I’ve been really tired lately and most of it is self-induced. I “discovered” Facebook about a month ago.
Now, when I say I “discovered” Facebook, it does not mean I did not know it existed until a month ago (if that were the case it would be quite a large and distant rock I had been living under.) What it means is I joined Facebook. And it has become somewhat of an obesession.
When I moved back home 5 years ago, I sort of wanted to reconnect with my former life. I don’t know why. High school and college really weren’t my “glory days”, but I had a few good friends whom I wanted to reconnect with. I contacted my high school alumni society. They hired me as the director of development to entice more alumni to join. It didn’t work out. We mutually agreed to split. It appears I am not the only one to whom “glory days” does not mean high school.
But while I was working this job, I joined Classmates.com and Reunion.com. Yikes! Useless, unless you pay to post and email each other. And the level of security is entirely too high! “If you want to contact this person, please send a message here, but don’t include your email address or we will block you. If you are having a class reunion, please post details here, but only one class per post, you can’t send to all alumni… forget homecoming plans! Oh, and you must be the president of your class or appointed by the president to send this info.” GAH!
I don’t use those anymore.
Next was MySpace. I joined this a little over a year ago. I have a few friends and family who ONLY use this as a means to keep in touch. Unfortunately, I consider it more of the trailer park of the online communities. Many people decorate their pages much like those who put plastic flamingoes, bathtub Madonnas and reflecting balls in their front yards (along with junkyard dogs lying around, a burn pile, a mountain of drink cans and boxes and a few broken lawnmowers to add to the mystique.) I did the same.
Then I was reading Karen Cheng one day. She has this thing she does where she takes pictures of herself in a mirror when she is out and about, or trying on new clothes and/or accessories, visiting with friends, whatever. It became a phenomenon and people started emulating her and sending their versions to her. I did it for Mother’s Day this year.
She started a Facebook group and people around the world have been posting. I thought I’d join just to see what people would send.
But I couldn’t leave a blank page up. What if I have friends who are here? They wouldn’t know if it was me and it would not be nice to make them send a message asking, “Are you the Colleen I went to high school/college/worked with?” So I added my Karen Cheng-esque image… and a little info about me… and a few more images… and some applications… and hubby joined… and he added some applications… and some people I work with have been there for years and added me as a friend… and high school friends found me… and college friends found me… and work friends found me… and I found Scrabbulous… and lost Scrabbulous… and found Wordscraper… and Pokey… and Doctor Who… and pieces of flair.
I could go on. But I’ve gone on enough, and I’m jonesing for Facebook. Though I should probably wakeup the sleeping monsters and feed them. We were going to go hiking and swimming today, but I don’t think they have Facebook at the park…
