I've decided that I like Facebook better than myspace.
If someone had told me a year ago that I was going to write that sentence I think I would have hung myself with the powercord to my laptop. There was once a time when I was so smug about staying out of the whole internet profile mess, like I was too cool to blog. Now I've got a myspace and a facebook profile AND a blog? And a minivan? And 2.5 kids, a husband, a house in the suburbs, a cat and a dog? Do I even dare call myself a punk anymore? Where is the girl who once painted her nails black and pink and climbed a powerline with her seedy friends and to jump into Lake Pontchatrain? Who is the woman who sips her coffee in her pajamas and blogs in her clean kitchen?
The thing I didn't like about these internet profile thingys was that they just seemed like a means to cyberflirt and waste time. In other words, I was a snob. Most of the people I know use it as a way to keep up with people they love who live far away, or to check out things that make them laugh when they're sitting in their clean kitchen wondering how they turned into such a domesticated bohemian. But the reason I like facebook better is mostly because you get to throw sheep at and fight crime with people. You can become a vampire or a werewolf, and plant a garden. There's pretending involved, the fun kind of pretending not the 56-year-old-man-pretending-to-be-a-20-year-old-woman-for-internet-sex-purposes kind of pretending. Myspace, for me, is boring in comparison.
The only thing missing is my handwriting. With all my struggles with selfhatred and whatnot, one thing about myself that I've always liked is my handwriting. It's not because it's super neat or whatever. It's the earthly form of my writer's voice. I used to make sure I had paper and pen with me where ever I went so just in case I began to feel down I could write something and feel better. My handwriting is an old friend. I've got pictures up for my facebook and myspace profiles, but if I were to post a picture of who I really am I would take a snapshot of a sentence I'd written.
Sometimes I underline or scribble down sentences I find in books. If you take a whole book and critique it there are so many elements to be weighed to decide if you liked it, or how literary and effective the plot is. But if you just take one sentence like a single bite and roll it around your tongue for a while you can truly taste it. Yesterday I was cleaning out my car and I found a Toys-R-Us book of coupons under my seat. I had used the back of it as a grocery list, and underneath the words "toothpaste" and "buttermilk" was a sentence that I'd scribbled while I was driving. I'd been listening to David Sedaris's latest book on CD and I liked one of his sentences so much that I'd turned off the stereo so I could write it down before I forgot it. Try to forget that I just told you that sometimes I write while I'm driving for a minute so you can dig this sentence with me. It was, "Her voice was heavy and coarse like footsteps on gravel." If I did book reviews I think I would narrow my critiques down to sentences completely taken out of context. Who cares what the full picture is when one part of it feels like silk against your face?
6 comments:
When I started my Myspace blog many moons ago I swore it was just a tool for writing and nothing more. I would not use it as some sort of pathetic pulpit to promote myself and collect "friends" and "kudos." I would never say things like, "Well, you know how it is in the blogging world," or, "You gotta understand how the average Myspace reader views blogs."
A year later my Myspace profile was unceremoniously torpedoed. Sometime after that a friend was saying it was too bad that my blog was gone, and I said something like "I'm not sure if blogging was working on Myspace for me anymore. I think I may need to take a break from that for a while, maybe consider doing something a little different with blogging." Even as I said it I sounded like an idiot to myself. I was doing it! I was aggrandizing a friggin' MYSPACE BLOG! Please. Still, I said it - one of those things I thought I would never say.
Self-aggrandizing comments aside (I averaged 20 readers a day, tops), I did eventually do something else blog-wise, and I think the whole creativity focus is much better. So maybe the fact that I sounded like an idiot for a moment didn't necessarily mean that I didn't have a point. At least I hope so.
Yes. Well, let's look at it this way. We must keep up with the times, lest we begin to sound like embarassingly out of date poets who still use the term "thine." Unless we're being cheeky and we say to the computer, "Thine internet is crap." Then it's ok. And your creative blog is pretty sweet, by the way. I've recommended it to friends.
Speaking of friends, with your photography leanings you should check out my friend Ray's pictures www.thebrotherstaix.com Particularly the landscape stuff.
So which of thy children is worth only 0.5 on the numberline of kids? Does that mean I get 0.5 of one of your kids, since I only have two and we need to get the average to work somehow? And if I do get 1/2 of 1 of your kids, then do I get to pick which one it is, or do you? Or are you giving 1/2 of 1 of your kids to some other friend? I warn you, I will be hurt.
If you need to get in touch with me, you can find me on Facebook. Ciao!
Seedy friends? Hey, you and I weren't seedy - we just wanted to be for some reason. If I remember correctly, I watched nervously from shore to rescue any potential drowning victims while you climbed to some ungodly height and jumped into the lake. I also had to explain to the cops what we were doing.
I am, however, the one that introduced you to those particular "seedy" people, so I apologize for that. At least you mustered to courage to go to the edge of the cliff and jump off...
Christy, since I'm terrible at math I can't figure all of this out. Let's see, if 3/4 of my son was on a train going sixty miles per hour and 5/8 of your son was on a train from Philadelphia traveling at five miles per hour, at which point would we realize that we've only accounted for 2/5 of our offspring? See why I was an English major?
Billy,
Cops?? I have a vague recollection of that, I think. I must have blocked it out. I wonder how much more of those days I've blocked out! What I do remember is falling and thinking, "What if there's glass in the water? It will spear my feet." This was a thought I should have had minutes BEFORE I was falling twenty feet into a polluted lake. When I landed I was so relieved to stand up again.
Happy late birthday, sweet stuff.
No WONDER I never noticed you on MySpace before. You weren't there. I'm too old for facebook, I determined that long ago. To make up for it, I have four myspace profiles. I used to have two friendsters too, and I suppose that technically I still do, but I can't remember the logins. The best part? I sent you a friend request! And you're gonna have to say yes!
As to your post... dude. I used to shave my head. Now I'm looking for ANOTHER job at a LAW FIRM? All I can say is, I feel you.
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