Facebook Purge '08

My Facebook is full of people who are not my friends, but who I know somehow. What does it mean to put those people under the umbrella of 'friend,' without them meeting the criteria of actual friendship?

It ends up making me feel bad. Having a stream of information flowing to me about what my Facebook contacts are doing makes me feel marginalized, small, and unnoticed. It also can be great fun, and makes me curious about people, and occasionally might make me feel closer to someone.

But none of it is real, and I think I have been suffering under the weight of having this information about people and their activities, their likes and dislikes, that I just shouldn't have. The weight of voyeurism, of spying, of reading a diary.

Because I got my feelings hurt. For reals. All the people I like at work, all my favorite people, all of the information and youth staff younger than 60, are having barbecues after work! Without inviting me! And then I see someone's Flickr stream in my Facebook News Feed and they're just out there at someone's house, having a grand time in the sunny weather, drinking beers, and it makes me feel left out, ostracized, and disliked.

I was pretty unpopular in elementary school and junior high. Not that I really noticed. I was a late bloomer, a fat, pathologically shy kid who loved to read. I had siblings, neighbors, the daughters of my mom's friends to hang out with outside of school. No one hated me and I wasn't ever teased, I just clung to the margins of a group, in order to have girls to eat lunch with and hang around.

(This is beside the point, but in high school, I did have three close friends and about six more other friends. These were people who I talked to, called on the phone, had over to my house, who knew when my dog died. So don't worry about me, I turned out just fine.)

Just what does it mean to call someone your friend on Facebook? I have clear-cut criteria for friends in real life - in order for me to claim someone as a friend, I have to feel comfortable calling them up to chat and/or inviting them to hang out and have coffee.

(This means, and this might be the heart of the heart of the truth of what I am feeling, that I have six friends.)

Joe's Goals

An online tool that I use every day is a website that allows you to set and track daily goals. There's a blog widget available, but other than that I don't know how revolutionary it is in its 2.oness or whatever. It's simple and satisfying to click the boxes and create a check mark for the day. It's easy to erase errant check marks. You can add little journals to write a few words about your goals, compile reports, and see progress.

Most of mine are fitness-y. I have a journal where I add what I ate for dinner.

There's a certain type of person attracted to this kind of thing and I am that person. In Ye Olden Days I might have had a special little notebook to track my petty daily routines.

Eight Things about Me!

1. If I have more coffee than usual, I feel a sudden rush of love for the universe.
2. However, usually I'm running at a pretty steady low even keel. My day-to-day energy is introverted and somewhat quiet.
3. Lately, though, I've been liking the word and idea of ruckus.
4. I always think people don't like me.
   
5. The part of my life that I miss the most is the spring of 1998, when I took field botany at Evergreen and was out in the woods five days a week.
6. If I got another cat, I would push hard for him to be named Gus.
7. I signed up for a bellydancing class with my friend Amanda.
8. I'm trying to be better in many ways. It never ends.
   

Kids in the Hall

I realized recently that I have been obsessed with a Canadian comedy troupe for almost half of my life! A crossdressing, gay-friendly comedy troupe with a tv show I watched after school every day in high school. And a Usenet newsgroup that I read for a few years - alt.tv.kids-in-hall, thank you - whose archives are out there floating around on the free Internet.

I had at one point videocassettes labeled KITH #1-8, and a notebook listing the contents of each tape. The show ran in the middle of the night on the CBC, and I would have my brother set his VCR to tape it for me so I could see the uncut, uncensored episodes.

I don't really watch the show anymore, although I own some of the DVD collections. Sketch comedy thrives nowadays, especially on the Internet, and the envelope has probably been pushed a lot further since the mid-90s. The clothes they wear while playing 'regular' guys are silly-looking now, although it makes me nostalgic. But I would still characterize the show as unique in being inherently feminist in the way the female characters are portrayed, and trailblazing in the gay stuff department. And deeply, deeply awesome, provoking fandom in me that has outlasted any band I've ever liked.

Kids in the Hall Tour 2008!

Congratulations

This Page Is Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!

Thank you ohmigod finally!

First there were 8 errors, then 14 after I tried to fix one on my own. Then I found an example and copied it. Then I fixed the last error all by myself.

I am having my ass kicked.

I quit my job in Tacoma. I will miss my weekly coffee and donut and trip to the secondhand clothing store.

If you eat a handful of PopRocks (tm) in front of our cats, and then open your mouth so that they can hear the fizzing and crackling sounds coming out of your mouth, they will stare and stare at you as though you are speaking to them in a new secret language.