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.

Atropos Remembers Her Lover

all of a sudden
I saw my hands were old.

they’d aged three decades in as many months

i know how much a ferryman should cost.
(enough to know how much, he still expected…

lots)

a universe of starry skin cells
all interconnected
time stretched out like a stranger …

all of a sudden
my soul felt cold.

I’d forgotten that I had a soul.
They told me such was not
my right to stretch and hold

my hands lacked lines once, for a while
the body underneath them
honey over polished stone

time stopped!
…all a sudden
and it was as if your arms
were made of gold.

******************
ps. THIS is a good old entry and another fitting poem for now.

Two for the price of One Plus a Dollar…

These are the kitties of Randall, “Couch Kitty” and “Window Kitty” .. also known as Alex and Max.
These are the photos we took before they left. It’s been weird. I didn’t want to blog about them, because I don’t know how they are – but I haven’t been blogging a lot and yesterday I went out and read some of my writing to some people and there was mirth and fun and enjoyment and I realize how much I edit and hold back and am careful and it does me no good because bad things continue to happen anyway regardless of what I do. So I may as well just continue on as I am, writing as I like and trying my hardest to be the best that I can be. What can one do about such things? We are moving, and it’s a billiondy million degrees, and and I have been a worrier of Epic Porpoises since I was a podling. Everything will work out fine. I continue to stare suspiciously at the piano and wish things would pack up themselves and magically sort-out-in-all-easy-ways.
1. Pianoteq problem again while trying to save some old data. Well, my pianos have been saved. This is very important because they are like my babies and represent times and places in my development and they remind me of people and places and conversations and stuff I was going through. Sometimes I would just make a piano to FEEL better.

2. I am going to have a graham crackers shaped like tiny rabbits. Because I can.
3. I’m out at my Tuesday night writers group again. I’m proud of this, because this is something that I I’ve been doing that is consistent and that is special and tasty. I don’t know if “tasty” applies here; but we’re going to go with it.
4. Have you ever reached an impasse with a friend? Well, I have reached an impasse with this particular friend so many times that the restaurant that we used to meet at when we were younger with firmer complexions has turned into a hipster space station and moved down the road. I’d go in there, but I am afraid that the smell of TIGI and pretention would choke every shred of energy I have regained from me. Yes, every precious SHRED of energy that I have refound and will clutch to my bosom before my doctor has figured out that I have ripped myself off cholesterol medicine and thrust its evil presence from my wrecked body.
5. I’m a tad drama today. Expect more typing.
6. I think I’m slowly finding my fan base. I’ve been hunting them down. I have, of course, been saying this for years of beers, and the 6-8 people who have OPT-ed-ed-IN are tired of my megalomaniacal claims I am sure. They are people like me. But the regular channels of the Getting of the Attention … it doesn’t WORK that way. I can’t be all MERCHY with these people. I can’t jump up and down with pom-poms and clever hooks and drag them out to gigs and send them to my bandcamp.
7. My husband, who apparently although he has a job cannot be bothered to actually code or anything (#pokeymirthlystuff) has figured out that Vinny the Geriatric Kitteh is between 84 and 90ish years of age in human years. Before we dragged him back inside, he was having a vigorous, non-consensual “dating” life with Domina – who I am assuming is between 50 and 60. I am thinking that perhaps a crotchety (yes, I am aware that I have enjoyed typing that word before) .. old man cat could have been rather useful last night as Get-the-Hell-Off-My-Porching those Raccoons last night. More likely he would have just sat there allowing the powers that flea to take his love and take his land. Animals are jerks.
8. Anyway, about my fanz-with-a-Lolcat-inspired-”z” … they are people of the night. Unless they aren’t; and they feel more jaunty during the afternoon or for breakfast or elevenzees. Sometimes they are practical people who like to make crafty items with funny ears. Sometimes they aren’t weird for the sake of being weird. Actually, they never are. They’re just themselves. They just move around, heads cocked to the sides- funny half smiles at the ready. They don’t have the squinky look on their face that I imagine the majority of people make when they are reading my blog. Or perhaps I am giving myself too much credit and I think it is terribly Roman Tick to imagine myself velvet caped in my dungeon of delights playing my creepy basement organ.
9. that is not what she said.
10. I’ve missed blogging. I promise I will not get all creepy.
11. We are inDEED moving to a new location and it does not have a creepy basement for a creepy organ. There are probably about 3-4 basements in the whole city of Austin because of all the limestone. It’s really too bad because I bet it would be nice and cool and cavey down there.
12. OOOOO! I forgot all about CAVES!
12.5 -> I haven’t been myself lately. I’ve lacked confidence. I’ve need LOTS of reassurance. I USED to be like that, but I trained out of it. I think that this is because I got sick, and being sick is scary and hurty and vulnerable.

Well, no more! When you realize that you are in the bottom of a dank, dank, stinky hole then you have to look up and see the gleaming taco stand at the top and crawl back out. I have stuff to do. I’m not even going to link it. I’m not even going to BLOG RESPONSIBLY. You’ll all just have to wait because

HERE IS A DEN LIST:
A. I have either TWO or THREE songs to write. I’m hedging about the third because I am not sure if it is needed, wanted, or necessary. It’s become almost a philisophical connundrum at this point.

B. I SHOULD start with the song that I know I have, but for some reason doing the most difficult thing is what I crave, because if I can do it; that means that I have my stuff under control
C. There is not any more. For that is all.

hay-hay.

ps. sorry for mistigacakes. We have to go someplace and I don’t have the time to spell-chalk this up properliciously.

Who Said I’m Dead

I wrote a songfight song once to a title called ‘Who Said I’m Dead.’ There’s a video that I perform in my living room..about a year ago.

I wrote this song about a…I don’t want to call her a frenemy. But she wasn’t MY enemy. To say we were enemies is giving too much credit. We’d never even been Facebook friends ever, is how far back this goes.

My point of this is not to dwell, but to look back. When we have someone who hates us, or who is Jealous of us…this does not have to be a sharp blow to the heart. We don’t have to fix it even. We can learn from it. It can serve us.

This person, I found out, said something about me that got my back up. I should have looked a little further into it.

Because it was true.

It wasn’t true for the reasons SHE thought, but for more fundamental, core reasons that were important to me.

A claim had been made that, in a nutshell, I was just replacing the Old Things in my life with my new choices. I was incapable of real change, real growth. I could only try to copy the life denied me by her rules excluding me from their world – copy it poorly by using new people to replace my old.

This did turn out to be true. I even had warning signs in my new life that things were going in the same direction. Choices that smelled like old mistakes I was making. Old behaviors toward me that smacked of narcissism and self absorption. Little voices popping up and saying “are you really going to do THAT?!? Isn’t THAT just like THIS?!?” and looking at aftermath and wrap-up of the situation and how dead on identical it is to other situations after-the-fact.

And I so hate being the I-told-you-so-er. But I SO always am!!

The funny thing about all this is that even after I “move on,” I don’t burn a bridge. I keep a door open. I think the best of people.

And it’s so funny, because I am reminded, sometimes very inconveniently, that people come in pods. And that unfortunately, they come out of their pods only when they feel you are worth their time and attention.

I got this hammered home to me that I’ve been forgotten, not paid attention to by some near and dear to me, and it’s hard. One of my favorite lines I’ve ever written is “when you leave a room with me in it / you turn out the light.” I think I’ve talked about this before.

I was glad I worked on my Nur Ein instead of going to my 20th reunion.

In the future, I hope I’ll be preoccupied, naturally, when I’m “supposed” to have been waiting with baited breath for others who didn’t have time for me before to suddenly need me to be part of their set of numbers. And not even to be vindictive. Just because I’ve got a life.

It’s possible to be firm but classy, even in the face of bitter, inappropriate sarcasm – as though you did the pushing away in each growing-apart-relationship. And aren’t relationships more complicated? Don’t they require more truth, more honest-loving-scrutiny? Less shaming than is heaped upon the complicated ones we move through in these times…?

In my experience, people find it terribly exhausting to show the intimate best of themselves to more than a tiny handful of people for any good length of quality time – and think it’s okay to lob the cliff notes version around in our forward-it-on society. Intimacy is called upon when needs are had, appropriateness and boundaries are enforced when the time is over. Family is fluid. Blood is thicker than mayonaise unless we’re having jello shots.

I’m just riffing here…

I guess I do let it get to me sometimes.

I like to have a pie made for me. Not store bought. I can tell the difference. I want to open the letter. I want to hold the fabric of it, eat the cupcake, remember what it tasted like, turn those pages in my hands.

I’m just more tactile I guess. Only an investment in a friendship for me, thanks I like my love undiluted, and off the microscope slide.

[ ]

DON’T READ THIS BLOG ENTRY.

YOU’LL BE DETAINED INDEFINATELY. WITHOUT TRIAL. THIS IS SERIOUS, PEEPS. NO KIDDING.

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO BLACK OUT MY SITES. I do not even have wordpress installed on my computer and do not know the ins-and-outs of plug-ins-ley blogging yet. I only get up here and bust ‘tude. In fact, skip ahead, you are already too entertained by this, and should be learning, not loafing.

THE GUV‘MENT* (by which I mean The Government .. you know the one, people … the one we talk about in International Hushed Whispers… could seriously mess things up for Modern Society if perhaps we don’t get cracking, it seems.

I’ve been making myself crazed reading about this as I have been making mistakes and going to all my Readily Available Plethora of Social Networks to Complain about my Audio Engineering Fails in the Vain Attempts to finish my Gift of Music entry for Song Fight!

But since I was a young Complainer, I have known that things were Somewhat More than Awry … Oh yes, Somewhattishly More than Awry, My Fine Feathered, Fun-loving Fellows and Fello-ettes

Since the early 90s. Gentlemen callers and other fun folks of acquaintance have said to me many a fine day “oh how CUTE! A Conspiracy Theorist!” Well, no more! We are ALL cute! And we are ALL connected, because soon, perhaps we will all be connected by a series of adjoining cells. Oh, you say that you are not an American? Well, we have proven time and time again-sly that we have the ability to come and get all nucular all up in YOUR nachos too. Occupy THAT, suckahs!!!!
#mirth #butnotreally #arewestillallowedtoHashtagIt?

(this is actually not Laughing Magma)…

Okay, I’M GONNA MAKE MUSIC NOW. THAT’S WHAT I KNOW HOW TO DO. But in pre-conclusion, I KNOW HOW TO LINK.
…SO LOOK AT SOME OF THIS STUFF

*THE WIKIPEDIA THING
*AGHGHGHG. NO CHEEZBURGERS TODAY!

Lifehacker’s position.

Jules was amused this morning by laughing squid’s twitter-y observations.

…Twitter and Facebook; search engine-y stuff

You think I’d be finishing my homework today, with the info-wars*… speaking of THAT :S
just because you’re paranoid ….

that’s all for now. I’m off the interwebz.

just remember that I l@^x you guys…………………..