The Truth About Facebook

At first I resisted. Then I embraced. Then I grew weary. Ah, the cycle of next-gen. There were people I didn't know who wanted to be friends and people I did know with whom I did not want to be friends. The birthday function is good, but it only works if you religiously attend your facebook, which I have not been doing.

Yet good has come from the Book of Faces. This morning brought a wonderful surprise message in my inbox that someone wanted to be friends with me. Someone I wanted to be friends with as well. Someone who was way smarter than I was at tracking a person down (I had spent many a day saying, "you stupid expletive deleted why can't you remember his phone number - you certainly called it enough?"

Terrence was much more than a handsome man in brown shorts, he was my fledgling business's lifeline and a person who frequently saw me in my underwear. That kind of connection dies hard. For three or so years, Terrence was my UPS man. Now you might say to yourself that it's kind of a tenuous relationship, but when your UPS man is the only person you see all day (who isn't trying to sell you drugs), things change. I would feed Terrence my creations (I recall one especially rich dessert he popped into his mouth in one bite and then asked for another), fill him with cold drinks on hot days, and bum him cigarettes when he had run out or was trying not to buy packs so he could cut down. Terrence, from day one, furnished me with his cellphone number and made any number of detours to accommodate me and my silly schedule of packages. Terrence never left incoming packages with the neighbors - he knew better.

Terrence was a friend and then we moved, and we ditched the phones that had his number programmed into memory, and suddenly Terrence was no longer in our lives (he had sweet diminutives for devoted partner as well). I remember when we were in Bonaire realizing that I would have no way of bringing Terrence anything back because I didn't know where he was.

But that all changed this morning when enterprising Terrence found me on Facebook. I haven't yet had the time to stalk through all of his info, but the time is nearing. So while I get innumerable invites to someone's band's gig and a lot of pressure to become a member of Farmville, occasionally this invasive and addictive medium produces what I'm sure it's idealistic founders had hoped: a reconnection between lost friends.

Terrence, if you read this, I owe you a beer.

Does Any Of Us Have A Job Anymore?

I must update this blog and then read the updates of the blogs I have linked to.

I must, when the urge strikes, tweet my thoughts, and read the tweets of others (and can I just say that I understand none of the other tweets - this is probably my age but between the @s and the #s and the bit.lys, it's not even remotely language anymore - one in a tweet is ok, but when you @ a # with a .ly, my mind just cannot keep up anymore and, more to the point, I cease to find you informative and just find you annoying).

I upload photos to flickr and then take the time to look at the uploads of my friends (and I don't even have that many, thank god).

But then I read an article which tells me to check out a site, and I read a post that references another site, and all of a sudden what was once a manageable amount of time wasting has become a vocation (and kudos to the lucky few who have monetized this sort of thing).

I would like to read all of these things and look at the pretty pictures and comment on things, but I just don't seem to have the time to do that and also cook meals, WiiWorkout, speak 10-20 words to devoted partner and listen to 10-20 words in response, etc. etc.

In the end, I skim. And I HATE skimming. Skimming is only effective for horrible drivel assigned to you in poetry class, you know the stuff written by some stuffy be-courderoyed idiot who thinks he has the intel on Yeats. Pick up the main points, regurgitate them in a paper, and be done with it. But I WANT to concentrate on the media I favor. And I like discovering new media to be digested. But everyone seems to update all the time and I barely have enough time to update myself.

I guess I could buy a netbook and then, in the evenings, devoted partner and I could sit on the couch together with the television on in the background, each with a computer in front of us, perusing websites, but I kind of don't like the way that looks.

So I ask for help, since a lot of you seem to make time for this site, it makes me assume you make time for others. From whence that time? And are you concerned about getting fired?

Nopropos: I tried wearing blush yesterday, but I felt like an idiot. I am going to pretend my tan is still dark enough that I can get away with bare skin. I am however two days and counting on mascara.

Edited to add: crap, and that doesn't even count learning how to tag things - a concept which I have attempted to embrace, but obviously suck at.