Need to get this in front of my exec team by EOD Monday so hoping to sync up EOD Sunday.

I do not ever miss my old job. Some of the people, I miss; I miss being in the city, eating in non-chain restaurants, taking a lunchtime walk along the San Francisco Bay. I miss office in-jokes, skiving off work to go get Blue Bottle, meeting up for drinks. I even miss, a tiny bit, actual editing, writing and website work -- I was good at it.

But I do not ever, EVER miss 98% of what I did, or the people who sent me goat-horned bullshit like this.

8 – Can we get more livestock and wild animals that move along the ground according to their kinds? Again, the passion points for our target users (slide eighteen) are ground and animals that move along the ground. Whatever we can do to increase the amount of ground will go a long way toward converting our users from passive consumers into brand evangelists.

This is what a feminist looks like

So the kids're into a new-to-them show, a bland and ultra-formulaic computer-animated thing apparently written by Google scriptbots, called Paw Patrol. It stars six "pups" -- as in, puppies -- and one teenage (?) boy who is their ... idk, their minder? Scout leader? Whatever, he's the one who receives the incoming distress calls of various types at HQ, comes up with a plan, and gives the pups their orders, after which the day is, inevitably, saved (often, this involves apps, like on an iPad -- it's kind of confusing). There's a Moustache Pete type character (who does not have an Italian accent), and the town's mayor is a black woman, so -- I guess there's diversity kind of? Anyway, all the pups have cute short sassy names (e.g. Rocky -- I'm pretty sure Rocky is one of them) and some type of special skill with equipment to match, all of which are called into action -- COLLABORATIVE action -- with each mission. Aside from its general kiddie-show banality, my main beef with it was that there's just one female pup. Really, Paw Patrol? Grrrr.

But so then one night at dinner, Kid Gleemonex, age six, randomly muses, "I love Paw Patrol. But only one of the pups is a girl."

I say, "Yeah -- you noticed that too, huh?"

"Uh-huh," she says, with champion-level eyebrow. Then, sunnily and with an air of utter conviction: "But it's OK. She can fly."

It's kind of like the time I forgot how many times they say "fuck" in The Big Lebowski, and by the end of it, I think she wanted to kidnap me and send me to some kind of Goodthinkful Re-Education Camp.

Here's how come I can't watch TV with my mom: Because no matter what show, movie, miniseries, or Spectacular Television Event it is, which is either on randomly or has been specifically selected by me to be Mom-Safe Viewing(TM) -- Bubble Guppies, Psych, a Yankees game, The Brady Bunch, an infomercial about coin collecting, Antiques Roadshow, what have you -- it's going to be The One With All the Sex. Guaranteed.

Those HBO GO commercials've got nothing on what it's like when me, my mom, and a televising device are in the same room. I'm fuckin 40 years old, married with two kids, a full-grown well-adjusted liberal feminist, and I still just vibrate with anxiety, waiting for the inevitable -- ahh, yep, there it is, the goddamn couple on House Hunters just made a bedroom joke and wouldn't let it go, repeated it five fuckin times, with variations and lots of awk laughter, while my mom seethes on the couch next to me and I die inside. Thanks guys.

And it's not like I'm safe from this when the TV isn't on, either. We were talking -- just talking! -- about The Americans, which -- FYI -- is one of the most awesome shows on TV, and my mom says she watched "One part of one episode!" -- and guess which one? Guess! Yes, the one where the teenage girl walks in on her parents* "DOING SIXTY-NINE!", Mom half-yells, with more disgust and contempt than Donald Sterling talking about black people. If I could've, I'd've burst into flames and perished right there.

All you people with, like, these healthy adult relationships with your parents specifically w/r/t sexy stuff -- my Shatner, how does that work?

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*Who, btw, are married. To each other. Which you would think would blunt the fury somewhat? But, as my mom put it, "They just HELD on that shot! For way longer than anybody needed to understand what was going on! They WANTED us to see that girl's reaction! It was GRATUITOUS!" It ... wasn't gratuitous. There's a ton of sex on this show, plenty of it gratuitous, but this particular scene actually was important to the plot. So.