An Expert Opinion

You know how Olympic commentators tell you when someone doesn’t have their toes pointed quite right, or why a particular maneuver is impressive? You start to develop this quasi-expert knowledge of the sports you follow, which you then promptly forget for the next four years.

Wouldn’t it better to have commentators for more quotidian things? Things you could learn that would really have an impact on your quality of life? For example, we could each be assigned a commentator for our early twenties who would follow us around offering insight into our performances:

“This maneuver she’s attempting could be a bit psychologically tough on her, because throughout her dating career, she’s proven to be a nervous talker. Let’s see how she does…

Oh! Oh! Big-time overshare, Bob. That is devastating for her. Let me just explain what happened a bit here, her date did not need to know she’s still having drunken hookups with her ex. Wow! That was out of nowhere.

Whew. That is really gonna cost her.”

Mighty Love: Bluishorange

Bluishorange is written by Alison Headley, who lives in Austin and has been blogging since the dawn of time. I’ve meet Alison a few times at SxSW, and I feel a long-distance affection for her, though I hardly know her. I don’t read her site regularly, mostly because she doesn’t post very regularly, but I love to stop in every few months and root for her. She writes things like this:

“Sometimes I wish more people had affectionate nicknames for me.”

And shows you magic things like:

Intricate Snowglobes and
Storm Troopers at work; at play

Mighty Love: Nothing But Bonfires

Nothing But Bonfires is written by travel writer Holly Burns, who grew up all over the globe and landed here in San Francisco. We met at Blogher, during the Mighty Haus launch party, and I was too wine-soaked to insist that she sit down and relay her entire life story. Check out her about page first, as her life story is a good one. An excerpt:

“My favorite piece of punctuation is the parentheses, with the semi-colon taking a close second. Things I like include: oatmeal, going to the library, gold shoes, the word “brouhaha,” Trader Joe’s, beauty products with clever names, reliving scenes from My So Called Life in my head, black licorice, the page in Us Weekly where they say “Stars: They’re Just Like Us” and then show them looking zitty and doing laundry, San Pellegrino, Target, Mark Ruffalo, when people say things like “um, clean up in aisle three from all the names you just dropped,” German accents, free samples, people who can drive stick, hydrangeas, when the phone rings in the middle of the night and it’s just a wrong number and NOT someone on the other side of the world dying, men in pink shirts, and Nigella Lawson.“