Consider this:

Like Me, If You Dare

This essay you’ve just started reading – what do you think about it so far? Do you like it, or do you “Like” it? Would you Forward it or Share it? Might you go so far as to Recommend it? In our world of click-based ego, I’m as guilty as the next poster – I mean, person – when it comes to obsessively checking for responses to something I post. Even with my barely-there online presence, I find myself jones-ing for the delicious dopamine rush that follows a friendly comment or a kindly share. Although I irritate the heck out myself in the process, I refresh my social media pages hoping for smiley faces and thumbs-up emoticons from obliging friends and family. If I get some positive feedback from a stranger, well, my self-worth blasts off like a rocket ship on a mission to Mars.

When nothing happens – when my post is un-shared or un-liked (not the same thing as disliked, mind you) or the comments section remains blank – my fragile little ego goes fetal. Curled up. Protective. Downright defensive, frankly. Screw you, my ego screams to absolutely no one but myself. I never cared what you think, anyway . . .

My ego is a liar.

Of course I care. Not as much as our kids and other digital natives whose self-esteem is tied directly to online approval but enough to feel just a teensy bit deflated when my ingenious words, hilarious pet video or some otherwise brilliant insight is completely ignored. Considering how little time I actually spend posting, sharing and liking in the first place, I’m the first to admit my sensitivity about this is really, really dumb.

Inanity aside, this whole business of recommendations has been on my mind because I recently made a good old-fashioned in-person referral. You know, the kind of exchange that happens when a friend says, My hairdresser is booked solid for the next two months and you say, I have the best hairdresser ever! When you see your pal a week later, it’s 75 degrees and sunny but she’s wearing a black beanie pulled low down over her forehead with her hair tucked up so far inside her hat there’s not a stray strand in sight.

Crap.

Turns out orange is not the new blonde.

I’ve been on the receiving end of a referral-gone-bad, too. A few years back, a trusted friend recommended her house painter during our kitchen renovation. Said painter went after my once mirror-smooth kitchen cabinets with a rough, nubby roller. It cost a whole heap of time and money to hire someone else to fix the problem.

It’s hard to know why a hairdresser, therapist, movie, restaurant or contractor is a perfect fit for one person and is disaster for someone else. Unfortunately, it’s also impossible to predict. Despite my less-than-perfect track record, I still offer recommendations, but these days I’ve taken to qualifying any endorsement: “I’m definitely not saying this will work for you, but in my personal experience …” My referral may come across as lukewarm, but at least I don’t feel quite as responsible when a friend’s hair color has shades of citrus.

Maybe Facebook should update its Reaction emoticons once again. I’d love to select a “Disclaimer” face, an expression that suggests a subtle shrug or somehow conveys, “IMHO” or, more specifically, “If you waste precious minutes of your life reading or watching something just because I did, don’t blame me.”

Like this idea? You know what to do.

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Cook this:

Roasted Broccoli

We eat a lot of broccoli in our house. When I roast it, I’m lucky if it gets to the table for serving because my kids like to eat it straight off the baking pan. If you do wind up with leftovers, roasted broccoli is delicious served cold and tossed into a salad.

Roasted Broccoli

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

1 large head broccoli, washed and cut up into bite-size florets.

2 Tbs (approximately) olive oil

2 Tbs (roughly) soy sauce or tamari

1 Tbs (or so) sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

Put broccoli in a mixing bowl. Add all the ingredients and toss until thoroughly coated. Arrange in a single layer on a baking tray. Bake for 15-20 minutes, flipping the florets after about 10 minutes, until the broccoli is nicely browned on both sides.

Note: I often skip the mixing bowl and mix everything together right on the baking tray.

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Read this:

The Accidental Life: An Editor’s Notes On Writing And Writers by Terry McDonell

I can’t remember why I ordered The Accidental Life from the library, but I must have read a review somewhere along the way and added it to my “must read” list. I’m so glad I did. The author, Terry McDonell, has been an editor at Outside, Rolling Stone, Esquire and Sports Illustrated. He’s worked with Hunter S. Thompson, P.J. O’Rourke, Tim Cahill and countless other writers and journalists. In his memoir, McDonell shares essays (in true journalistic style, each one opens with a word count and closes with “End It”) that recount fascinating, often mind-boggling moments like the time “Hunter” mailed him a huge wooden crate packed tight with bubble wrap. Instead of containing the anticipated (and promised) manuscript of his new novel, Hunter had sent McDonell

“a four-by-eight-foot plywood sheet with crossed polo mallets in the middle; ammunition belts with live .50-caliber rounds had been hung on it, and the whole thing weighed a couple hundred pounds. Hunter had titled the collage in red spray paint across the top and attached numerous personal totems (photos, press cards, bar napkins, X-rays, notes, quotes, lipstick, a joint or two, letters, court records…) so that most of the plywood was covered. It took two UPS freight guys to carry it into my office.”

The Accidental Life is packed with stories about the complex, challenging and occasionally confounding people he meets, works with and genuinely befriends, from difficult editors to impossible-to-pin-down writers. There are countless tales of drugs and booze, too. But McDonell also offers rare professional insights into the careful balance an editor must strike between carefully yet invisibly massaging a writer’s words and ideas – and ego. He writes about the nuts-and-bolts of the literary business, too. In a chapter called “Covers, Newsstands, Hits,” McDonell recalls the backstory behind one of Rolling Stone’s best-selling cover headlines. Accompanying a photo of Jim Morrison were the words,

He’s hot,

He’s sexy

and He’s dead.

McDonell notes, “It was a brilliant cover … a meld of idea, execution and timing that pulled huge newsstand sales. For any cover to work it has to be surprising, smart in some way that throws attitude and handsome. Check, check and check.”

This book is long – it has more than 75 essays – and I kept expecting to get tired of the memoir before I finished it. Instead, I read The Accidental Life to the very end, and now I’ve bought it to add to my own collection. Check.