I HAVE DECIDED

I don't have what it takes to respond to social network requests. So I quit them. Yes that's what I did. Rid myself of the stress of trying to keep up with it, maaaan!

This morning while I was tooling around my facebook page, which by the way I drug myself into kicking and screaming against my better judgement in order to BEEEE more frequently social with more of my friends and family in a more updated way, (see previous post) I was horrified to run upon a double column of 'requests' from friends. All kinds. Of requests that is, not friends. That too but that's not news, and it's fabulous. *_* In total, there were two hundred and seventeen requests. Hugs, eggs, flowers, family tree thingies, songs, you name it. My heart fell. It took me an entire cup of coffee and a protein shake to maneuver around my Face Book (it really is a book, wow....) and figure out that my application settings were set so that I wasn't being notified (duh) when I got a request. So they had piled up in this spot that was obviously pretty tucked away until SHAZAAAAM! this morning, the double column list, the fonts, and the colors became so noticable that even ObbyLivious here noticed.

Irony of all ironies......

This is the same reason I don't participate in Secret Santa and Secret Pal exchanges. I can't keep up.

Talk about pet peeves. I have one friend whose pet peeve is gossip. One whose pet peeve is grammar. One whose pet peeve is people who interrupt others. One whose pet peeve is people who correct others. One whose pet peeve is people who don't take care of themselves. One whose pet peeve is passive-aggressiveness. One whose pet peeve is people who have too many pet peeves (that one makes me laugh. hard.) One whose pet peeve is people who don't eat healthy. One whose pet peeve is women with big hair. One whose pet peeve is people who drive hooptie rides. (those last two tend to go together, by the way) The list goes on......

Well. MY new top #1 pet peeve is overdone social networking. I have a friend who has made a big - uh, I don't know what to call it....game? competition? pride point? out of how many friends she can collect on facebook, how many followers on Twitter. She grieves when she loses a follower. The fact that she even keeps up.......blech. A measure of self worth based on an internet network group. Makes me sad.

I got a new computer the other day and it came with Skype. Nowwwww, I've been hearing about this forever, and apparently this is a means of making free phone calls over the internet. But I already have that. So I'm deleting that one. Whew. One down....

I'm resisting the pressure to join, add on, become a member of, include myself, take part in, and even reciprocate excessive computer and/or social network applications. That last one's gonna hurt, but I counted up how long it was going to take me to pay back two hundred and seventeen requests, at approximately a minute per request, whether all at once or as they come in. They're generous, they're wonderful, they're sent/given by friends, but they're not the reason I joined and I gotta cut it off somewhere. I already spend too much time on the computer, in my own estimation. Besides. What is UP with those dang eggs......it's not even Easter!

So here's the thing about pet peeves. It's only mine....... I love watching my friends do those gift-y things to each other. No judgments, wouldn't make anyone feel bad about doing something just because it's my pet peeve.

A LITTLE CAMARADERIE

This is one of my favorite pictures from this year's Spring Break beach trip.

The photos I pick out are rarely anyone else's picks. This one for example is so dark you can't see the childrens' faces. Wouldn't matter since they're facing the other direction. Their faces aren't the point of the picture for me though. Maybe it's just special to me because I know it's them - I know their profiles so well; I know Jr Mint's cowlick and head shape and #1 son's body, the shape of his feet and that low, lowwwww spot where his pants band sits.

This picture is so meaningful because of the moment it captured between them. The shadows just made it even better. It sort of makes me feel as though I have to guess a little about the detail in their expressions. I really wonder if #1's eyes, especially the right one, are squinting a bit from mischief, or if they're big and round from the onset of a great idea he's explaining to his brother.

I'm having this one transferred onto a canvas and stretched over an artists' frame.

MY FACE HAS A BOOK NOW or, I've stepped into the year 2009

I thought I was a pretty updated gal. Truly. Just goes to show how one's reality can be skewed in an embarrassingly gigantic proportion quite akin to the circus mirror that makes you look short and wide like Humpty Dumpty with a bad case of gas. I have an iPhone and I'm not afraid to use it. I keep my calendar on it, my address book on it, my grocery list on it, my notes on it, my pictures on it, my recipes on it, books on it - written and audio, magazines and newspaper on it, songs .....
I have email accounts, several for different purposes, I sync this to that and that to this. I share my synced stuff with other folks so we're all synced up. I can talk on the phone and look up stuff on it at the same time and while I'm doing that I can look something up on the computer and talk to you on the computer too. Send you something on the computer while I'm talking to you on the computer and the phone aaaaaaaaaaaaall at the same ding dang time.

And I can do 5th grade math. While I'm doing all the above.

Sound impressive. . . no. Everybody can do all that stuff all at one time now. Daily grind. Regular bidness. If you can't do all that at one time you can't get through the day these days. Not only can you not get a job, but I'm here to tell ya you can't make it through a PTA meetin', gerl. Most folks try to do all that while they're drivin'. Ok now I'm exaggerating. Ha.

So anyhow, last week I was talking to one of my husband's cousins. There are hundreds of 'em, law me. Oh are you on Facebook? she says, eyes big, tilts her head SSEWWWWWW innocently. Lots of the cousins are; that's how they're keeping up with each other these days. No, I said. It's all I can do to check my email often enough and respond to them all between soccer games blah blah yada you know the rest. Then there are text messages and the twitter doololly.....whew. My seventeen year old niece is texting me every other day, and I'm getting tweets (sounds so dirty, sheesh) here and there from people all over the world telling me all kinds of innocuous, really bland things that folks are doing or thinking or wondering, and what I'm wondering is how much time I've got left before my eleven year old gets interested in all this uber communication and mostly, whatever happened to wonderful, beautiful, contemplation, reflection, being in the moment you're really IN.

So I'm sitting on the soccer field and I get a text from my brother. When I text him back I ask Hey, do you do facebook?

Of course, he says. It's a great way to keep up with what's going on with everybody, especially folks who are far away.

Keeping up with people I love, that can't be a bad thing. So I thought I'd check it out, but it turns out you can't check it out unless you have an account. THE FAMOUS WAY TO GET SUCKED IN TO MOST EVERYTHING IN LIFE. . . the five little words - You Must Be Logged In.
That's how I became a blogger. That's how I got an email account. That's how I became an online banker.



So now I have a facebook page. *_* And it turns out that I only thought I knew what was going on in the world and how connected people were. Right off the bat Facebook asked me if I wanted it to take my email address book and check it for friends. It found that 118 of my contacts had facebook pages. WHO. KNEW. People I go to church with, people I live next door to, people whose kids bully mine, my chiropractor, people I sit next to at committee meetings, scout meetings, go to parties with, people who teach my kids, coach my kids, cut my hair, massage my back, do our portraits, roof my house, work with my husband, sell me stuff, it is pervasive!!!! And within three days, sure 'nuff, Ronny's cousin was right. I have five of his cousins as friends, one aunt, two nephews and a niece. Most of them are people we don't see but once a year at Christmas. So if this is the only way to see them, how glad I am their face has a book too.

Happy Earth Day, and Hello Again, no the earth didn't swallow me up.....

An abandoned blog, how sad. This is part of my Earth Day clean-up. I am re-activating, greening up my blog.

Hello all you happy people! I should start by skimming my own blog but if I did that I would use up the time I've allotted for blogtime. It's been awhile. So long in fact I don't recall the subjects I wrote about last but no matter. I know what I want to say now. I haven't been compelled to write. For almost a year it seems like - at least - I have been uninspired excepting the mini storytelling episode that only manifested itself from a daily life experience, landing in a note to a friend or a post on my message board. The part perspiration and part inspiration ditty must be specifically if you're getting paid because I never have broken a sweat . . . . wait a minute . . . . maybe that's for good writers. . . . oh hell I can't take time to think about all that deep stuff. Anyway about the inspiration. For me it's part inspiration and part habit and part having the right environment to write. So if I have forty projects going and constructon havoc all around me I can't write. Maybe partially because of the physical environment, maybe partially because me pea brain's so cluttered with trying to get the projects done I can't think about getting inspired to write, maybe because I'm out of the habit, who knows.....

Maybe I'm a fair weather writer.

My Dad and my sister-in-law say I should take my writing tablet or computer (respectively) and go out in the pasture or to the library (again, respectively) and write. May I clarify that both of these lovely individuals have reared their children and kicked them out of their (respective) nests?

Now, I will admit that writing is, like family get-togethers, Pilates, vitamins, and girl parties, therapeutic for me. (How many times have I said 'me' in this post? Yikees.) However it is not like Pilates where I can go every Thursday. It isn't like vitamins where I can go to the cabinet and pour out a measured handful and take my recommended dosage every day. It isn't either like girl parties where I can schedule an event and invite my favorite mix and number and choose a spot to meet. And it especially isn't like family get-togethers where with one call, a little house-cleanin', and a crock pot of chili I can surround myself with those who love me and each other most. It has to hit me. I can't hit it.

But that last one - the family get-togethers......... that's where I'm most likely to get hit.

Appropo of nothing sort of, we were on the way to a friend's house for a party a few weeks ago and Jr. Mint asked "Now where are we going again?"

#1 said "We're going to a friend reunion at the ___________'s house."

"A what?" I said.

"A friend reunion," says he. "You know. Like a family reunion, only but cep with friends instead."

I like it. I like it a lot. It inspires me.