Matrix...? Inception..? Facebook!

Now, that's a damn scary conclusion...

So, I created this blog once upon a time, and did so anonymously, so that I could feel free to talk about certain relationships in my life and certain people and not compromise their privacy.  That just because I wanted to share things about me, didn't mean I should share things about them.

So what do you do when you create an anonymous blog for that purpose, and then you meet folks doing it, and then you want to share stuff about them? But about you.  But about them??

Do I create an anonymous blog within the blog?  Hell - that seems like a lot of work to cultivate a new set of followers, and frankly, with three different worlds out there, I would get very confusing.  Matrix-like .. Inception-like.

It seems my only choice is to go *gasp!* back to Facebook...

Hmm....

Today's Dalai Lama Post

The following seems quite fitting in light of my last two blog posts.  It was in my morning Facebook News feed (*gasp* she still looks at Facebook even though she's now in love with Twitter... ? It's like she's cheating....)

In particular, discussing my post on Practicing Patience recently with a friend, I like the acknowledgment that we sometimes create our own problems, too.  Frankly, I think that is hard for many of us to recognize that the problems we have are ones we created, and perhaps, things might be just a wee bit easier for ourselves if we would stop creating so many for ourselves! ;)

Yeah, that was a long run-on sentence.  Hope the grammar police don't come back.  ;)

A rose named Borg...

Original Title (so you can understand the original theme I was writing from): 
Rocks, Hard Places, Awkwardness and a Game Called Jenga

I've just had another individual from Twitter politely note, "I just realized I don't know your real name".  When I politely ignored that particular comment, she less passively (after politely waiting for one or two more exchanges) directly asked, "So... not gonna tell me your real name?"

There is only one person I've met on Twitter who knows my real name.  My full real name.  One other person knows my first name.  That's it. (So, yes, you two, you should feel REALLY special, but you can do so quietly)

And that is not an easy decision.  And by next week, that circle may increase. 

The first one who I gave it to had shared some quite intimate details about herself by e-mail earlier in the day, and that evening we were chatting by g-chat, and twenty minutes into the conversation she stated, finally, near the end of the conversation: "You have to tell me your name. I can't call you the borg blog!"

Um, yes you can?  And her argument, as go all the arguments I get, is "who am I going to tell?"

If she were to disclose herself (which I am asking her not to), she'd tell you that all she got for a long time was just my first name.  In fact, the last name slipped really only because I sent her an e-mail from the wrong account.  (Dratted iPhone and human error). 

This is not easy for me.  I do not like living in closets.  I do not like hiding who I am.  I have no desire to be the tiny "wizard" hiding behind some great contraption of fire and smoke appearing to be bigger than who I am.  I HATE closets (except the big walk-in kinds where I can keep my clothes that I've never actually had the joy of having...).

I have written several blog entries already about anonymity.  I don't know if I've tagged them all, but you'll see several of them if you click on the label over there on the right.  This is something I've struggled with.  And still struggle with.

At some level, in my last anonymity post, I acknowledged that I could not keep my two worlds separate forever.  But that each time one side touches the other side, it's like taking out a piece in a game of Jenga.  The first pieces are easy, and bring no significant threat to the structure.  Really, only the dog wagging its tail will knock it down. As a side note, playing Jenga with a yellow lab puppy, by the way, is very hard to do!  But there does come a time where you've taken out so many pieces it makes the structure very precarious, and even the slight vibrations from the plane taking off nearby or the train rumbling by (I've lived both near airports and train tracks) will knock it down while you aren't even looking.

Part of the reason for this blog, I've admitted openly, is as a way for me to heal from the loss of some important people in my life.  People I've loved dearly.  People I still love dearly.  While really I am writing in here only about me, I'm not.  And I live in a small enough town that you would know who (crap, what was the name I gave him, oh, yeah) Tom was, and you'd know who tulip girl was, and you'd know who a lot of people were if you knew who I was.  And while Robin Sparkles doesn't live here in town, and is an old friend from college, it wouldn't necessarily take long to identify her.  (It is true, though, that I don't feel a compelling need to protect Tom, but I also don't need someone telling him I'm writing about him and have him track down this blog, either! *smile!*)

And the reality is that one of my points from the beginning, and I still maintain today, is that we all could be you.  Or someone you know just down the street.  Who we are - name wise - is unimportant to understanding and enjoying (I hope) our story.  And maybe you can take insight you learn from reading here to apply to that person down the street whom I remind you of.  That reading about my struggles and my successes and reading my thoughts and ramblings might just help bring us all together as one loving society and community (Okay, there's that big ass guy full of smoke and mirrors, but....).  That knowing who I am as an individual shouldn't affect your ability to relate to what I'm writing.

But last week, it got even more complicated and troublesome keeping these worlds separate.  Because last week my tweeps did something that a lot of people in my real life have never done.  Heard my call for "help" and came and supported me EVEN if they thought I was nuts to think I needed help, and/or thought I was being really irrational and over-reacting.  EVEN when they didn't agree with me, they still supported me.  Simply because I asked for it.  And until they did it, I didn't realize how absent that had been, for the most part, in my life. 

It was a real WOW moment.  A real you-guys-are-really-special and where-have-you-been-all-my-life kind of moment!! And yet, I won't / can't / don't even tell them my name?

And this is the moment where I change the title of this post.  I gave you the original title above so you can see the framework I started with, and understand where I am or was going.  But somewhere along the line most of you have decided that I smell just as sweet, even if my name is Borg, instead of ________.  And that's pretty darn special.  And I'm pretty darn lucky!!

Have patience with me, then, my friends.  Because so many of you have become my friends.  This is not personal to you - it is my fears, my concerns, and my need and desire to protect others whom I care about, too.  I know that you can respect me on this.  I've seen how you support me, despite my name.  And I appreciate you all. 

-----

If you're new to this somewhat one-sided conversation I keep having about this, I suggest you can read the following posts to catch up on some of my thoughts (if you've read everything I've written, you can skip this and go to the bottom of the entry, post your comment and collect your prize):

I addressed the topic on my very first day of writing this blog in a post called Assimilation.

There I wrote:

 Our experiences while seeming unique to ourselves are also universal.

... 

When one becomes assimilated into the Collective, they become one with another, and all of their memories are now part of the collective. There is no unique "I" in Borg. There is just Borg.

So while you think you may know me, you probably don't. Or rather you may know me, because my experiences are similar to yours or those you do know. But you do not know my identity.

Three months later, I addressed the topic directly again in my post Clark Kent .. This is when I began to realize I might want Lois Lane to know that I was both Clark Kent and Superman so she'd know she was in love with me (well, maybe not quite that...).  And what would I do at that point?  Mostly I was looking for the Anonymous Anonymous support group.  I was sure that Flash, Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman and all the other caped (and not so caped) crusaders might be dealing with some of the same issues I was just starting to deal with.. (and this was before I ever even knew anything about Blogher and then began to wonder how could I ever go?)

The blog post titled simply Anonymity really does state some of the reasons above (protecting others, and also a little left over self-protection) and I think it was when I typed that post that I began to decide this recurring theme / topic needed to have a label of its own.  I also described briefly a very unpleasant encounter I had with one twit (because frankly she was a twit) who got really upset and really rude when I gave her a generic answer in response to a direct question about where I lived.  Frankly, given her response - and she was one of the first people to ask me anything so particular (which I realize is not that particular at all) - it reinforced my rationale to remain somewhat anonymous.  This person, frankly, even now long after I've blocked her, still scares me.  I'm glad she only has a narrow geographic region in which to ponder where she might find me. 

I also talked briefly about the sensitivity I had about my identity / location after leaving an abusive relationship.  There are, unfortunately, people who I have been close to in my life who don't have any idea where I am.  For some of them, I wish I could change that.  For some, eventually over time, I will.  But for many, unfortunately, I just had to disappear.  Facebook has managed to keep me in touch with many I might otherwise have lost touch with, but my in real life close friends (only one of which is on here from that period) will tell you it was still months - if not a year - before I revealed specifically where I was in even that closed environment of hand-picked friends.  While MOSTLY I am over that, I admit my steadfast responses are cultivated / learned from that experience.  As I wrote in Anonymity, murder-suicide was most certainly an option on the table at the end that many - including myself - were afraid could happen.  I think enough time has passed that it is very minusculely likely to happen, but when you experience that possibility and that kind of fear, trust me, you learn to be a little protective. 

(Wow, that took me back to such a lovely dark place - are any of you still here? ;) )

I wrote Anonymity Revisited after I told an in real life friend - not a local friend, of course! - about the blog since it and Twitter is becoming such a big part of my life - at least big parts that I am excited and enthused about.  The world didn't fall apart when I told her.  Although it did give her a bit more information about something she'd known a little bit about.  And she didn't (to the best of my knowledge) rush off and plaster it all over Facebook.  And she hasn't disowned me as a friend.  Again, an early Jenga piece.

And then a month ago, I finally came up with the Jenga analogy after I felt safe enough to share this blog with a memory-impaired local friend (she will agree with me, if she ever does find the blog again, that "memory-impaired" is a fair term to use to describe her lately).  It was somewhat safe because she's likely already forgotten about the blog, or if she remembers it, has no memory of how to find it or what it was called.  It was also somewhat safe because the things that I write on here about local people would not be news to her, would not reveal any new "secrets" and she has already demonstrated, as such, that I can trust her not to hurt the people I love with the information that she knows. 

--------- (did you skip above? Start reading again here....)

I have fallen in love with the Jenga analogy.  It fits this perfectly. Because that one friend asking, "Who am I going to tell? What harm will it do?" is correct that telling just her alone will not cause my life or this separation to come crumbling down.  It won't.  But telling a lot of people, even one piece at a time, will make it harder to keep this construct up. 

Basically, I've come to the conclusion that the wall will naturally come down as soon as I become as popular as Jenny The Bloggess - one of my "heroes".  But until then, and until I have a book deal and a way to support myself through the publishing of this blog and my ramblings, I hope you won't mind if I try to preserve this delicate balance for as long as I can.  Because I admit, if and when that happens, if and when the Jenga pieces all start crumbling down, I'm going to have to think long and hard about possibly pulling some of my more 'exposing' posts, even though, of course, they've all been out there.  And I don't want to censor or edit myself. 

As I said, I don't like hiding.  All while writing this really, really long post about why I'm hiding.

Yeah, look over there, one of the labels, too, is "inconsistency" - what can't see it? It's right there wedged between "I'm human" and "insanity" (at least at the moment I type this! I'm sure over time I'll find some other 'i' label to add...)

For those of you who made it all the way to the end of this post - wow! Thank you.  And congratulate yourselves - or give me an opportunity to congratulate you for reading this really long somewhat winding post - by posting a comment here, too.  I promise to comment back and thank you, and add you to my list of REALLY loyal supporters! ;)

And in the meantime, I hope you accept this rose is named Borg... I swear I smell as sweet (I *did* take a shower this morning!) as whatever my "real life" name does. 

Ollie's Barbecue or Choice

Now when I started thinking about the topic of “choice” this morning, my head was in a different space about a different topic.  And at some point, I really want to get back to my original thoughts and write a post about that.  (And yes, this is one of my infamous shower posts...)

For those of you who might not make it to the end, I'll give you a spoiler alert - our true choice in this and many matters is to choose to respect each other.  Seems like an easy choice to make. 

I tend not to be too political, and I’ve already promised you that you won’t find many political posts on here except that as they may apply to the “human condition”.  (Nice broad vague catch-all, since all politics, at some level, apply to the human condition, or could be interpreted as such).  If you look, though, over there at that my 'tags' you'll see that "politics" is quite small.  But my intent, shall we say, is to bring “political” issues in NOT because they are political hot-button issues, but because the issue has something valuable to observe.  I have written early on, although many of you have yet to read this post (since the stats show only one view as of this posting), that I am neither politically correct nor politically incorrect.  I'm bound to offend someone!  You may want to begin reading that post before you dive into this one (and, no, I'm not just shamefully trying to up my stats - that's just an added bonus! ;) )

Now, if I had titled this just “Choice” as I originally thought to, and once you realized this might be political, your first thought might be that this would be a post about abortion.  And believe me, while not my originating thoughts, it is one area where my thoughts wandered this morning in the shower about what to write and how to compose this message.

And so I’ll spend a moment – a few paragraphs – clarifying my stance on the issue of abortion, and then we can move on.  I am a pro-life pro-choicer.  I believe that woman should be able to make a choice about their own bodies, but I hope that they choose to bring the life into this world.  Although this world *is* heavily over-populated.  What I would like, though, is for there to be more choices for someone who chooses to carry to term.  I’d like there to be less stigma attached to giving up one’s baby given that there are so many wonderful people out there who would like to be parents and who are looking to adopt.  I’d like there to be more options in finding support for raising a baby they choose to raise.  I’d like the anti-abortionists, then, to really reflect on the serenity prayer and put their energy and their money towards creating positive solutions and positive choices.  While we would love every pregnancy to be wanted and the news to be received with joy, this will never happen.  Even many parents who choose to have their children, sadly, don’t necessarily look with joy upon their new arrival.  (That’s a whole other sad scenario). 

Accept the things we cannot change.  It doesn’t mean we can’t take serious preventative measures to lessen the number of those pregnancies (something, by the way, Planned Parenthood works towards), but it also means we need to accept the reality of unplanned and unwanted pregnancies (by the way, in case you were wondering, that’s what the “planned” part of Planned Parenthood refers to…).

Change the things we can.  We can’t changed unplanned, unwanted pregnancies.  And given that abortion has been around since the dawn of time, in one form or another, the reality is that we can’t change whether abortion happens,  although clearly we can make it more difficult, and we can limit them.  What we can change is the following three things: 1) provide education on how to prevent unwanted pregnancies and the means by which to do so, 2) provide options for women who do become pregnant to have an effective choice, and ideally a clear choice, to carry the baby to term – to know that doing so won’t affect the rest of her life, that she won’t be a pariah in society for having become an unwed mother, if that’s the circumstance, and that there will be resources out there, for example, if she is still young and in school, to finish school and be able to have a job or a career to support her and her child should she choose that, or to find a loving and caring family who would lovingly take her child into their home as their own.  3) if, nonetheless, a woman still chooses to have an abortion, make it a safe, healthy choice for her so that we don’t lose two lives in the process. 

And frankly, if you look at what Planned Parenthood does, I think it tries to do all three of those things.  And someone who supports Planned Parenthood (as an aside) is not necessarily pro-abortion.  In fact, they are likely not pro-abortion at all, but pro-healthy-woman and healthy families.  Lord knows we have a growing mental health community due to unwanted children being brought into this world and being neglected, abused, and essentially thrown away.  These are real issues that we need to face and deal with as a society.  But that’s another rant.

But abortion was NOT the topic on my mind at all.  But it was raised last night as part of a discussion regarding Chick-Fil-A.   The issue was raised because some people are trying to make the issue black and white.  And some people are trying to lump other people into neat little boxes.  Some people are trying to focus on the right of Cathy to speak and in the process gracefully ignoring what it was that he said. 

Frankly, and I may not when popularity points here, I don’t think what Cathy said was that “offensive”.  I have heard much worse.  He was expressing his views and his opinions, and not only is he entitled to have them, not only are they shared by a lot of people in the country, he is also entitled to express them, and to express them not only with his voice but with his dollars.  I find it sad that he is unable to see or understand that God made me the way that I am, and that I believe God blessed my union, and that, frankly, if the government is going to confer benefits on two people who choose to share their lives together in the form of a family, I should be able to partake in those benefits, too.  As well as the responsibilities.  (The California domestic partnership law is called the "Domestic Partners Rights and Responsibilities Act").

But some people, and understandably so, find his speech to be hate-speech.  I'll be honest, I'm not sure that it rises to that level, but I can understand in this day and age where others who are fighting so hard for equality, and who have determined that their equality will best be won through legalized marriage, how that those words can be hateful.  Essentially, Cathy is declaring that anyone whose lifelong partner is the same sex is a second-class citizen.

Notice, we don't hear a lot of people who have been divorced speaking up or taking note of Cathy's statements about being still married to their first wives.  They are cleverly and wisely hiding behind the gays' outrage at his statements and hoping no-one will notice that they are not amongst the people that Cathy supports either. 

Westboro Baptist Church, as I reminded some folks in last night's conversation, also claim Freedom of Speech when they picket military funerals.  People find it easier - because they aren't simply targeting gay funerals - to find the Westboro Baptist Church's speech as offensive and hateful.  They are actually clearly targeting America (go to their website, this isn't MY conclusion, this is their own declaration!) I guess it might depend on who the speech is used against as to whether or not we might more easily recognize the "hate" involved.

In 1967, the Supreme Court made a fairly radical decision at the time.  It decided that a ban against a man and a woman who loved each other who had actually been legally married was an unconstitutional action on the part of the Commonwealth of Virginia.   Two people had gotten married in the District of Columbia, and then returned home to Virginia.  Two policemen raided their home at night, hoping to catch them in marital relations, but only found them sleeping together.  When the couple pointed to their marriage certificate on the wall, the police found that as evidence to criminally charge them. 

Picture this.  You're in bed with your significant other (who you may or may not have married - let's face it many of us are involved in pre-marital relationships) and the police come in and arrest you for actually SLEEPING together?  WTF? Don't the cops have anything better to do?  And it was a RADICAL decision at the time for the Supreme Court to tell the Commonwealth of Virginia that what they did was wrong. 

By now, I hope, you've figured out that the case I am referring to was Loving v. Virginia, and while each had a partner of the appropriate sex, they did not fall in love with partners of what was then the appropriate race. 

So when supporters of LGBT rights liken this to the 1960s civil rights movement regarding race, this is kinda an example of why.  We fall in love with who we fall in love with.  We should be allowed to choose the people we want to share our lives with.  We were born this way.  God made me this way.  To say that I, a creature of God, is a second class citizen is considered hateful by some. 

Now, I don't think what Cathy did was illegal, nor do I hear anyone suggesting it is.  Free speech is speech free from GOVERNMENT restriction.  The public arena is free to use their own means of expression to quell speech they find offensive.  And some are. 

Someone wrote last night that supporting Chick-Fil-A is not supporting the suppression of rights.  Well, here's the logic that says that it is.  No, Chick-Fil-A, unlike Ollie's Barbecue, is willing to serve and take anyone's money who wants to purchase their chicken and other fare.  BUT, the profit they make may be used to support anti-gay organizations who ARE fighting and making strides in suppressing the rights of all people to marry whom they love, regardless of race, or gender.  And so, some hungry people are choosing not to do so.

(Is anyone still reading at this point? Because here's where some of the humor comes in.. )  So I posted on my Facebook page (yes, my Tweeps, I do still use FB) a link to a picture of a KFC sign.  Again, there, too, I try not to be too political, and I don't think food and politic necessarily belong together, but they have since before I was born, so who am I to fight it?  The sign said "Delicious Chicken Served Without Hate"

Now a friend of mine who is a vegetarian posted a quandary this morning.  She wrote that she's not a fan of homophobes, but frankly the way that KFC treats their chickens isn't particularly humane, either. 

What's a person to do?  As I wrote in the post I first referred you to at the start, I'm not politically correct or incorrect, the best a person can do is to try to be sensitive.  Even if you can't understand why someone might be upset, be respectful that there might be a valid reason, and try to be sensitive to their pain and anguish.  When someone is angry, it is because they are hurt.  Here, people are hurt because they've been told that they are inferior citizens.  Their choice - a very valid choice - is to be angry and not accept being told that.  To let the world - or the U.S. - know that they find that treatment unacceptable.  That they find that behavior to be hateful.  No-one on either side here in the chicken world is proposing or advocating violence.  But still, as I wrote in the original Sticks & Stones, words do hurt.

Even if we don't agree, then, with what someone else is saying, let's at least begin the dialog by acknowledging their right to feel that way.  This means acknowledging Cathy's right to feel that traditional marriage is defined in the Bible as between a man and a woman, even if we disagree.  And acknowledging that this speech can be found to be hateful, even if we don't agree.  Our first choice, then, is to respect each other and try to come to some middle ground.  To respectfully engage each other in a dialog to illustrate our understandings so that maybe we might help the other to understand, too. 

The movement for gay marriage as a right actually started in the late eighties, early nineties.  Most politically active people knew then it was too early to attack that issue and change people's minds.  It may still be.  In my mind, the best choice is to create a civil domestic union, and grandfather in everyone who has been married to date.  From here forward, keep the government out of "marriage" - recognize it as a religious "sacrament" -  and let the churches decide whether to marry or not.  But let everyone have equal access to the responsibilities and the rights involved in becoming life-partners- the right to pay taxes, the right to visit in the hospital, to choose funeral arrangements, to receive social security benefits, health care insurance, etc.  Separate that from "marriage" and I think most people would be more accepting of conferring this status upon same-sex partners.  Just my two cents...

Tribe

Last week (or has it been two weeks?) during The Bloggess Book Club, she expressed her happiness at finally having found her Tribe.   Since then the "Lawsbians" movement has taken off.  The Tribe figures that if we enjoy The Bloggess, than, at a minimum we have a quirky enough sense of humor to enjoy each other, too.

But this finding of our Tribe hits upon so many other common issues.  Finding our Tribe suggests, perhaps, we weren't already within our Tribe to begin with.  It hints at the feeling of being "outsiders" so many of us feel.

Last night, I admit, I was watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  Of particular relevance to this post, I watched Episode 7 of Season 1 - Toulousse Lautrec is One of my Favorite Artists.  In this episode, she interviews a wonderful author for a news segment, and then he asks her out for dinner.  When they both get off their chairs, she realizes how short he is, and then tries to be sensitive in all that she says next to him, finding herself blundering with inadvertent "short" references.  Not aided, of course, by her friend Rhoda, who refers to him as a shrimp when he's out of the room, so that when he comes back, Mary introduces him to Rhoda as Eric Shrimp.

In the meantime, in the course of the show and their spending evenings together getting to know each other, Eric finishes his second book, which he leaves for Mary to read.  It is all about how we all feel like outsiders.  He has this line, that I'll paraphrase badly, but you can hit the link above, and as long as Hulu has it, you can watch it for yourself.  He talks about high school, and how there was this one guy who was the captain of the football team, class president, and he may even have suggested he was top of the class.  And there was this one girl.  She was captain of the cheer squad, class secretary and dating the captain of the football team.  Those two people, he said, were the only ones who were actually happy in high school. 

Facebook - as much as Tweeps may diss it - has been a remarkable tool for reconnecting with people you used to know.  (Maybe Gotye should try it?).  I definitely felt on the outside in high school.  And so, when I left, there were only about two or three people I actually kept in touch with, and I never attended a reunion.  I got on Facebook the year of our twentieth reunion, and in those early stages, you clicked "Accept" on anyone whose name you recognized before you learned to filter.  And I had the opportunity prior to the reunion to actually get to know some people from my class that I hadn't been close to.  Who seemed, from the distance, to be popular and happy and well accepted at school.  And then, to learn, that they, too, were miserable in high school and felt like outsiders.

Then, since I was in town at the time, I went to my twentieth reunion.  And ran into more former class-mates who seemed like they were part of the "in" crowd only to discover they felt like they were on the outside, too.

I think we tend to underestimate our place within society and our community, and perhaps, to over-estimate others.  Twitter provides a remarkable ability to feel "closer" to celebrities and perhaps not their innermost thoughts, but their most random thoughts that they share with the thousands who follow them.  Not surprising, their tweets aren't too much different than ours.  Not surprising, their tweets often express their own insecurities, their own desire for acceptance, their own search for community and their place.  In some ways, it has to be harder for them, because we have all placed them way up high on a pedestal, outside the normal realm of society. 

But the reality is that our common denominator is that we're all human.  We all want to belong.  And so many of us often feel that we don't belong. 

Don't assume that the person next to you feels a part of your community.  The healthiest churches I have been in encourage parishioners to greet and get to know the person sitting on the pew next to them.  You can't assume that the person there feels like they belong until you let them know that they belong.  Just as you often feel out of place yourself.

I admit, I have felt that since I found Twitter, I have found "my people".  Y'all laugh at my jokes, enquire about my pain, and read my blog and ideally enjoy it (more comments to confirm doesn't hurt my self esteem or ego!)  But the reality is that we are all part of one big tribe.  The Tribe of Humanity.  You will be assimilated.  Resistance is futile.

Cyber Stalking

Raise your hands.  Who does it?  C'mon, we all do it.  That's what makes the internet so fascinating - seeing what we can see about others.  Being voyeurs into others lives - or what they or their friends share with us. 

How many of us use filters on Facebook? (Are there even filters on Twitter??)

How many of us have no idea what is out there in the ether about us?

Just spent a half hour tracking an old friend, and her husband, and catching up on her life.  In the old days, didn't we used to pick up the phone? I'll confess, we rarely wrote letters, but perhaps drop an e-mail?  Let them tell us what they want to share with us?  And yet, if you sent me an e-mail and asked me how my life was going, as some friends still do, I would say that there's not much to report.  And yet, clearly, I do have a lot to say and share.  This is why social networking - capturing our lives as we go - can be so helpful in finding out what is really going on.

I have a friend who has an elaborate set of filters on Facebook.  She's really thought through the friend lists, etc.  I'd tell you how many friends she has to filter through, but she wisely has those protected, too.  If the iPhone app would let you select multiple lists when posting from the mobile app, I might be a bit more invested.  I might be a bit more careful with what I post to whom.

I've recently found myself on the outside end of a filter with a friend, and it sucks.  I know that she's posting, but I can't see it now.  Every once in awhile I am with a mutual friend, and when she is looking at Facebook, I can see the posts.  I can see that she is in the inner circle. 

My first Facebook account was created for business.  I was trying to find someone for a client.  This was well before I ended my marriage, and while it was supposed to be a professional account, it quickly became personal as I discovered all of these old friends I hadn't seen in forever.  Some, yes, we might question whether they ever were friends, and some have become friends.  Then I separated from my spouse (that's the sanitized version) and created a separate Facebook account for those who truly were close friends so that they could know that I was okay, and so I didn't have to keep updating people all of the time.

It is an odd thing when you're going through a significant event in your life with everyone asking about it.  It feels nice to have the support but it is hard to let go of the - in this case bad - when you're always forced to rehash it.  But maybe that's a post for another day.

So, initially the new Facebook account was a filter in and of itself.  I only shared it with select people.

It has been hard as I have moved on and grown to let go of that mentality. 

Facebook and Twitter are different. Twitter is a popularity contest - you want as many people to follow you as you can find.  Some have viewed Facebook as a popularity contest, too, racking up "friends" as if they were points in some game.  I've never found myself interested in doing that, and yet, sometimes, with the newly developed friendship with old acquaintances, I wonder what I might be missing out on.

Ah, this is a rambling entry (I will have a few of these).  But catching up on my friend's life.  Missing her and wishing she were sharing it directly with me has got me rambling. 

How many of you stalk?  How many of you truly connect via social networking?  I am getting to know a few of you through Twitter.. 140 characters at at time and a few more when you comment here.

Tell me your social networking stories.  Tell me your cyber-stalking stories.


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Twitter-verse

My current best friend (because, honestly, I have about 10 people during my life-time who have held this title, and it's kind of a lifetime achievement award, so my best friend from 1st grade still is referred to as my best friend, but she isn't who I am referring to here and now!) has had the nerve to go and get herself a full time job (bitch!). She lives a bit of a distance from me, so we're electronic best friends at this point (although we have known each other in real life, so it's not AS creepy as it might seem..).  Her more flexible schedule made her a more, um, reliable, um, responsive sounding board. 

But now that she's got this full time job AND (again, the nerve!) a social life! (bitch!) I find myself feeling a little neglected and lonely.

One of the reasons I stated early on for creating this blog was to be a receptacle for all the crazy things that go through my head that I have to share with someone.  Because often sharing with just ONE someone becomes a bit too overwhelming.

I admit, I'm a little scared to look in my sent folder at the twenty e-mails I sent to her yesterday (still unresponded to mostly, because, um, she was working!) because I know at least ONE of them expounded upon the fact that I discovered yesterday that I prefer hair wax to hair gel. 

Really important stuff.  I am sure once she reads that, she'll get back to me right away, right?  No, more likely, she'll probably wonder why I am wasting her limited time with such nonsense.

Particulalry when there's Twitter.

I admit it.  Twitter is growing on me.  I do now check it more than once a day when at first, of course, I could go days or weeks without checking it.  After all, the only reason I got on Twitter was to get Jenny The Bloggess' attention.  And I did.  She's my very first follower.  Now I have 28 followers, and have done 302 tweets.

I know over half of the followers came in the past week, and primarily from #wineparty Kit of Blogging Dangerously's weekly Twitter party. 

Facebook users think of themselves as being more high-brow than twitter.  I know.  I felt that way, myself.  And I'm not sure whether we are or are not, and of course there are PLENTY of cross-overs between FB and Twitter, so it's not like there are two distinct camps.  But there is this notion on FB that if you do start to brain fart dump in it (hair wax versus hair gel) that you'll soon get people hiding your news from their newsfeeds.  Or at least gloss over them, as I do. 

Twitter requires cleverness.  Or recognizing cleverness and retweeting it.  The goal of Twitter is not to be "friends" with everyone you meet or tweet or whatever.  You don't have to worry about someone's standards on Twitter that they'll begin to gloss over you.  They're not looking for baby news, or how your life is going, or what your children did, or how your career is skyrocketing.  They're not looking for lengthy in depth political discussions (although many of us on FB aren't either, but sometimes find ourselves caught in the quicksand morass of them).  Twitter is simple.

I'm falling fot Twitter.  And maybe, instead of innundating my hard working (bitch) best friend's e-mail box with many messages of no value I should just bombard Twitter with the update of the important sutff like hair wax versus gel.  Because I know you're interested. 

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If you like this, stick around and read other entries.  Hit a few on the right that are favorites, or go to the home page of the blog, and read from beginning to end.  Take a moment to send me some feedback.  Thanks for coming.  Please come back soon.

Likes and Hearsay

Law schools annually try to teach a somewhat simple concept that becomes convoluted to poor little law students:  Hearsay.  Which is defined by the Federal Rules of Evidence as:  "statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted."

Part of the difficulty in understanding the definition of hearsay has to come from poor sentence structure.  I am sure that grammarians who enjoy diagramming sentences find it a challenge.

Which should not be surprising given that evidence teachers have been giving exams and exercises of examples for students to determine whether a statement is hearsay or not.  To make matters even more confusing, the same statement could be hearsay, and might not be hearsay.

Basically a statement is hearsay if it is being given to prove the substance of the statement.  See below.

"John testified that George said, 'The pigs are blue'"

That statement might be hearsay or might not.  If John is testifying to provide evidence that the pigs are blue, then it's hearsay and can't be admitted.  Instead, the lawyers should get George on the stand who saw the blue pigs.  John's statement would be excluded.

If John's testimony is designed to prove that George is nuts, then the statement is admissible.  (Although, "nuts" has to be explained and determined by a series of expert witnesses who provide the foundation for what can be determined as "nuts"... but that's a whole other barrel of fun in the law)

Seems simple enough.

I was thinking about the various scenarios of hearsay this morning as I was thinking about "like"ing in Facebook.

So often we hit "like" not because we like the content of the statement - "Jimmy fell on his face and all he managed to break was an eyelash".  I'd like it because it made me laugh, but not because I like that Jimmy fell on his face. 

And that makes things complicated.  So, instead of clicking "like" we'll write convoluted statements like, "This is so wrong to like but man I cracked up!"

Or clarify that it made us laugh by something simple as "lol".

But I have noticed a pattern of friends liking all the comments to their Facebook statuses.  Despite the fact that it's election season, and so I should be suspicious of these things, I do NOT think it is a conspiracy to boost their own popularity (although, clearly, I acknowledge the possibility). 

It's one thing when you've done something great, and then everyone gives you encouragement in response to your status.  Those make sense to "like".  I've seen someone ask for a recommendation, and then seen the status poster like everyone's suggestion (except mine? What's wrong with suggesting cleaning out your toaster while it's still plugged in with a metal knife?).   I assume, sometimes, these are a way of saying "thank you for your suggestion".

And then there are times when I think we get stuck. We have started to like folks that if we don't continue liking everything in sight, we are afraid we might hurt someone. 

But the point is that I recognize that sometimes, when we hit "like" on Facebook, it isn't because we like the "truth of the matter asserted", but simply because we were amused or grateful or felt some other positive feeling and that was our only (lazy?) option to express it. 

Or, really, it is all just a popularity contest...

Twitter Haters and the Dalai Lama

So, I go onto my newly created Twitter account to remind The Bloggess about her picture.  I know she was busy last night watching the Oscars with her cat and taking their picture on the red carpet, but I feel confident that she will send me a picture collating paper and juggling twine shortly.  But a little reminder couldn't hurt, right?

So, last night, I tried to find folks to follow, and as I've mentioned before, I *love* the Dalai Lama.  LOVE him!  And so I was pleased to see in my newsfeed (wait, that's a FB term, what is the appropriate Twit-term?)

I admit, his morning tweet wasn't rocket science.  It wasn't one of his more uniquely profound statements, but WTF, to the first comment?

Wow!  Um.. if anyone reading has this kind of a response to my blog, um, could you go somewhere else?  I mean really?  No-one told him to read the Dalai Lama, or if they did, go be angry at them, not at the Dalai Lama.  And, um, he isn't telling you what to do, he's just stating a fact.  Or some might consider it an opinion - I won't quibble that point.  Clearly you need some comforting, and you clearly don't have peace within yourself.  But he isn't telling you to seek comfort, nor to find peace within yourself. 

Um, one more requirement of my readers.  A mastery of the English language and basic sentence structure.  Even if I don't always write in sentences... (There's that inconsistency thing rearing its ugly head.  Luckily, there's a tag for that!)

I got Favorited - Part Deux

AND, she favorited me DESPITE the Oscars going on at the same time.  I mean with such distractions, that she took a moment and thought of me.. Wow! Alright.. Now how to ride this wave into popularity.  Please give feedback on what you want more of and what you want less of, and which of the 24 Things About Me you want to know more. 

Okay? Okay.  Now, back to the Oscars and the true question of whether or not JLo slipped nip (which I know, of course, by reading my Newsfeed on Facebook!!)

Elevator Speech

I have lived in big metropolitan areas, so I remember what an elevator is.  But I do laugh at this expression now, living here in a small town where I can't really recall the last time I was on an elevator.  Seriously.

But a friend of mine who is going through a divorce was trying to formulate her "elevator speech" for when she met new people.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the term (like those of us who don't live around elevators anymore), basically you have time travelling in a tall building up and down the elevator with strangers.  Enough time to strike up an albeit quick conversation.  A chance to get to know each other.

Quick is the operative word.  The theory is you have about 30 seconds. (Unless, of course, some bozo hit all the buttons - don't be that bozo)

And the point is for entrepreneurs to use that time wisely to sell whatever it is you're selling.  You have thirty seconds.

That, and when you go to networking meetings, to meet other entrepreneurs, you are usually given about 30 seconds to introduce yourself and whatever it is you're selling.

Thirty seconds.

Since my friend brought it up, I've been thinking about it. 

While the term is frequently used in a business context, frankly, it's usuable in many social situations.  I mean you probably wouldn't want to start with your elevator speech in a bar when you meet someone, but it's good to have a few soundbites practiced and ready to give out to summarize your life down to edible nuggets.

When you live in a town where the only elevator takes you up just a story or two, you have to be fast.

But we are living in a world of sound-bites.  You have 140 characters to twit tweet the perfect line.  Facebook seems to have relaxed it's character limitations.  But let's face it, no-one reads the notes very often.  Often all we get from people are the headlines, the quick lines.

I am a person who tends to operate with a best friend.  Someone I share all my random thoughts with.  That person may or may not also be a lover, but I need and like a best friend.  Because I have a lot that goes through my head and I like to share.  (Haven't you figured that out?)  Maybe it's that ADD-thing.

But that's a lot of responsibility for just one person.  And it isn't infrequent for me to have someone say "I'll read every word you write" to eventually, not.   (It stings just a wee bit when she's the current love of your life, but...)

So, it should not be surprising, in this round about fashion, that I have turned to blogging.  Because all the stuff flying through my head is too much for one person to absorb.  So I need to spread it around.

And I have chosen you.

Make me no promises to read my every word - I have trust issues there - but feel free to do so.  And let me know what you think.  My best friends will be happy to share the reading responsibilities with you.


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If you like this, stick around and read other entries. Hit a few on the right that are favorites, or go to the home page of the blog, and read from beginning to end. Take a moment to send me some feedback. Thanks for coming. Please come back soon.

Resistance is Futile

Despite the title, this will not be a blog about science fiction. 

Well, not totally. 

I have discovered, to my surprise, that I am apparently a science fiction fan.  In college, special interest groups would be allowed to gather together to pool housing priority points and get suites where people of like interests could live together.  On the floor I lived on my freshman year, the Sci Fi club had a suite.  I became best friends with many of those folks, but never identified myself as part of the Science Fiction group. 

Until recently. 

Facebook is a part of my life.  I resisted it for awhile.  I originally only went on to try and find someone for a client of mine from a Google search, but then found old friends.  I got hooked.  Recently, I found a cache of folks from college.  Frankly, if you'd asked me before the Facebook age, I wouldn't have said I kept many friends from college - just a handful.  But last night I created a group of just my friends from college to pass along a reference to our school in pop-culture, and discovered I have 20 Facebook friends - or over 10% of my "friends" - from college. 

At least half of these are recent entries and reconnects in the past year.  Someone from the Sci Fi group found me, and then invited me to their private page.  And then others found me.  I discovered - quite belatedly - that I did belong.  I may never have been a card-carrying member.    But when I looked at the posted pictures from college, I was in over half of them.  I cannot tell you who have been all of the Dr. Whos (what is the grammatical formation of the plural of Dr. Who?), and I do NOT (I repeat, I DO NOT) speak Klingon. 

But I am a fan of science fiction.  I couldn't help but be with my brother enjoying it himself as a youngster.  He was a great Star Trek fan, and I saw Star Wars for the first time in the theater with him and his friends.  They tried to scare me by telling my father was Darth Vader (and this was the original - *before* we learned that he was Luke's father).  My Hulu playlist will show that I am a fan of Warehouse 13, Eureka, Misfits, Firefly, Quantum Leap, and Being Erica, amongst others.  My college house-mates and I would religiously gather to watch the weekly broadcast of ST:TNG, and caught up where we had missed on the regular daily re-runs. 

I cannot hide.  Resistance is futile.