Friday, July 17, 2009

Who are you and why did you "friend" me?

To date, I have 58 friends on Facebook (FB).

On occassion, I get friend requests from people that, apparently, like to collect friends because -- as you all know -- he who friends the most wins... um... wins... wins what? To the best of my knowledge, no one wins anything for having 783 friends more then the next person. Actually, I'm often hard-pressed to keep track of my 58 friends. (I mean, OMG, one can only have so many BFFs, y/k.)

I haven't much time to "poke" and "superpoke." I sometimes "send a round" of various drinks, but rarely are they all imbibed, meaning that I don't get points enough to unlock more concoctions or to become cyber-drunk. I wonder what that feels like -- and should I have a designated typist for those times when I am virtually toasted?

There are days when I get the chance to send special on-line charms to friends for their on-line charm bracelets, but I can only send 15 each day -- meaning that friend #16 has to wait until the next day. And how am I supposed to determine who is important enough to get a charm today and who is not important enough, so thus must wait until tomorrow?

Also, when I send a round of hugs, what if I forget someone? And is it appropriate to "hug" my male friends? After all, not all of them are ones I'd hug in real life. Actually, ditto for some of the women I friend. Is there a "send a handshake" option?

Oh dear.

It's really quite interesting, all of this social contract stuff on FB. So much to worry about. Take, for example, the two friends who vanished from my friend list within days of each other and could not be found for anything. Being that I considered them good friends, I actually spent long minutes wondering why they un-friended me and trying to figure out what happened. Turns out, happy day, that they didn't un-friend me. They deleted their profiles. In essence, they un-friended themselves from everyone.

I felt so much better. It's nice to be part of a giant group of un-friends, that means that it's nothing personal.

In the realm of un-friending, I myself have committed that very action. It's true. To my knowledge, no one missed me. If someone un-friends up and you don't notice, were you ever friends? (That's much like my other question: if you blog and no one reads it, did you really blog?)

Given the apparently angst that comes to me with FB, it's obvious that I don't tweet. Twittering would probably put me over the cyber-edge. I have too much on my mind to keep it to under 140 characters and -- frankly! -- I'm not sure I'm interesting enough (or boring enough?!) to make tweeting titillating enough to merit followers. Maybe once I sell my novel, I'll send out vital tweets like "buying my venti tea at Starbucks right now" and "wow, that pizza was really good!"

Maybe.
But probably not.
(Tweet, that is. I've every intention of selling that novel once I finish killing off the dead first husband.)

Monday, July 13, 2009

All Stressed Out and No One to Choke

At the risk of making several readers laugh hysterically: I am a calm person.

I don't yell, I don't scream, and I never lose my temper. In the face of others yelling and screaming, I serenely sit and wait, watching the show, until the performers tire and are ready to be sane. I live with the idea that I cannot change people's behaviors, only my reactions to them. How very zen. Very stoic. If I keep myself in check, I can avoid a lot of issues. I am quite the lady, in fact. It's something I work hard to be, because everyone likes women who are ladies. We're easier to handle, easier to deal with, and easier to control.

Until we break, anyway. Until our bodies scream that it's high time we knocked off the "good girl" shitck and moved into "real person (complete with emotions)" mode.

No, I'm not about to turn into a ranting anything. Sorry. Go watch some other sideshow. However, due to this calm nature of mine, I can now tally three ambulance rides in my life.

One, just a week prior to my tenth birthday, was due to some guy who lived at the top of the hill taking a spare tire out of his trunk and leaning it against his car. Seems he forgot that round objects roll... and moments later I was flattened by the maverick tire. No injuries of merit, though the sling that I was to wear for a few days was pretty cool.

The second, the winter before I got pregnant with Gav, was earned after I hit ice and then a wall. The backboard I was strapped to was not pretty cool. Neither was the whiplash.

Number three was just a few weeks ago, when my body made the decision that I needed to get a handle on a few things and get my stressors in order and staged a revolt in the form of an anxiety attack (rather like a heart attack, I learned, but without the pain). I suppose one could call it a tradition of sorts in that I was exceedingly calm the entire time -- just as I was when the tire hit me and when I hit the wall. (Can you even have a calm panic attack? Is that an oxymoron?)

So there I was, finding it impossible to take a deep breath and wondering at the odd tingling sensation in both of my hands. I suppose I would have panicked if there had been any pain. But there wasn't. I just, as I kept saying, "felt funny."

Obviously, everything checked out okay. I was given orders to relax and slow down -- which made me laugh rather heartily once the doctor left the room. You see, I did slow down recently. I'm between writing gigs, not adjuncting, and only working my day job. Essentially, I work my eight-hour day and go home to my son and make dinner and play with him a bit and go to bed. Any slower and I'd be in a coma.

However, doctor's orders is doctor's orders. Never let it be said that I don't know how to listen. In the quest to relax, I've since contracted three writing gigs, have taken on cleaning out the basement, and signed up for karate.

It's nice to be back to normal...