Complications in Social Networking: Why I Beat It & Took a Little Breather

1. I am friends with the Pope. Pals. Buds. Homiest of Homies. On…uh… the Sacred Spacebook so, I’m his North Star, and he’s my Cardinal Effort (I’m not really, but that would be really pope-dope, and I grew up Catholic so I get to make jokes because I come from a long tradition of doing so and I can use the Church for object lessons. This is a Cautionary Metaphor. I humbly offer it here for the ben-a-dict-efit of all (#boo #aStretch).

2. Anyway, I posted this status update and the Bishop of Rome commented on it in a way that made me look a little Vroom-Vroom. Nothing I couldn’t banter back. Just a little zoomzy, you know, kinda a bit racy..? #nervouslaughter

3. but it just so happened that my friend David Beckham (not THE David Beckham…this is ANOTHER Mr. Beckham. I have not linked him because he’s very shy and he said I could use his name but not link his page) …wellll – Mr. Beckham “liked” the post. So I hoped that our dear Pontiff’s good natured and spicy fun using me as humor’s sacrificial lamb wouldn’t be taken amiss. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m a silly filly. Also notable was an additional “like” by Mr. Beckham’s friend Arthur Miller (not the playwright – he is no longer with us, but Mr. Miller the distiller is).

4. BTW, the post was something random concerning gardening, or life on the farm; like about Oats or something. No. Not my friend John. As an aside, I don’t talk about John anymore because we got into an argument about copyright infringement so I put Mr. Oats in one of my filtered groups (not Mr. Oates, he’s AWESOME!). Mr. Oats ALWAYS has an opinion and so do all his friends and frankly; I am CONSTANTLY getting sucked in and it’s a TOTAL time waster and before you know it, sure as donuts make your keyboard sticky, you’ve ka-spacebooked away your practice time.

5. Well, if you add all your Squa-squa-networks together, it just ka-escalates … so don’t go thinking that things are any better on The Google or Twitter or anything. It’s not. You have to show some restraint. Which brings me back to my story.

6. My friend Michael Jackson (no! not THE Mr. Jackson, although I know how it would be easy to be confused, because my friend has a warped sense of humor and posts profile photos of THE Michael Jackson and Inspirational Quotes about just looking at ‘…the man in the mirror’ before judging others. All that so that you can get your guard down and then he ruins it by posting some gross haiku like: do you wanna see, what I can do, baby girl… to your P.Y.T. ) – yeah … this friend got pretty bad himself in my post. His Holiness (or “Eggs 16,” as we call him during bowling) had already started the ball rolling and back and forth we went about me “sowing my wild oats” and then the ante was up when Mr. Jackson had to say something dirty about a plow and then all hell broke loose. I think friend pope made one more comment, and that was all good old MJ needed! Thank goodness no one made a dirty comment about Mr. Oats!

7. But see, I’ve been hoping that David Beckham would interact on my page for forever! So I was in panic about the post going in this snurly direction. I mean, I like saucy references to farm equipment as much as the next person – but you can’t go back and re-filter posts! Privacy Controls at the Sacred Spacebook are CRAP! I think it’s some kind of Advertising Related Conspiracy or something, although Mr. DJ Ranger Den (that’s my Old Man) thinks I have the paranoia. But I am sure you, oh Fair Fourth Wall, do get it about wishing your friends would be on Better Behavior and consider that like Mr. Miller the distiller seeing and liking your post because of Mr. Beckham’s news feed – you have a friendship with people like His Holiness as well. God can totally read your comments.

8. But on I go with Damage Control! I say “ha ha… I kinda shut the barn door on all THAT” or “we could argue about this till the brown-chicken-brown-cows come home” or something silly-yet-jokingly-validating to Lighten the Mood. It would have worked with Eggs, because he gets Family Values and would have reassessed my concern for the whole congregation of Postal Participants. Usually, I can trust MJ too. But something was off with him today and he kept going WAY over the line, taking the post in The Wrong Direction. And by then I was fearful that I was Offending People.

9. Example. I’ve been worrying for months about my great-great Aunt Berniecey Telulah McMegaphonezalo (not an actual aunt. She might know the pope though). I had concern that she and perhaps other members of my family would see some of my more unsavory friends posting Heavens-Knows-What on my page or making Unsavory or Controversial Comments. And I feel bad, like I am ashamed of my friends. How dare me!

10. In support of a dear friend of mine, Winslow, I liked the International Alliance of GLBTNinjas (this page blogged about here for Entertainment Porpoises only) page a couple months ago. I was afraid of Raised Newsfeed Eyebrows, but did it anyway – because we should be proud of our friends’ and support them when we can. But I feared conservative family would sanction me for my interest and support of “alternative” lifestyles – although I have to say, for the people living them, alternative to WHAT? Alternative to being yourself? But then there is the counter-fear of offending my friends with The offense of the Offended, therefore offending people who just want to see LOLcats and Gangnam Style (you know you wanna watch this again ……).

As well, if you tell people you’re into Ninjutsu, then are you, really, in fact, truly interested in Ninjutsu? Or are you just interested in it like hipsters are interested in the Zombie Apocalypse and flash mobs? Are you just jumping on a bandwagon to say, “hey I’m cool because I support THAT…”? Such things prey on my mind. But I know that even with a light sneeze, I am sure to offend someone merely by being ill and posting about it – as I am in this meta-metaphor being an attention seeking sneezer who is not sensitive to people with REAL illnesses and people may come to Question the Path I may take to the recovery of my common cold. And really, what makes MY cold more common than YOUR cold?

11. All of my friends, however, were included on my innocent post discussing farming. It was actually intended for the interest of David Beckham (again not the football star and I also meant Mr. Miller the distiller, not the playwright) and my ex-boyfriend’s old uncle who actually is an Amish farmer and ventures onto the internet sometimes (he isn’t an orthodox man, and who are you to judge what people do in their spare time??). But it felt weird to worry over what these two might think of the degenerating morality in Michael Jackson’s comments (how could I possibly “like” a person like MJ when he made such RUDE comments? What was wrong with me?!). AND to worry about a wide cross section of people varying from my ex’s Amish uncle (who I shouldn’t even be CONCERNED with, OMG! why am I even FRIENDS with an ex anyway???), to Auntie Telull-lie, to poor David Beckham, to a Mr. Oats who probably wouldn’t even see the post but if he heard about it would know I had friends of “Questionable Nature” AND that I was filtering him!

So I deactivated my account for the good of everyone and the good of Farming and the good of Family Values and Progress and indeed, America and also World Peace too – and the children and all things green and Lasting; and when I decided to creep back onto the Spacebook, I deleted the post Post-haste-ily even though I was upset about doing so because it started out with such an interesting cross-section of people liking and commenting Upon it … and at the beginning I was successful at bringing it out of Yucks-ville. I was proud of that. I haven’t posted again until recommending an album for a friend (that’s the truth!) and I live in fear that someone will ruin that for me (also true…)

But at least some of us are mutual friends with the Pope. My goal was that as diverse as is our audience, we “get” that just because we are engaging in microbloggery, we do not need to act like we are raised in barns. Which is rather funny because as you have probably gathered, you cannot trust that Human Nature will not escalate these problems even though you can Wholly See that some conversations are really meant for more Private Eyes.

EXCUSES WITH FRIENDS

I am behind in words with friends. This is because I am compiling a Dictionary of Unfairness. This is being posted here, and was also posted on my page at Facebook. not on my “official Facebook page,” which is sort of a shame, or even on my blog Facebook page, which honestly I don’t really know why I have one. I feel like I should produce Original Content for that, but the thought of this makes my earlobes wobble.

It doesn’t. But you believed me for a second….

Anyway… I’m sorry if you have to read this twice. Except, on reflection, I’m not really; I went back and rewrote this introduction so you the reader would know that I do very much Care. Also, I think reading a dictionary will do you a heap of good. It’s time to learn, goblins.
(I called y’all goblins on spacehook too – if there’s any Y’all here…)

WORDS WITH FRIENDS, UNFAIRNESS-ED they TOTALLY SHOULD HAVE COUNTED and WOULD HAVE on XONDOR my HOME PLANET.
(not necessecelery in order, because it doesn’t “go” as well that way.)

Adaht
similar to the tango

Heisune
phase of moon

Hemoni
a forest of mean, mean trees with bad attitudes.

Teele
one of the smaller units of Xondorian currency

Thule
a tool similar to a hammer and a chisel

Eleth
a tool often used in combination with the Thule.

Tuleh
a Courtship dance

Ethele
a non-reactive, and indeed, tasty and nutritious chemical compound native to Xondor which tastes of butter and chocolate. It nonetheless becomes flammable when combined with the milk of Earthling cows.

Leethe
A native Xondorian biped resembling a lavender colored ostrich with spindly legs and Rather Flat feet. With a long Slender neck like a giraffe and long floppy ears.

Leethi
The plural form of Leethe

Apa
a small colorful bird about the size of a cherry that lives symbiotically on the lush fur of the Leeth.

Peuma
How you bid farewell to a gambler who has won the Center Sweep. Never while either party’s back is turned.

Eomen
a guild of clairvoyant magic sages and tellers of fortunes making their home in and around the Squirkesian wetlands in strange, difficult to find houses.

Mapol
The proper term for a grouping of leethi
as in
… ‘a Mapol of Leethi migrating through the Great Hemoni during Second Triple Heisune is considered an auspicious sign by the Eomen.’

vonc
a light swear word, often used as a replacement for other more vulgar terms.

smoat
my husband says this is a carbohydrate attack. I think that’s a stretch

nohovump
when something is really quite a stretch

zive
a Baroque danse similar to the Sarabande, except that one can moonwalk to it.

epemey
the amused, yet mildly agitated apathy preceding feelings of truly affronted and pre-revolutionary Vigor and Zeal.

ps. I’m thinking of doing something with my notes, and perhaps even all these lists. we may discuss this, you (my adorking public) and I, (who am me (WHAT?!?)) on this here blogittyblogMCblogaDongaDingDong.

#putmeoutofmymisery.

Acky-ack

I think I’m having an online Facebook fight with another musician who is:

1. most certainly in my “top 12″
2. annoying, but in a really wonderful way.
3. slightly more talented than me, which is sort of intimidating.
4. mysterious … OR IS HE … nah – it’s a put on … NO! WAIT! it’s not … maybe he needs a cape. Or a creepy organ. And a basement …
5. excruciatingly hot and looks like a heartbreaking model that one would accidentally run into at a cafe full of smart poets or revolutionaries who are cooler than Wal-mart-y Texan Housewives. Not that I like Wal-mart. At least, not since they screwed up my Wal-mart by putting that grocery store in it!
6. dissing people that I have NO BUSINESS feeling protective of, because in my past they’ve done nothing but hurt me real, real bad.

Why am I sticking my neck out? What am I doing? Why don’t I just shut up?

I think it’s the principle of the thing. I think it’s the way that the criticisms are falling out. It’s the way that the enviornment is getting made. I don’t know the answers to these questions.

I know that not just anyone should be allowed to play anywhere. Who gets to apply the standard of awesome though? I know a lot of people who would hate Medeski, Martin, and Wood – who are brilliant. There are people who are into hard core country music – the Nashville kind which I think is a bit cheesy and over-produced. NOT the kind that the people I know who are doing what they call “outlaw” music are doing.

Then there are these online people that I’ve been with – the TMA folk who are into people like Jonathan Coulton. They don’t know anything about the enviornment down here. They don’t know how … snooty the Austin people can get. And they don’t know how Austin people can host amazing musicans here that, ironically – they don’t seem to have the britches for.

I wrote some lyrics once. I don’t think I’m really “into it” with this fellow. I think we’re in agreement on many things. Plus he’s just a cutie anyway and fun as hell to film at large gatherings when I don’t want to be in the middle of large and gross crowds who annoy me!

Here they are:

LITTLE BRITCHES, TEXAS
[Disclaimer: I was REALLY annoyed, and it was a hot, hot day! In July ...]

I don’t want to waste another summer here
Sweating in the sweltering heat
Under the pressure of pretension
Of a place that wants to be like New York or LA
With out the late night sushi bars or Russian samovars
To back it up

Such pressure sure should not exist
In a town too small to catch a subway
Or the next train
Out of this

CH
Here in Little Britches, Texas
We preach our southern fried religion
Our warped purist vision
Hear the irony clink in our glass
Like the ice cubes in a glass of Chardonnay
And our pride makes us swell above our – hipster capris
In Little Britches, Texas
…

And as you sit there in your bobo liberal righteousness
Fresh from your trip to Whole Foods – judging me
For drinking tap water or buying gas or diesel fuel
Remember I’m not rich enough to change the rules
Just rich enough to point out I can’t buy a shirt that
Sherpas made that you are wearing casually
as you drive home to your house in Westlake

…

And that’s some irony in the Live Music Capitol …
Of nothing …
Just plug the robot in behind the Strat and hit the Jimmy preset
Can’t hit a rock without hitting a thousand bands who’ll play for free
apparently including me
So you can go out and help try to dig us out of this
Or you can stay home and watch some more reality …

Poodlz & Denouement in Iambic Pentameter (introduction)

So. I was showing people the Godz Poodlz video. Which is very, VERY funny. And in which the Poodlz both look like serious, SERIOUS stud muffins. Or stud donuts. What the HELL is a stud donut? Anyway …

So Rhod Durre (the guy in the glasses we all wish we could get away with who resembles a fighter pilot) just became my 101st FAN ON FACEBOOK today.

This is a BIG FAT HAIRY DEAL because if you know me you know how it has been …

We will take a short break now to celebrate with a tiny celebratory poem

This is the beginning of a poem that I actually thought that I was going to try and PUBLISH. Go ahead. Laugh. It’s funny. There is no place to publish a poem that I was going to enter into a contest that was supposed to be kind of like a literary Song Fu and which I did not complete.
I was to write off three prompts. They were Flower, denouement, and something else I can’t remember but that made me think of murder. Or produce. Since everything naturally makes me think of murder, even something like pairs figure skating – I of course thought about murder at the farmer’s market. Because we can’t just go quietly and get our Kombucha Tea, now CAN WE????

I didn’t stop there. No … I wanted to put it in IAMBIC PENTAMETER

TROUBLE AT THE FARMERS MARKET
(a mysterious tragedy)

PAPPIO
I have uncovered tragic tragedy
Among these vegetarian delights
O! Such a shocker as has ne’er been seen

RANDOM MARKET GOER
at least not since last year’s Kombucha fights!

RUFFIO
What say you rabble rouser, what is this
Disturber of treasured organic peace
Although it’s true something is yet amiss
Your un-coolness of energy must cease

PAPPIO
The gentleman, correctly he did shout
And his past truths they cannot be denied
But although although cultured tea was thrown about
Not even one brave market-goer died!

PAPPIO
What say you sir? Is something now awry?

RUFFIO
Assure you I, good sir, the trouble’s nigh!
…

It was gonna get really good, I promise you. I was gonna have knives, and a flower poisoning (à la White Oleander, and a thwarted romance, and … and …

But I have a rehearsal at 2 … and the best laid plans of conga players and donuts …

The 4 Month Challenge

I have a friend called Shelley who is a very motivated human. I met her in Longhorn Band. I have to admit that I wasn’t a huge fan of my time in the band, as I spent most of my time in the pit percussion area (mallet instruments), muttering under my breath. Like Gollum, but not as charming.

Anyway, Shelley exercises and stuff. I’m kind of on an exercise kick too, and I’m receiving the benefit of happy drugs since I’m ditching some of my more offending pharmaceuticals. I won’t get into it, but I’m not as sickly as I used to be. No more Hector Pi Laureate or anything. No more hormonal madness. Nada. So I have an oppurtunity to bend my metabolism to my ever-loving whim.

I put my goals up in a previous blog entry. So how am I doing?

Well, not well so far. This is typical of me. I always rebel at the first start. I stick my tongue out at it.

AT THIS POINT:

1. I have not gone to martial arts this week once. This is bad because I only went once last week, and twice the week before. Unk! I’m going to have to go tomorrow morning, which is going to HURT! And then there’s classes every day including Saturday. I should try to make Saturday, because they have tournament practice then. I should also go Thursday, because that’s when I usually meet up with the 8pm people (which is where I should be tonight!).

2. I didn’t write down my food for the last two days. This is a two day slip-up and has happened for the first time in over a month. I’ve been good about this for an entire month. I’ll write down my food as soon as I’m done with this blog. I’m going to take my vitamins too, because I just loaded three weeks worth of them. It’s not on my “official” list of goals – but it should be in my mind.

3. I practiced for over 4 hours today, so that’s good. It was not really regimented practice, nor did I really get any ideas down. I am firming up ideas for 3 or 4 songs that will need to be finished and put on the 2 hour set though. I’ll need to tighten up on the scheduling and get organized about the rehearsing soon, but it’s good work. I did some good vocal rehearsing.

4. I was all over the place today, socially. I’m net-stalking people who really shouldn’t be net-stalked … I’m CARING WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK (this is a huge no-no in my case), I’m getting in over my head. I need to detach and go back into my own little world. I have told myself that I’m Face-banned. I don’t know for how long. This is good. I’ve enrolled in a writing contest and I’m waiting for Song Fu. These things don’t directly pertain to my goal … but they will help keep me out of the trouble that excessive brooding brings.

I will try not to engage in excessive blogging, or Twittering … or anything.

5. I didn’t get anything done on the studio, but everything tiny thing in the house that I clean is a step in the right direction toward that.

bloggity-blog-blog-blog

After much deliberation, I’ve decided to import this blog into Facebook notes … hoping it lights a fire under my butt about getting back into this blog – which I am actually meant to be updating more regularly.

We’ll see. I’m not all that fond of the internet, and we’re just really lucky that I don’t lose my cell phone in a bar toilet more than twice a week when I go out to hear a show.