The

Undeniable

Ruth

®

…and the Ruth shall set you free!

  • How Should I Respond to the Guy who Hit on me via LinkedIn?

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    Ruth Carter

    When it comes to social media, the easiest places to connect with me are Twitter and LinkedIn. Anyone can follow me on Twitter (and all my tweets are public) and as long as you look like a real person and not spam, I’ll accept your invitation to connect on LinkedIn. I only seek out people on LinkedIn if I know them in real life or if there’s someone I want to meet and LinkedIn is the only way I can contact them.

    Question 1 by Virtual EyeSee from Flickr
    Question 1 by Virtual EyeSee from Flickr

    I recently accepted an invitation to connect with someone on LinkedIn who lives out of state, who shortly thereafter sent me a question about whether I could help with a tax question for him and his business. My profile says I do business law so I’m not surprised to get a question about taxes that’s related to running a business. For the record, I don’t do tax law and I suggested he contact his state or county bar association and request a referral.

    He responded and thanked me, and then he asked ask if I was married because he’s “simply stunned at [my] beauty.” He wants to be my friend and get to know me better.

    How do I respond to that? Who hits on someone via LinkedIn? It’s weird, especially since we live in different states! I look at LinkedIn as a forum for professional networking so it threw me off guard to have someone approach me with a romantic tone, especially since he doesn’t know anything about me except what’s on my profile. It’s like he wants to date my resume. Is that bizarre to anyone else?

    I haven’t responded to this and I’m not sure if there even is an appropriate response. I’m not interested in getting to know him because (1) I don’t know him (and don’t plan to since he doesn’t live anywhere close to me) and (2) it’s weird that he hit on me via LinkedIn. (And people who do know me in real life know what a big deal it is for me to consider something “weird.”)

    If you have any suggestions about what I should say to this guy (or not) please leave it as a comment.

    PS – In case you haven’t figured it out, anything you do or say in my presence can and will end up on my blog. Life is blog material!

  • What’s Up with the Bad Gymnast Hair?

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    Ruth Carter

    Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely love gymnastics. I took classes starting at age 4; I competed through high school; and I plan my schedule around when competitions are on TV. I even have “my spot” at Wells Fargo Arena where I always sit to watch the ASU gymnastics home meets. It’s a fantastic sports that combines dynamics and grace in such a beautiful way.

    Bad Gymnast Hair (and this is nothing compared to how bad it gets) by Parker Knight from Flickr
    Bad Gymnast Hair (and this is nothing compared to how bad it gets) by Parker Knight from Flickr

    Here’s what I don’t get: over the last 4-5 years, girls’ hair has gotten really messy. When I was competing, our hair had to be pulled back tight and if we had any wispies, they had to be pulled out of the way with gel, clips, or both. Now a lot of girls are doing a ponytail where they pull it up but then pull it through halfway again. This style can look good, but now the way these girls are doing it. It looks like they rolled out of bed, whipped their hair up really quick, and then forgot to do it for the competition.

    At the Secret U.S. Challenge over the weekend, some of the girls had hair that looked ridiculous. You could tell some of them had really long hair – too long just to put in a ponytail. They should have braided it and folded it under or put it in bun but instead they had these knots on top of their heads or looked like they had some type of weird horse-inspired hairstyle. Some of them were really bad. (I’m not going to name names because these are children, but you know who you are.)

    I understand why a teen would want to do this, but I don’t understand why the coaches let them get away with it. My coaches never did. At one meet my coach thought my bangs were too long and she cut them right then and there. At the national championships one year, one of my teammates’ ponytails was a bit too long and my coach cut her hair in the hotel room.

    I don’t get it. This is a sport based on giving a flawless performance. These girls spend thousands of hours over the course of years perfecting their skills. On competition day these girls wear beautiful leotards and have perfect makeup. Why would they neglect their hair? Judges have discretion to take off points for “general impression.” If I were a judge and a girl had a sloppy appearance, I’d dock them for it.

    This is not the first time I’ve jumped on this soapbox. As one of “The Gays in Row 16,” this is one of my biggest pet peeves at ASU gymnastics meets. Those girls are beautiful, talented, and improved so much in the last few years, but they are notorious for having sloppy hair. Some of them look like they got up that morning, mindless threw up their hair in a rubber band, got mauled by a bear on their way to school, and then competed that night. I would send the team a gift basket of gel and maximum hold hairspray if I thought they’d use it.

    I hope the slobbification of USA Gymnastics ends soon. The US Gymnastics Championships is coming up in a few weeks and I hope the powers that be require the girls to have a flawless appearance from head-to-toe. The girls are too good to look so bad.

    This is how Gymnasts' Hair Should Look - Women line up for gymnastics by bryangeek from Flickr
    This is how Gymnasts’ Hair Should Look – Women line up for gymnastics by bryangeek from Flickr

  • Living with Insomnia

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    Ruth Carter

    My name is Ruth Carter and I’m an insomniac.

    you can't sleep? by skampy from Flickr
    you can’t sleep? by skampy from Flickr

    I have dealt with insomnia off-and-on for my entire adult life. There have been times when it was so bad that when I finally fell asleep, everyone around me would do whatever they could not to wake me up. Sometimes this meant letting me sleep in the most uncomfortable-looking position where they knew I’d be hurting when I woke up.

    One thing I’ve learned about insomnia is not to freak out about it. It’s pretty hard to die from sleep deprivation, you’re just going to be tired the next day. When you freak out about your insomnia, you make yourself anxious which makes the insomnia worse and it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.  Just accept that it’s temporary and that you’ll fall asleep eventually.

    My weird insomniatic habit is I’ll be tired in the early evening but by the time it’s time to go to bed, I’m wide awake again. I don’t get it. I just go with it. When I can’t sleep I try to stay mellow and watch TV, read a book, or see what my fellow insomniacs are saying on Twitter. If I’m wide awake, I’ll use the extra time to be productive and do things like sweep my floor and answer emails. If I’m at the don’t-bother-trying-to-sleep phase, I might as well put my time to good use, but I try not to do anything that’s going to wake me up or be such an undertaking that it will be a pain if sleepy time hits me in the middle of the project.

    Yawn! by formatc1 from Flickr
    Yawn! by formatc1 from Flickr

    I’m not a fan of sleeping pills (including melatonin) so I rarely take them. I heard it takes the body two days to realize it’s tired so the night of sleep that really matters is two days before a big event, not the night before it. I took something to help me sleep two nights before the LSAT and two nights before the bar exam. More places should really sell sleeping pills in single doses because the bottle of sleeping pills will expire between each incident I need them.

    The real downside of insomnia isn’t lack of sleep, it’s the side effects of sleep deprivation. Studies have shown that sleep deprivation causes cognitive impairments and slows your reaction times. It can be as bad as being drunk. And I don’t know about other people, but I get really crabby when I’m tired. But I usually know when I’m getting what my friend calls “cranky pants” and remove myself from social situations. If nothing else, I make myself take a power nap or at least lay down for twenty minutes. Mythbusters tested this theory with an experiment inspired by Deadliest Catch and showed that power naps improve functioning when you’re sleep deprived.

    Am I ever going to stop being an insomniac? Who knows. If it becomes a permanent part of my life, then so will napping.

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