It's happened. I knew it would at some point.
Last night Honey Bunny and I were working out with Yoga Trainer and I was having a hard time doing 21 Frog Squats as compared to our usual 15. The majority of the time I can make it to 12 before my thighs start to scream (no problem! - only three more to go... usually) but last night, my thighs were burning like crazy by number seven. A psych out, knowing that I had to go six past the usual 15? Normal flux between workout sessions? Or must I admit that in the two weeks Yoga Trainer was on vacation, I only exercised on my own a whopping three times and was feeling the impact of that?
I stopped at 16 and started rubbing my thighs and said, "Omigod, my thighs are on fire!" Yoga Trainer didn't say his usual, "Just take a breath and resume. You'll be okay!" while continuing to do the squats himself. Instead he stopped, stood up, put his hands on his hips and said, "I'd have a hard time doing these too if I strapped 100 pounds to my body."
Hardest words to hear, EVER.
Well, that's not entirely true. I actually think being talked to by my parents and sister over the years about needing to lose weight ranks as being just slightly worse, if only because it felt so loaded (they are my family, aren't they supposed to love me the way I am?), dangerous (oh god, what if they don't love me this way?) and, sometimes, just downright judgmental (Hi Dad! Thanks for saying that being obese makes people look "unkempt"!). Honey Bunny, too, has expressed over our six years together that he would like me to be more healthy so that we can live a long married life together. That doesn't feel so painful anymore, though... now that it is a dialogue between us rather than a suggestion or lecture.
It was extremely hard to endure Yoga Trainer's words, and the ensuing hour in which he asked us to sit down and for me to really talk about what it is I want out of training and, well, life. (Hey, he's a yoga guy.) Lots of tears were shed on my part. I contemplated getting up and walking out a few times because it was so uncomfortable. I wasn't sure in the moment whether what YT was saying was harsh or compassionate.
When people talk to me about needing to lose weight or be more healthy, my first reaction is to feel victimized. In reality, what I know for sure is that I feel thoroughly embarrassed and disoriented, and sometimes offended. Whether those things qualify me for the "victim" category, I'm not so sure.
My victimized stance usually includes a lot of tears and reasoning for why the person talking to me has no right to do so. So much so that the person (usually) backs down and apologizes for bringing it up. If it's someone close to me, s/he says they love me for who I am and meant no harm.
Something interesting happened with Yoga Trainer, though. By the end of our conversation, I no longer felt embarrassed, disoriented, offended OR victimized. YT is a tough nut with a big ego. And, apparently, so am I. He won last night, but his victory didn't seem like my personal defeat. While I can't say at this point that his victory is going to be my personal victory (cue YT to stop what he's doing, stare intensely at me and shoot back, "Why not?"), I can at least say that he talked to me about losing weight in a way that felt very different than the way others have. He's not part of my family and he isn't my friend really (at least not in the traditional way). It didn't feel so loaded and dangerous, and while he pushed me to my limit to get information and a commitment to have further intense conversations with him, it still didn't feel judgmental.
It was so weird to be raw like that. I talked to him about being in a dead-end job, feeling like I was going nowhere in life, not being able to set goals and stick to them, and how that all relates to losing weight (or not). It was the weirdest therapy I've ever experienced, that's for sure. With Therapist, we talk about things slowly and methodically in a safe setting where I get to (feel like I?) make discoveries on my own. Talking with YT was, literally, wild. I think both behoove me. (Lordy, is it too bourgeois to say that and to be able to take advantage of both??)
10 October 2009
23 September 2009
Tampon Talk
First there was Church Chat, now there's Tampon Talk! Hope you don't think I'm too gross, but it just so happens that tampons are the common thread (string) here.
Let's start with this season's Real World. Young people have always been fascinating to me - even when I was a young person - but moreso now that I supervise young people at work and am thinking of bearing a child who will, presumably, become a young person at some point. "The Young People" (as Honey Bunny calls them) in this context, are roughly aged 16 - 25, for those who are wondering.
The Real World Cancun's Young People have been extra fun to observe in their unnaturally luxurious habitat. Back in my day as a youngster, our issues amounted to nothing more than excess drinking and sleeping with the wrong person. These days, the excess drinking is just the jumping off point. Now there are mental health issues (bulemia, cutting, unhealthy fixations with guns, zombies and the military) (don't ask!), adventures in bisexuality, threesomes, and talk about sleeping with the wrong person! How about ending up in bed with your mortal enemy? Who teased and taunted you in front of your roommates, friends and coworkers for weeks on end about your very un-funny mental health issues?
Said mortal enemy got an unexpected smack down on the token reunion show after the season wrapped. When douche nozzle cast member Joey asked sensitive drama queen Emilee (daughter of therapists, natch) if she was on her period after she ranted about his bad-boy behavior, she snottily replied, "I'm not on my period, Joey, but if I were, I'd take my tampon out right now and slap you across the face with it."
Awesome! I wish I'd had such imagination when I was a Young Person. It actually caused me to jump up off the couch whooping with laughter, rewind and watch it again, run into the bathroom where Honey Bunny was in the bath to tell him about it, make him get out of the tub to come watch it where all he did was roll his eyes and pad with wet feet and towel back to the bath. And yet, I'm still laughing about it and still wanting to share the magic.
Next up we have a dear friend, who shall remain nameless, who had... an odor. A very unfortunate odor, and discharge too, coming from down yonder for two straight weeks. I kept encouraging Friend to go to the gynecologist or, at the very least, talk to an advice nurse, but she was unwilling because she was embarassed.
On Monday she called to tell me the source of the odor had been identified. "I went to wipe this morning and there was a string," she said. Gulp. Her period had ended two and a half weeks prior. I'll spare you the (gory) details. At that point, I really encouraged her to visit the gyno to make sure everything was ok, but again she resisted. A friend can only encourage an ObGyn visit so much, eh?
Then she text messaged me yesterday, while I was in a meeting: "I smell so much better!" If I could have, I would have jumped up out of my conference room chair and whooped with laughter, and shared her text and story with my favorite female coworkers.
As it happens, something similar happened to me when I was a Really Drunk Young Person. Somehow in the middle of the night, in a dark porta-potty while camping, I thought I did a replacement manuever but instead ended up with a, um, "double decker situation". Next morning as my head was pounding and stomach churning, I shuffled back up to the porta-potties, sat down, and had to ask myself, "Why are there two strings?" Nice.
Lastly, last week I had a scare/hope in which I thought I would get a respite from using tampons for the next nine months. Sadly, I don't get that respite. Thank you to those of you who listened to me rant and rave and be hopeful and be scared, so on and so forth. We'll see what happens in the future.
Let's start with this season's Real World. Young people have always been fascinating to me - even when I was a young person - but moreso now that I supervise young people at work and am thinking of bearing a child who will, presumably, become a young person at some point. "The Young People" (as Honey Bunny calls them) in this context, are roughly aged 16 - 25, for those who are wondering.
The Real World Cancun's Young People have been extra fun to observe in their unnaturally luxurious habitat. Back in my day as a youngster, our issues amounted to nothing more than excess drinking and sleeping with the wrong person. These days, the excess drinking is just the jumping off point. Now there are mental health issues (bulemia, cutting, unhealthy fixations with guns, zombies and the military) (don't ask!), adventures in bisexuality, threesomes, and talk about sleeping with the wrong person! How about ending up in bed with your mortal enemy? Who teased and taunted you in front of your roommates, friends and coworkers for weeks on end about your very un-funny mental health issues?
Said mortal enemy got an unexpected smack down on the token reunion show after the season wrapped. When douche nozzle cast member Joey asked sensitive drama queen Emilee (daughter of therapists, natch) if she was on her period after she ranted about his bad-boy behavior, she snottily replied, "I'm not on my period, Joey, but if I were, I'd take my tampon out right now and slap you across the face with it."
Awesome! I wish I'd had such imagination when I was a Young Person. It actually caused me to jump up off the couch whooping with laughter, rewind and watch it again, run into the bathroom where Honey Bunny was in the bath to tell him about it, make him get out of the tub to come watch it where all he did was roll his eyes and pad with wet feet and towel back to the bath. And yet, I'm still laughing about it and still wanting to share the magic.
Next up we have a dear friend, who shall remain nameless, who had... an odor. A very unfortunate odor, and discharge too, coming from down yonder for two straight weeks. I kept encouraging Friend to go to the gynecologist or, at the very least, talk to an advice nurse, but she was unwilling because she was embarassed.
On Monday she called to tell me the source of the odor had been identified. "I went to wipe this morning and there was a string," she said. Gulp. Her period had ended two and a half weeks prior. I'll spare you the (gory) details. At that point, I really encouraged her to visit the gyno to make sure everything was ok, but again she resisted. A friend can only encourage an ObGyn visit so much, eh?
Then she text messaged me yesterday, while I was in a meeting: "I smell so much better!" If I could have, I would have jumped up out of my conference room chair and whooped with laughter, and shared her text and story with my favorite female coworkers.
As it happens, something similar happened to me when I was a Really Drunk Young Person. Somehow in the middle of the night, in a dark porta-potty while camping, I thought I did a replacement manuever but instead ended up with a, um, "double decker situation". Next morning as my head was pounding and stomach churning, I shuffled back up to the porta-potties, sat down, and had to ask myself, "Why are there two strings?" Nice.
Lastly, last week I had a scare/hope in which I thought I would get a respite from using tampons for the next nine months. Sadly, I don't get that respite. Thank you to those of you who listened to me rant and rave and be hopeful and be scared, so on and so forth. We'll see what happens in the future.
20 August 2009
What my upper lip and garbage bin at work have taught me
My upper lip was left battered and bruised last weekend in a waxing incident. Yes, sure, I volunteered to do it and even paid the big dollars. Unfortunately, now it looks like I have poison oak on my upper lip and it's not very attractive. Ironic, right? I got my lip waxed so that I could feel better about myself and if anything, it's left me feeling self-conscious and stupid. Yet, even if I didn't have a killer rash I would likely still be feeling self-conscious and stupid... and I'll tell you why.
That little layer of fuzz covered up the fact that I'm starting to get little fine lines radiating down in a diagonal pattern to my top lip. My mom warned me about this. She told me when I was 20 and started using lipstick regularly that I needed to use a lip brush, otherwise I'd get lines like she had. Mmmhmm. "Right Mom, the fact that you've been smoking a pack a day since you were 15 has NOTHING AT ALL to do with those lines," I'd always think.
But I digress. My real point, the more horrifying thing about this is that I've caught my reflection in the mirror since last Saturday and it looks like I'm sucking lemons a lot of the time. No, not horrifying because of the way I "look". Horrifying because of the way I must be feeling and/or projecting.
When I worked at the Renaissance Faire back in the day, this guy I had a crush on started calling me the "Poop in the Mouth Peasant" behind my back. Finally my best friend at the time told me, so I'd stop making that look. "What look?" I asked. She replied, "Dude, sometimes you look a little... pinched."
Imagine my horror when I caught myself in my rear-view mirror this Monday morning after having flipped someone off. I won't go into specifics but I get cut off, on average, two times in the span of just this one particular block on my drive to work every. single. morning. And on this particular Monday, I'd had it. I honked briefly as I passed the latest cutting-off offender, to catch her attention, and then I gave her the big ol' finger as I sped away. Then I looked in the mirror. Why, I have no idea... but I looked. And there I saw a stranger. A really angry woman with a poop-in-the-mouth, pinched, sucking lemons look on her face. "I'm not that person!" I thought.
Over the course of that day, as I tried to glimpse myself in mirrors at various other times, I realized that yes... yes, I can be that person. I just don't want to be. So, I decided to use my upper lip as a barometer this week, and without a mirror. Say I'm feeling crabby. I ask myself, how does that lip feel? Ah, it feels pinched. If I remember to think about my lip just randomly and it feels tight or drawn, I ask myself how I feel. Huh, strangely stressed and I don't even know why.
When Honey Bunny and I go to personal training, Yoga Trainer constantly tells us we need to "practice with an inner smile." At first I just didn't get it. Why would you do exercise with a smile? HOW do you do exercise with a smile? His theory is an old one: fake it until you make it. I think I get it now.
*****
Also under the category of "I'm not that person" is a story about my personal garbage bin at work. You see, Joe the Janitor comes in my cube every day at 5pm to dump my garbage. I don't know Joe personally, but he's a nice enough guy. One day about a month ago, after he asked me how my day was, I started wondering what Joe's job was like. He must see at least a few of us in our cubes every day when he empties our trash. Does he check out what's in our garbage bins? Does he make note of patterns in what we throw away? Because I would, were I Joe the Janitor.
On the odd day when my ear canal itches, and I bust out the emergency cotton swabs and scrape out some ear wax, I can barely put them in my bin because I'm afraid of what Joe will think. I mean, gross. Sure he's got latex gloves on and probably sees some gross shit in the bathroom trash cans, but at least there it's expected!
But again, I digress. At some point I started monitoring what I threw away in terms of food, food containers, wrappers, etc. For starters, at my job we put out tons of mini chocolate candies for our many customers, and so we have giant Costco-size bags of them in bulk. I'm a chocolate whore, and I admit it. I sometimes steal up to 10 pieces of halloween candy per day from our storage cabinet, I admit that too. The wrappers all go in my personal garbage bin. You see where this is going?
It doesn't stop at my choco wrappers*. I also have a bad habit of eating at my desk at lunch while perusing blogs and Facebook. All wrappers go in my personal garbage bin. I thought I was a healthy eater. I thought I was making healthy choices for lunch. At some point, I said to myself, "I don't eat crap like this! This was just an exception for today." Well, after you say that to yourself for an entire month, the truth is staring you in the face. It's sitting in an open-top garbage bin three feet away from where you sit all day in your cube, to be exact.
What must Joe think of me?, I kept thinking after my realization. Such is the peril of having a nice janitor, right? Then it dawned on me that the real person I was letting down was myself. It's strange how something so random can motivate you. I started taking my lunch to work more. Soon Joe would see the pits of summer peaches, a smear of homemade hummus on a paper towel where it had squished out of my whole wheat sandwich, and maybe, just maybe, a choco wrapper or two (not twelve). It also started to inform how I purchase lunch as well.
How random is it to think, "what do I want to see in my garbage can when I leave work today?" rather than, "what do I want to eat today?" But hey, it works.
* = Believe me, the painful irony of my admitting that I eat a bunch of halloween candy every work day after my last ranting post is not lost on me.
That little layer of fuzz covered up the fact that I'm starting to get little fine lines radiating down in a diagonal pattern to my top lip. My mom warned me about this. She told me when I was 20 and started using lipstick regularly that I needed to use a lip brush, otherwise I'd get lines like she had. Mmmhmm. "Right Mom, the fact that you've been smoking a pack a day since you were 15 has NOTHING AT ALL to do with those lines," I'd always think.
But I digress. My real point, the more horrifying thing about this is that I've caught my reflection in the mirror since last Saturday and it looks like I'm sucking lemons a lot of the time. No, not horrifying because of the way I "look". Horrifying because of the way I must be feeling and/or projecting.
When I worked at the Renaissance Faire back in the day, this guy I had a crush on started calling me the "Poop in the Mouth Peasant" behind my back. Finally my best friend at the time told me, so I'd stop making that look. "What look?" I asked. She replied, "Dude, sometimes you look a little... pinched."
Imagine my horror when I caught myself in my rear-view mirror this Monday morning after having flipped someone off. I won't go into specifics but I get cut off, on average, two times in the span of just this one particular block on my drive to work every. single. morning. And on this particular Monday, I'd had it. I honked briefly as I passed the latest cutting-off offender, to catch her attention, and then I gave her the big ol' finger as I sped away. Then I looked in the mirror. Why, I have no idea... but I looked. And there I saw a stranger. A really angry woman with a poop-in-the-mouth, pinched, sucking lemons look on her face. "I'm not that person!" I thought.
Over the course of that day, as I tried to glimpse myself in mirrors at various other times, I realized that yes... yes, I can be that person. I just don't want to be. So, I decided to use my upper lip as a barometer this week, and without a mirror. Say I'm feeling crabby. I ask myself, how does that lip feel? Ah, it feels pinched. If I remember to think about my lip just randomly and it feels tight or drawn, I ask myself how I feel. Huh, strangely stressed and I don't even know why.
When Honey Bunny and I go to personal training, Yoga Trainer constantly tells us we need to "practice with an inner smile." At first I just didn't get it. Why would you do exercise with a smile? HOW do you do exercise with a smile? His theory is an old one: fake it until you make it. I think I get it now.
*****
Also under the category of "I'm not that person" is a story about my personal garbage bin at work. You see, Joe the Janitor comes in my cube every day at 5pm to dump my garbage. I don't know Joe personally, but he's a nice enough guy. One day about a month ago, after he asked me how my day was, I started wondering what Joe's job was like. He must see at least a few of us in our cubes every day when he empties our trash. Does he check out what's in our garbage bins? Does he make note of patterns in what we throw away? Because I would, were I Joe the Janitor.
On the odd day when my ear canal itches, and I bust out the emergency cotton swabs and scrape out some ear wax, I can barely put them in my bin because I'm afraid of what Joe will think. I mean, gross. Sure he's got latex gloves on and probably sees some gross shit in the bathroom trash cans, but at least there it's expected!
But again, I digress. At some point I started monitoring what I threw away in terms of food, food containers, wrappers, etc. For starters, at my job we put out tons of mini chocolate candies for our many customers, and so we have giant Costco-size bags of them in bulk. I'm a chocolate whore, and I admit it. I sometimes steal up to 10 pieces of halloween candy per day from our storage cabinet, I admit that too. The wrappers all go in my personal garbage bin. You see where this is going?
It doesn't stop at my choco wrappers*. I also have a bad habit of eating at my desk at lunch while perusing blogs and Facebook. All wrappers go in my personal garbage bin. I thought I was a healthy eater. I thought I was making healthy choices for lunch. At some point, I said to myself, "I don't eat crap like this! This was just an exception for today." Well, after you say that to yourself for an entire month, the truth is staring you in the face. It's sitting in an open-top garbage bin three feet away from where you sit all day in your cube, to be exact.
What must Joe think of me?, I kept thinking after my realization. Such is the peril of having a nice janitor, right? Then it dawned on me that the real person I was letting down was myself. It's strange how something so random can motivate you. I started taking my lunch to work more. Soon Joe would see the pits of summer peaches, a smear of homemade hummus on a paper towel where it had squished out of my whole wheat sandwich, and maybe, just maybe, a choco wrapper or two (not twelve). It also started to inform how I purchase lunch as well.
How random is it to think, "what do I want to see in my garbage can when I leave work today?" rather than, "what do I want to eat today?" But hey, it works.
* = Believe me, the painful irony of my admitting that I eat a bunch of halloween candy every work day after my last ranting post is not lost on me.
11 August 2009
Faith = gone
My faith has been shaken, and quite possibly damaged beyond repair. Perhaps I have a thinner skin then when I started this blog, but I can no longer stomach reading material like this article entitled "Does The Fat Acceptance Movement Glamorize An Unhealthy Lifestyle?" from The Frisky.
Correction: the article I can deal with... it's the comments section that makes me want to cry in my beer, er, large vat of M&M's that I must be imbibing day after day (because I'm fat and exercise, but don't lose much or any weight as a result). You can find my personal comment in response under the username latouff. And yes, I was pissed off when I wrote it.
I do firmly believe that fat people are one of the scapegoats of this society, and you need look no further than the title of above-mentioned blog posting for an example. I'm not quite understanding why asking for acceptance about the way one looks (identifies) constitutes "glamorizing" a lifestyle. (The writer does mention two fat women bloggers by name in the article, and perhaps they are, indeed, glamorizing their own fat lifestyles. Their. own.) That's like saying gay men who believe gay marriage should be legalized are "glamorizing" a gay lifestyle and all the unhealthy aspects - medical or otherwise - that may be associated with it.
In the end, I just don't get it. I don't get why my body size and weight is up for so much speculation in a world, in a nation, absolutely abounding in social problems. I can fully accept that my body size and associated medical maladies is one of those social problems. What I can't accept is the way people talk about this particular social problem like it isn't personal to them. You've been battling the fat on your own body for years, and view said fat as unattractive, unslightly and a giant pain in your ass? I get it! Seriously, I do. You got a mother, father, sibling, friend who is fat and has health problems as a result, and you're concerned about them? I get it! I do. I have lots of people concerned about me who are vocal about it, and I hate them for it, but I also love them for it. What I can't stand is when concern for someone who is personally in your life turns into a battle cry to "fight obesity".
Do you know how that sounds to someone who is obese, by the way? That there is a campaign by both my state and federal governments to "fight obesity"? To fight obesity is to fight me, assholes.
I'm a person, not a statistic.
I'm a person, not a population.
I'm a person, not a set of medical conditions.
If there were a way to cure obesity, then all the companies who produce diet products and diet magazines and shit like that would go out of business. There is no cure. There is no formula for making a person not fat or not obese, as much as doctors, therapists, fucked up TV shows and otherwise, would like you to believe. Reducing caloric intake and exercising are only the beginning, not the end, of the solution.
Obese people are just that: people. Imperfect. Struggling. If you want to help, then you need to figure something else out besides "fighting" our theoretical health problems and bad-mouthing what we look like in your bitter, shrill, opinionated rants on some random blog.
When I started this blog, it WAS to champion fat people and how, with a little work, they can lead normal, healthy lives in the face of a lot of people who feel otherwise. I still believe that... I just don't know that I can continue to be slapped in the face by people who think they are doing their rightful part in the "fight against obesity" by shutting down any fat person who dares to actually live a less-ashamed, less-abashed life.
Correction: the article I can deal with... it's the comments section that makes me want to cry in my beer, er, large vat of M&M's that I must be imbibing day after day (because I'm fat and exercise, but don't lose much or any weight as a result). You can find my personal comment in response under the username latouff. And yes, I was pissed off when I wrote it.
I do firmly believe that fat people are one of the scapegoats of this society, and you need look no further than the title of above-mentioned blog posting for an example. I'm not quite understanding why asking for acceptance about the way one looks (identifies) constitutes "glamorizing" a lifestyle. (The writer does mention two fat women bloggers by name in the article, and perhaps they are, indeed, glamorizing their own fat lifestyles. Their. own.) That's like saying gay men who believe gay marriage should be legalized are "glamorizing" a gay lifestyle and all the unhealthy aspects - medical or otherwise - that may be associated with it.
In the end, I just don't get it. I don't get why my body size and weight is up for so much speculation in a world, in a nation, absolutely abounding in social problems. I can fully accept that my body size and associated medical maladies is one of those social problems. What I can't accept is the way people talk about this particular social problem like it isn't personal to them. You've been battling the fat on your own body for years, and view said fat as unattractive, unslightly and a giant pain in your ass? I get it! Seriously, I do. You got a mother, father, sibling, friend who is fat and has health problems as a result, and you're concerned about them? I get it! I do. I have lots of people concerned about me who are vocal about it, and I hate them for it, but I also love them for it. What I can't stand is when concern for someone who is personally in your life turns into a battle cry to "fight obesity".
Do you know how that sounds to someone who is obese, by the way? That there is a campaign by both my state and federal governments to "fight obesity"? To fight obesity is to fight me, assholes.
I'm a person, not a statistic.
I'm a person, not a population.
I'm a person, not a set of medical conditions.
If there were a way to cure obesity, then all the companies who produce diet products and diet magazines and shit like that would go out of business. There is no cure. There is no formula for making a person not fat or not obese, as much as doctors, therapists, fucked up TV shows and otherwise, would like you to believe. Reducing caloric intake and exercising are only the beginning, not the end, of the solution.
Obese people are just that: people. Imperfect. Struggling. If you want to help, then you need to figure something else out besides "fighting" our theoretical health problems and bad-mouthing what we look like in your bitter, shrill, opinionated rants on some random blog.
When I started this blog, it WAS to champion fat people and how, with a little work, they can lead normal, healthy lives in the face of a lot of people who feel otherwise. I still believe that... I just don't know that I can continue to be slapped in the face by people who think they are doing their rightful part in the "fight against obesity" by shutting down any fat person who dares to actually live a less-ashamed, less-abashed life.
31 July 2009
Social Not-working?
Lately I've been thinking a lot about Facebook and what it means to my life. I joined in mid-May, and like most people who are new users of the site/function/world, I was quickly swept up in it. It was new and fun and crazy. Two and a half months later it doesn't feel so fresh anymore. There might be some issues.
In order to be strength-based, let's start with the good things.
Something that greatly amuses me is how much conversation happens about Facebook while not ON Facebook. Practically every day, I come home to Honey Bunny and tell him what so-and-so said on FB today that made me laugh, or I tell him about the latest childhood or high school friend that's surfaced and become my "friend". Almost every work day, I IM with my friend Steve about the latest FB goings-on with our mutual (or not) "friends". [It all feels so surreal: the self-conscious dialogue about the self-conscious dialogue.] I've also noticed how Facebook is starting to be mentioned in TV shows and movies. It's a phenomenon that's not going away anytime soon, which is part of the reason why I joined.
Warning: brutal honesty ahead. I also think it's cool to get back in contact with people who I've known throughout the years, generally people who I have no interest in being actual friends with. It's like running into someone on the street who you haven't seen in a long time (on purpose). It's a quick, "Nice to see you! What's going on in your life?", and you get the 411 on each other, and then you're outta there.
Conversely, I really appreciate the fact that I can keep tabs on all my very good friends who are far-flung. It's a quick, easy way to see/read what's going on for them without having to schedule a phone call or write long emails back and forth. Not that I don't enjoy phone calls or long emails, because I do! It's just a little easier to check FB is all.
I'm also on Twitter, which is like Facebook for really, really lazy people. Facebook is often criticized as being a venue for people to make snarky, quippy updates about themselves whilst they await their "friends" to lavish praise and approval upon them via Comments for said snarky, quippy updates. If you're one of those people who feel this about FB, do not go on Twitter, whatever you do!
Anyhow, I follow my friend Ashford on Twitter who was alone in a new, as-yet-unpacked house this week while his wife was away on business. One night he wrote, "I'm alone and lonely, making dinner for just myself." Had I read this that night, I would have called him up and invited him over for dinner. It's good to know not just what's going on in friend's lives, but what's going on in their heads as well.
Now for the issues...
I've always been one of those people who has a hard time "being in the moment" but even I'm surprised at those times when I'm more concerned with updating my Facebook status to reflect what I'm doing rather than just continuing to do whatever it is I'm doing. Disturbing!
Once upon a time, I was into MOO'ing. I was much younger and admittedly, had no life. I MOO'ed to escape a life I knew I should be building in reality, and instead opted for virtually. I was on the forefront of online technology, but I could not have felt more disconnected from the real world. I feel it happening again, and I'm not sure what to do about it because now I do have a life, and it's a good one. Instate rules, parameters, limitations on my usage? Probably.
I did mention in my list of positives that having high school, etc, friends become "friends" was nice, but there's a downside to it as well. After I ran out of actual FB-using friends and close family to be my "friends" and I started acquiring others, posting updates about myself started to feel weird. I don't feel free to say the things I would normally say in front of my real friends. I feel I have to moderate myself, which irritates me deeply. I moderate myself at work and in public all day long. I want FB to be safe. One friend just suggested to me last night that I don't moderate myself, despite this worry. "Just be yourself and if they don't like it, they can hide your updates or un-friend you. Done." Alright.
My biggest worry, though, is how it's split my life. Honey Bunny is not on Facebook, and has no plans to be. FB can be my private little life away from him, if I so choose. I choose not to, which is why I talk to him about the daily goings-on, but I don't know that it completely helps meld my two worlds... my big real world and my small (but somehow significant) Facebook world. Hmm.
You know what? In the process of writing this post, I've realized it's not so much that Facebook, Twitter or Flickr (yep, I'm on that one too) has changed me... it's more that my iPhone has changed the way I relate to the online world. If I didn't have a phone that felt like a pocket-sized super computer, I don't know that I'd even be talking about this. Boy, if someone told me back in 1994 when I was reading Ender's Game that I'd own, and use like mad, my own scaled down version of a "desk", I would have told them they were nuts.
Weird.
In order to be strength-based, let's start with the good things.
Something that greatly amuses me is how much conversation happens about Facebook while not ON Facebook. Practically every day, I come home to Honey Bunny and tell him what so-and-so said on FB today that made me laugh, or I tell him about the latest childhood or high school friend that's surfaced and become my "friend". Almost every work day, I IM with my friend Steve about the latest FB goings-on with our mutual (or not) "friends". [It all feels so surreal: the self-conscious dialogue about the self-conscious dialogue.] I've also noticed how Facebook is starting to be mentioned in TV shows and movies. It's a phenomenon that's not going away anytime soon, which is part of the reason why I joined.
Warning: brutal honesty ahead. I also think it's cool to get back in contact with people who I've known throughout the years, generally people who I have no interest in being actual friends with. It's like running into someone on the street who you haven't seen in a long time (on purpose). It's a quick, "Nice to see you! What's going on in your life?", and you get the 411 on each other, and then you're outta there.
Conversely, I really appreciate the fact that I can keep tabs on all my very good friends who are far-flung. It's a quick, easy way to see/read what's going on for them without having to schedule a phone call or write long emails back and forth. Not that I don't enjoy phone calls or long emails, because I do! It's just a little easier to check FB is all.
I'm also on Twitter, which is like Facebook for really, really lazy people. Facebook is often criticized as being a venue for people to make snarky, quippy updates about themselves whilst they await their "friends" to lavish praise and approval upon them via Comments for said snarky, quippy updates. If you're one of those people who feel this about FB, do not go on Twitter, whatever you do!
Anyhow, I follow my friend Ashford on Twitter who was alone in a new, as-yet-unpacked house this week while his wife was away on business. One night he wrote, "I'm alone and lonely, making dinner for just myself." Had I read this that night, I would have called him up and invited him over for dinner. It's good to know not just what's going on in friend's lives, but what's going on in their heads as well.
Now for the issues...
I've always been one of those people who has a hard time "being in the moment" but even I'm surprised at those times when I'm more concerned with updating my Facebook status to reflect what I'm doing rather than just continuing to do whatever it is I'm doing. Disturbing!
Once upon a time, I was into MOO'ing. I was much younger and admittedly, had no life. I MOO'ed to escape a life I knew I should be building in reality, and instead opted for virtually. I was on the forefront of online technology, but I could not have felt more disconnected from the real world. I feel it happening again, and I'm not sure what to do about it because now I do have a life, and it's a good one. Instate rules, parameters, limitations on my usage? Probably.
I did mention in my list of positives that having high school, etc, friends become "friends" was nice, but there's a downside to it as well. After I ran out of actual FB-using friends and close family to be my "friends" and I started acquiring others, posting updates about myself started to feel weird. I don't feel free to say the things I would normally say in front of my real friends. I feel I have to moderate myself, which irritates me deeply. I moderate myself at work and in public all day long. I want FB to be safe. One friend just suggested to me last night that I don't moderate myself, despite this worry. "Just be yourself and if they don't like it, they can hide your updates or un-friend you. Done." Alright.
My biggest worry, though, is how it's split my life. Honey Bunny is not on Facebook, and has no plans to be. FB can be my private little life away from him, if I so choose. I choose not to, which is why I talk to him about the daily goings-on, but I don't know that it completely helps meld my two worlds... my big real world and my small (but somehow significant) Facebook world. Hmm.
You know what? In the process of writing this post, I've realized it's not so much that Facebook, Twitter or Flickr (yep, I'm on that one too) has changed me... it's more that my iPhone has changed the way I relate to the online world. If I didn't have a phone that felt like a pocket-sized super computer, I don't know that I'd even be talking about this. Boy, if someone told me back in 1994 when I was reading Ender's Game that I'd own, and use like mad, my own scaled down version of a "desk", I would have told them they were nuts.
Weird.
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