GettyIn mid-February, the FBI raided Safya Yassin’s Buffalo, NY, apartment after being tipped off to the hundreds of online threats she allegedly made against members of the military and President Barack Obama. As the FBI’s investigation continued, they discovered that in addition to making threats from dozens of different Twitter accounts, she also allegedly shared…
via You may not think retweets are endorsements, but the Justice Department might — Fusion
I love learning about other cultures, so one of my favorite things about social media is getting to talk to people from around the world. I keep some pretty strict boundaries on my social media; for example, I’m not friends on Facebook with anyone I have not actually met in real life and I am not connected on LinkedIn with anyone I am not acquainted with professionally. While I’ve been fortunate to have worked and travelled internationally, those friends and connections on Facebook and LinkedIn still tend to be fairly monochromatic in the sense that my personal circles fashion around the same friends, lines of work, or school and work alumni.
My fairly recent opening up beyond these restricted venues has broadened my exposure to some great new circles. In 2015, my friend Tess and I were invited to represent the United States in the opening ceremonies for the New York City Marathon (which, by the way, was just as awesome as it sounds). I decided to start tweeting again so I could share some of the whole marathon experience with a broader audience.
When I ran the marathon previously, my one regret was that I felt I missed out on some of the international flavor the marathon provides by keeping my social media limited to my strict personal circles. I had so much fun interacting with other runners and meeting new people, I decided the time had come to start blogging again.
What a joy! So far in 2016, I’ve had visitors from 19 different countries, many of which have become followers who I’ve chatted with and visited their blogs. I so enjoy hearing their stories and perspectives. I’m particularly entertained by hearing how they feel about the insanity that is our current election drama.
I’ve also met more people from around the United States, which, if you’ve never visited here, is really like seven or eight or 30 different countries. The cultures of California and New York are nothing alike. Even the cultures between northern California and southern California can be individually described.
Thanks for visiting and reading and sharing your stories with me. I look forward to meeting and interacting with even more of you wonderful, fascinating people!
After a many-year sabbatical, I’ve decided to start blogging again. I went back and forth for a while, but as useful as personal journaling is for a writer, there’s nothing better than an audience to help exercise skills and to keep learning and growing. It has been a really long time, though. Curious, I looked back and discovered I’ve had this ErikaForPresident URL longer than I even realized. Turns out I started my first “real” blog circa mid 2004. I kept it up pretty steady until 2007 when things like MySpace and Facebook had grown enough in functionality and popularity that I decided to give them a try. MySpace lasted 
about a week, and I enjoy keeping up with friends and family on Facebook, but Facebook is much more personal than a blog so I keep mine locked down.
So here I am again. I look back at some of my old blog posts and laugh, like I do about most of my old writing. I’m sure I’ll look at this blog someday and laugh then, too. Luckily, I have no problems laughing at myself. Life is too short.
What do I want this blog to be about, anyway? I think, like my last blog, it will evolve over time. I’m sure I’ll write a lot about writing, and because one of my current writing projects is a book about Project Management and Agile, I’ll write a lot about those topics, too. As a reader, I appreciates a good book review and always turn to reviews to help me choose between all the billions of books out there. One of my New Years’ Resolutions was to write more, including actually completing book reviews of my own.
That’s a start, anyway. I’ll have lots of random thoughts I’ll share, I’m sure. I already have a long list of blog topics. One of the things I look forward to most is conversing with fellow bloggers. I get some of that on Twitter, but the character limit often forces us to DM, and if you tweet, you know how many junk DMs you get – conversations often get overlooked for days.
I hope you enjoy the evolution of ErikaForPresident. One of the topics at the top of the list? Why is my blog called ErikaForPresident?
It’s almost Valentine’s Day and while for many people that means making plans with a significant other, a large number of people will find themselves alone this year. Many of my single friends seem perfectly okay with that, but others lament and spend hours on Pinterest posting pictures of a someday dream wedding. I totally understand feeling lonely on Valentine’s Day or any other day once in a while; however, in this era of Keeping up with the Joneses, the desire to be in a relationship can take on a new flavor. The pressure to be in a relationship in order to appear happy… or worse, to actually be happy, seems to encourage a disturbing trend. The Fake Girlfriend/Boyfriend.
Now everyone loves the light-hearted fodder of a sitcom or romcom. Ok, well, maybe not Just Go With It, which seriously may be one of the worst movies of all time. But who doesn’t love humming along to My Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada? That being said, what if the fake S.O. isn’t a sitcom, though. What if it’s not just a way to get grandma off your back and it actually masks a societal shame of being single. Or if it’s a narcissistic compulsion? Could it be a symptom of a deeper mental crisis? Oh, Jan!
This may be old news to some people, but I just happened upon a news story today about an app called The Invisible Boyfriend. Really?!? This app lets users create, and communicate, with their fake boyfriend. As the website says, “HAVE TEXT CONVERSATIONS, SHARE PHOTOS, AND TELL A BELIEVABLE STORY ABOUT YOUR ‘INVISIBLE’ BOYFRIEND.” I wouldn’t self-identify as a feminist, but this whole phenomena just kills me. Why is it so bad to be single? And why is it such a problem for some people to have something that other people don’t have, at least at any given moment in time? Ladies, Ladies, Ladies! You’re making us all look bad. Get a grip. Also? Quit encouraging this behavior in others. It’s just not healthy.
In preparing to write this post, I found a wikihow site that gives instructions on How to Fake Having a Boyfriend. It gives tips, dos and don’ts, and even suggests an exit strategy.
Step #7 Stage a break up. Before you do this come up with a reason why and who initiated it. Opt for something believable. (Example: Your “boyfriend” cheated on you.) You may want to consider moping around for a few days, anxiously checking your phone for messages every ten minutes.
This is all just horrible and sad. If you’re one of these women who plan to spend Valentine’s Day with your very own George Glass, this message is for you.
You don’t need to do it. You think people care or are judging you, but they really aren’t. And if they are, why in the world would you care? Just walk away from that nonsense. Bottom line – You are you. You are not who you’re with (or not with), not what you own (or don’t know), not what you wear or where you live or what you ate for breakfast. All that a fake boyfriend will do for you is
If you’re single this Valentine’s Day, do something awesome for the love of your life. Yourself. Go have a spa day and get a facial. Read a book. Or do whatever it is you like to do when you’re off on your own. But please don’t embarrass yourself. A fake boyfriend (or worse, a series of fake boyfriends) is not as easy to pull off as you think. Even with invisible boyfriend pictures and texts, most people will figure it out pretty quickly.
A lot of my friends admit to categorizing Valentine’s Day as one of those “Hallmark Holidays” hyped to get people to spend money on cards and trinkets. They also admit to being the first in line at the Hallmark store. The expectation to participate in this holiday seems to become greater every year…and it used to drive me crazy. I’d always been far more comfortable giving gifts than receiving them.
A few years ago, my husband (then boyfriend) asked me to take the 5 Love Languages quiz. We had been going through a rough patch in our relationship and someone suggested to him that he might find the key to why his constant attempts to “demonstrate his love to me” might be falling shy of the mark. Interestingly enough, we both ended up learning quite a lot about each other.
Of the 5 Love Languages (Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, and Physical Touch), Receiving Gifts had landed at the very bottom of my list. My husband had given me gifts nearly every week since we’d met, and in our rough patch, had doubled the quantity and tripled the quality. What he learned was that a more 
infrequent (for him) and deeply meaningful gift spoke much more clearly to me than a constant barrage. I learned to accept gifts much more gracefully as I finally understood that gift giving is a love language – a way to demonstrate love, not a way to buy love.
In large part due to an over-indulgent Christmas, my husband and I agreed last Valentine’s Day to not exchange gifts. It was, after all, just a Hallmark Holiday, and we made some significant home purchases right after Christmas. My husband’s interpretation of “not exchanging gifts” meant he didn’t want to receive anything and I absolutely had to have new earrings and an adorable hand-made card. Knowing now what I do about the languages of love, I couldn’t be even a little irritated. As his top language is Acts of Service, I knew he’d enjoy a delicious home-cooked meal and a nice massage. I guess Valentine’s Day isn’t so bad, after all.
Erika for President 
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