Why the Blog Hasn't Been Updated

Facebook, I've decided, is like a cute boyfriend with a teensy drinking problem: charming, fun, distracting, irreverent, irresponsible and ultimately not good for you. Best taken in small doses.

The night before last, I was IMing three different people, rapid fire, at the same time (sorry, I didn't think it was a good idea to tell you that you weren't the only one). I sort of fb'd myself out. This is not to say I am sooo popular that I can't keep up with all my "friends". I don't have that many, and I don't go around collecting acquaintances like so many Easter eggs in a basket. I just think everyone happened to be on at the same time, so while I was having a long conversation with one person, I was chatting lightly with a couple of others for part of the time.

Here is the kind of witty repartee that results from the fb experience:

one of my friends was telling me about the great day he had snowshoeing in the morning and going to the beach at night, and I said that would be my idea of a perfect day if it included bacon, and he said bacon rules, and I said I'm going to sign all of my emails bacon rules from now on and he said are you a fan of bacon and I said does bacon have a fanclub? and we both ran over and found out that yes it does and we joined it

...and that is the kind of stuff that happens on fb. So far, three people (not that I'm trying to sound popular) have asked me about the bacon fan club or joined it themselves.

Is it fun? Yes. Is it sort of dumb? Totally. Is it an interesting trend that people are seeking the anti-social social? Yes. I could pick up the phone and talk to each of these people, but I don't have anything that important to say (obviously). It's the tech version of the teenage phonecall "What are you doing? Nothing. Me too." that can still last for hours. I don't know if they're busy, and I probably should be doing something else myself. It's multitasking, it's checking in on the ones you love, albeit peripherally. It's good to have a sense of what is going on in friends' lives, because sometimes the things that make up our lives from day to day aren't the big, life-changing news things, but the little every day things like eating scones, planning a birthday party, going snowshoeing, or liking bacon. Enough to join its fanclub...