30-day trial

WARNING: THIS IS ONE OF THOSE ANGSTY, REFLECTIVE POSTS, SO IF YOU’RE NOT ENAMOURED OF THIS PART OF MY BLOG PERSONA, READ NO FURTHER.

that said, i have been thinking about facebook and twitter recently. actually, i’ve been thinking about facebook since i left, almost 2 (!) yrs. ago. i am considering a return to the Dark Side, but have, as yet, not made up my mind.

On the pros side, facebook allows me to connect with friends and fam whom i never get to see. i can find out what they’re up to, and send my good wishes, without a ton of effort on either side. on the down side, i have a somewhat addictive personality, which is why i gave it up in the first place. having a computer around basically 24/7 makes it difficult to resist checking in on all my ‘friends’ often. too often.

as for twitter, i do like the idea of micro-blogging, since twitter makes it easier for people to read my musings, and to reply. sometimes regular blogging feels a bit like shouting into a room where the lights have just been switched off. i can hear other people breathing and muttering, but few people call out so i can identify them. i’m just like that, too; i read other people’s blogs, but don’t comment all that often. in this way, it seems like twitter could be a win-win. BUT, will twitter kill my ability to write anything above 140 characters? will i stop blogging? will i become a twitter junkie, a sort of self-obsessed proclaimer of all things banal, addicted to the rush of people paying attention to my every verbalized thought? this last objection is the reason i’ve been holding out on the whole twitter phenomenon. i’m not accusing anyone of this, by the way, just subjecting myself to a bit of critical self-examination.

lastly, and perhaps most importantly, staying out of the facebook/twitter loop is making me feel, well, (and laugh out loud if you wish) OLD. maybe it’s that my birthday is just around the corner, or that summer always fills me with this bittersweet longing to be 21 forever, with all my possible destinies still ahead of me. i do realize, however, how essentialized and unrealistic that version of my youth is, and most of the time i’m able to shake off the nostalgia. but as i think through all these issues about connection, relationship, being ‘wired’, the omnipresence of the interwebs, i can’t help feeling like i’m shaking an upraised and impotent fist at an unfeeling sky. is there any point in decrying our absolute societal obsession with the internet? with broadcasting our personal lives? with being able to access EVERYTHING from EVERYWHERE at ANY TIME? i wonder.

and, as if to illustrate the wonderful and crazy world i’ve just been describing, the shoes i ordered online at 7 pm monday night were just delivered, and i’m now posting a picture of them.