blog friends, Bijoux and Ron, did recent posts on things that annoy them. I decided I had to join in the crabbery. I tell you, I am rapidly edging my way toward shaking a cane in the air and yelling at kids to get off my lawn.

1. Since Bijoux started with Billy Eilish, I am starting with silly eyelash. The other day we went into a granite store and when the saleswoman turned around, I'm afraid I visibly recoiled. She had such long fake eyelashes and colored-in fierce brows that she looked startled and maybe a little frightened. Which stands to reason, I suppose, when you have dozens of tarantula legs glued to your eyelids. All I knew was that I could not take her seriously enough to work with her. But I don't get it. I'm fine with eye makeup, but not to such a clownish extent that it no longer bears a resemblance to anything natural. And on a related note, "influencers." People who are famous, or believe they are famous, because they have a lot of followers for their self-absorption on Instagram or TikTok. The writhing, the vocal fry, the rising inflection - I hate it all. And when I see someone endlessly mugging for selfies in public I just cringe. Why are people not embarrassed by their own behavior when they do that? 

2. Group texts. I do NOT want to be included in group texts. My baby sister recently had her 40th birthday and her husband asked family and friends to send video greetings. Which I reluctantly agreed to because I do love her. Then she sent out a group text after 9 PM to me and 17 other people. This old person was already asleep when the first ping woke me. After several more alerts from various responders, I turned my phone to silent but the vibrations continued to wake me. I finally got up and put my phone in another room, where the volley of texts continued until almost 11 PM. The only legtimate use for group texting that I can think of is when you and more than one other person are coordinating a get-together. And related to this one, zoom get-togethers. I don't mind one-on-one video things. Hell, I do that all day long for work. But the ones where you and a bunch of other people are awkwardly trying to have a social conversation where it is impossible to tell when it is reasonable to talk? That's not remotely enjoyable to me. And business zoom meetings are bad for another reason - I don't want to have to watch people listening to a speaker or be on camera myself as an audience member. Not long ago I was attending a professional meeting and one woman was in workout gear and walking on a treadmill the whole time. I don't need to see that - exercise on your own damned time.

3. Pinktober. For a whole host of reasons, I find it offensive. Look, we don't need "awareness," we need a cure for metastatic breast cancer. Every single woman who is treated for early stage invasive breast cancer spends the rest of her life at risk for distant recurrence. And when it comes back as metastases, it WILL kill you. At that point, you move into treatment until you die. There is nothing cutesy about cancer, and all the celebratory, pink, "fight like a girl" bullshit makes me livid. First of all, girls don't get breast cancer, women do. And men. Adults. Secondly, going into remission isn't a sign that you are a particularly good fighter, any more than having it return means you aren't strong enough. It's fucking cancer. So no, when October rolls around each year, I won't be wearing a pink boa and entering races whose primary goal is to enrich the folks who run the organizations rather than going to research for ways to treat and cure MBC. "Save the TaTas?" Hell no, save the lives of women and men who are suffering and dying. THAT would be worth celebrating.