Bloggy/Facebook/Twitter Friends are NICE!

I’m in love with social media. I may becoming a social media whore and I even have the Moo cards to prove it. The other day I read a blog post about Twitter on a newspaper blog. A commenter on the post had this to say:

“No wonder people these days are stupid, fat, and untalented.
How about reading and conversation (actually speaking to someone)…?
Modern electronics are indeed wonderful.
But I fear these things are creating a population that is mindless and lacks common courtesy and social skills. I see dozens of stupid people obsessed with these gadgets everyday. And they are mindless idiots…!”

Well first of all, that’s just plain rude. Second of all, it’s untrue. Third of all, if this commenter had an common courtesy or social skills himself, he wouldn’t have left such a nasty comment.

Social networking through Social Media connects people and creates relationships. It makes it easier to stay connected with old friends, new friends, business acquaintences and even strangers. It’s networking, and when networking occurs more people are able to benefit from the information of one person who is sharing that information over several networked mediums.

I am constantly amazed at the power of Social Media and what it can do for individuals, businesses, and organizations. The information and assistance that is shared is powerful and real. Problems are solved, favors granted, questions are answered and things get done. As a community, I believe we support each other and are truly engaged in a way much different than if we were work acquaintances or even neighbors. I don’t know when any of my neighbors birthdays are, what many of them do for a living, or what they do in their day-to-day life. I didn’t know these things before Twitter and Facebook, and I don’t know them now because that is the nature of our society. We have drifted apart from each other for so many years (since the 1950’s and the creation of nuclear family structures.) If anything Social Media is helping to create more intimate connections and relationships between people and less anonymity, which as everyone knows helps our society to be more civil and accepting to each other.

On my birthday, I had no less than a hundred birthday wishes from my family, IRL friends, Bloggy friends, and Twitter friends on both Facebook and Twitter. Some of these people, I have never met in person but I truly felt that each of their well-wishes were sincere and I treasured each one. Before Social Media? I would have gotten two or three phone calls and maybe a card. Verbal recognition is important to human beings and this kind of acknowledgment is good–not destructive to individuals or society at large.

I treasure the relationships and connections with the people I have met via the internet–some of them are my most favorite people in the entire world, and I certainly carry on many, many more conversations with them on a daily basis than I ever would have had pre-SM.

I guess with all cutting-edge technology people get their mind blown a little and can’t handle it. I’m sure some people thought the telephone was one of Satan’s tools as well. And where would we be with out that? We would be not connected, not talking, not social and probably stupid, fat, untalented, mindless idiots.

40

As of 11:55 Central Standard Time I turned 40, which would be 9:55 my time, taking into consideration that Daylight Savings Time was not observed in 1969.

I was born on an Airforce base in Oscoda, Michigan and no one knows where that is. My father was in the Airforce and he and my mother decided to have me because he was being deployed to Viet Nam and who knew what would happen? That and the fact that it only cost them $20.00 to have me. My mother had to make her own bed and shared a bed with a woman who said my head was too big, but it was only $20.00. In 1969 men weren’t allowed to be in the delivery room and my mother was alone until I got there.

Since that day, she’s always taken care of me and loved me very much. Today she’s bringing me a chocolate mousse cake, which is the ultimate expression of love. I think.

My children are home for break; my wife took the day off, and I’m a happy girl. Thank you to everyone for the Birthday Wishes here, by e-mail, on Facebook and Twitter! I feel especially loved this year and I’m very, very grateful for the friendships I have made with all of you. How could anyone ever be lonely with Social Media around?

I’m not quite sure how I managed without it.

Later I’ll have a piece of cake and a glass of Pinot. I hope you will all join me wherever you are!

Peace, love and gratitude!

Break

I’ve put in ten weeks of quality work and my reward is ten days of quality-doing-nothing.

Took my last final today and despite not studying very much, I think I did just fine (meaning I got an A.) If I got a B (which is possible but not probable) I will still get an A in the class, which is all that matters. No, No, No. That’s not what matters! It matters that I learned something. (I’m only saying this to appease my wife who I drive crazy worrying about my grades.)

I’ll turn 40 over break. I may have mentioned that. My hair and skin must have a calendar because suddenly a million gray hairs have popped out and I have two lines in between my eyebrows that weren’t there a short time ago. It’s okay I guess. It shows how mature I am.

Mmm Hmm.

I suppose it takes a “milestone” birthday to cause one to reflect on ones life. I’ve had a lot to think about over the past few days with school and my family and working and writing and thinking and writing and focusing.

One thing I have given some thought to is working. I’ve been working for 25 years–many years of that was working as a mother but I’ve had plenty of years of working for grown up people. I got my first job at 15 at McDonalds. Yes. It is true. It was my first job and the first place I was sexually harassed in the workplace Oh yes. This was way before sexual harassment as we know it today–back then it was not only accepted–it was expected.

He was my manager and used to take me out in the parking lot at night for a walk and to “talk” to me about how unhappy he was in his marriage. Yes you all heard me correctly–I was 15.

After that I went to work at a grocery store because they paid better and I didn’t have to wear a polyester brown uniform and come home smelling like french fries. I was a checker and many of the cute boys at my High School worked there so it was a good job to have. It was a combination of a job and social networking before social networking was a word. I made $3.50 per hour.

Next I went to work as a waitress in a small family-owned Italian restaurant known for its good food but slow service. This was because everything was prepared to order and it was a kitchen the size of my bathroom. There I did all of the kitchen prep work as well as waited and bussed the tables. The owner/cook would get frustrated and scream his head off at everyone who worked there on a regular basis–his hostility was immeasurable. He was known to scream at his staff so much that people would walk out crying in the middle of the dinner rush, which gave him more reason to be angry. Sometimes he would throw things in the kitchen, luckily nothing ever hit me. His wife would stop in every once in awhile to see him–you know, bring the kids to say hello. He would be so foul from being busy he and his wife (her name was Karen, I’ll never forget) would get into screaming battles in the middle of the kitchen in front of ALL of us. We would just go about our business like nothing was happening during the loud “Fuck Yous” all over the place. When he wasn’t screaming at people, he was a decent guy–except for the fact that when he wasn’t screaming at people he was talking about sex and making sexual jokes left and right. He would get really close to me and nuzzle my neck while saying things about my body. I was 16. He was a friend of my step-father.

After that job I went to work as a waitress at our local Country Club. There I got to deal with a nasty chef, a nasty manager who was creepy and wore thick black rimmed glasses and nasty, nasty, nasty Country Club members who used to snap their fingers and whistle across the room to get my attention. Members were allowed to do whatever they wanted–if they got falling down drunk, that was fine. If they rested their hands on my ass while I took their order, that was fine. More than once I went out with someone from there who was much older than I was. Once two men who were at least 15 years older than me took me to a bar. I was 17 or 18. I had oral sex with the guy in the front seat of his Mercedes convertible in the parking lot, but unlike the girls of today–it was HE doing the performing and after it was over I made him take me home without putting out. Once a member who was the older brother of a classmate of mine, who was married to a “socially elite” woman and had a baby, pulled me into the ladies room at the club after closing and we had sex on the bathroom floor. I wasn’t forced of course, but it was not the most virtuous situation and sometimes that line is blurry in my memory. He’s a friend of a friend on Facebook now and I always think it’s weird when I see his name. I don’t think he’s married to his wife of the time anymore. What a surprise.

When I was 19 I became a flight attendant. I remember more than one occassion being asked into the cockpit to “chat” with the pilots. I remember being pulled on the Captains lap, I remember being pressured to fly to Boston for “dinner” by married pilots and knowing that if the Captain asked us (the crew) out to dinner–you didn’t say no.

This was all Pre-Anita Hill. A lot of us had a whole lot of shit to deal with before everything got so PC in the workplace. I am not saying that the PCness in the workplace is a bad thing–it’s the way it should be. I AM saying that there is an entire generation of people out there who do not have a truly negative experience to compare to the way things are today.

This was my first realization that there is a generational difference between me and people younger than me. Soon I’ll start saying things like, “When I was your age. . .”

I really don’t know how this happened. Inside I feel 25 but that isn’t possible because I was 25 when I had my first child and she’s almost 15. She’s nearly as tall as I am and she has boobs. I’m not 25–I’m old enough to be a grandmother. She’s nearly 15; she’s as old as I was when I got my first job.

No; that won’t be happening.

I’m going to give all of this some additional thought this weekend. This weekend that I am reserving for relaxation, fun, and love. Today I’m going to have my hair did and the gray hair removed from my head. Then HG and I are checking in to a posh hotel for the evening and going to dinner. My wife may or may not be throwing me a Surprise 40th Birthday Party tonight. Someone may or may not be making me some Surprise Birthday Party Cupcakes. Definitely I will have fun with my amazing friends and beautiful, sweet and incredible wife on this first day of spring.

Also today–my first column was published.

Lots to celebrate.

And five days to go.

In ten days time

Much can happen in ten days. If you were God you could create a world and almost a half. If you were on a road trip you could drive from Maine to Florida to California to Oregon and back to Maine. You could enjoy a vacation. You could write a short-story. You could turn 40.

I had a dream last night that I was bothered about turning 40. The truth is, that I’m not really wigged out about it, but I wonder if I will be when the time comes? Is turning 40 really the other side of the hill? Is it all down hill from here? I’m not convinced.I’m also not convinced that 40 is the new 30. I had WAY too many changes in my 30’s–I’d rather not have too many in my 40’s. I’m looking to have some peace and tranquility in the next decade.

I registered my oldest daughter Mikayla for High School this week. I’m doing this at the same time that I’ve been reconnecting with friends of mine from High School, which seems as though it was just a few years ago. Now I’ll have a child in High School who will be doing (God forbid) the same things that I did then. And I’m turning 40. My mother was a grandmother at 45; this fact causes me to wonder if that will that happen to me? (Please no.)

All of these realizations are very emotional and I have ten days to process.

And look for a Botox person. You do that when you turn 40, right? Get Botox. If you know someone email me here.

Luckily, I already had my mid-life crisis when I got a divorce and became a lesbian, so it’s good to have that out of the way, which is weird because I’m not usually early on things. Check it off the Bucket List. Now I’ll need to figure out what big thing comes next as long as it’s not dramatic. I’d like less drama please. Is 40 truly mid-life or do I still have ten years or so? I’d prefer ten years or more and then I’ll think about the second half.

For now, I have ten more days. What will you do in ten days?

The measure of love is loss

Or is love even real at all?

I’m still fixated on “Written on the Body.” Have you read it yet? No? Why? If you had, you could help me with my paper–so hurry up and read.

Love (noun) an intense feeling of deep affection. a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone. a great interest and pleasure in something.

But is it real? Does it last? Is it meant to last? Are there different kinds of love? If there are different kinds of love then there must be different kinds of other emotions and if so, what does that look like? That would mean a variation on Anger and Hatred and Fear and Happiness and Excitability–all difficult to define but as important and as valid emotions as love.

Is Love reality or our perception of reality at a particular time and place with a particular person, (because truthfully even though people say, “Oh, I loooovvve your dress” it doesn’t evoke quite the same emotion as when you feel love for a person.)

Does love come and go? If so, does that mean that it doesn’t exist at times and if so, does that make it a reliable emotion? Can you trust in something that ebbs and flows and is that something a person wants to use as a basis for life with another person?

Because you haven’t read the book (yet) I can’t tell you what happens but I will tell you that the narrator describes many love affairs that last just a short time (six months.) I wonder if the narrator is perhaps on to something? Perhaps that is what romantic love actually is–that fired up feeling of discontent when you can’t eat or drink or sleep and all you want to do is have sex and gaze into the eyes of your beloved. It is the raging, boiling intensity that only happens in the early throws of a relationship, which slowly dies down to a roll and then a simmer and then a bubble here and there until it cools off completely. Is that it?

Perhaps we should all just try to be a little bit honest. Love changes for everyone (even HG and I, even though still crave her and adore her and want her and need her.) It always changes because it HAS to change–no person alive could possibly handle those intense feelings for more than six months. So when it ends, does the love end too?

Hmmm. I may be on to my paper topic

Tired, Cranky, Bitchy, and Irritable

I’m that today.

I could end there because that’s really the summation of my day but I’ll go ahead and continue.

It’s my last week of school and my brain hurts. Today in my English class I was completely unable to do my writing assignment with any kind of quality whatsoever. In my other class I started to have anxiety in my chest so much that I thought I was going to be sick (or die if I’m being dramatic.) I have NO idea what I’m going to write my final English paper on, I DETEST my Sociology class and am afraid I’ll fail my final, I had a writing deadline yesterday and today and my kid broke her finger, got a cast and registered for High School all in one long and despairing day.

The worst thing that happened was I broke my No Being Angry, No Holding In Anger Until My Birthday promise. I got angry and held it in and failed. I didn’t sleep well and that only added to my Tired, Cranky, Bitchy, and Irritable state that I’m presently in.

Stuff always waits for you to deal with, did you know that? You can’t put unresolved issues away in an emotional drawer and just try to forget about it because it will always get pulled out at some point, whether you like it or not. It will sit there and wait and eventually you’ll be forced to deal with it. Like a Bad Penny turning up when you don’t really want it and didn’t really expect it.

So. Stress, Busyness, Lack of Sleep, Kids, a Mortgage Re-finance, New Projects, and the fact that it’s WINTER has caused chaos in my haven of love and peace. I think the more chaos one has, the more that one attracts so I’m hoping I can find my center and regain my peace and begin attracting something to my life that is a little less chaotic.

I’ll be putting that out there as well as a Renewed Committment to Not Being Angry.

Big Huge Sigh . . .

Tomorrow is another day.

“My lover is an olive tree whose roots grow by the sea…”

I’m reading one of the best books I’ve ever read and I want you to run out right this minute and buy it. I won’t give it away, I just won’t.

I’ve been neglectful to my blog because I’ve been cheating on it with Facebook and Twitter, oh and I’m in my last week of school for the term and desperately trying to figure out a schedule for next term. Speaking of Twitter and School, do you know how great Twitter friends are? One of my Twitter friends works in the Admissions office of my institute of higher learning and I was having some registration issues. so I tweeted to @MeaganKate and voila, she fixed it for me in a stroke of her keyboard. Anyone who says Twitter is stupid is stupid.

Did you know that Mary was Jewish? You know, Mary the Holy Mother, The Virgin, Jesus’s Mom? I seriously, kid-you-not overheard a woman on the bus asking her boyfriend that question–about Mary–being Jewish. All I could do is text my friends when I wanted to turn around and say, “Are you serious?”

It makes me very grateful that I am lucky enough to get an education.

Thank you to everyone who has been sending me Birthday Month Love Letters, I love them. Someone sent me one of those Hallmark Card e-mail things but unfortunately I wasn’t able to open it for some reason, and since I don’t know who sent it, I can’t thank him or her. So, Thank You!

It’s the weekend and time for everyone to try to rest and forget about Mary Being Jewish and the 6,000 Domestic Violence calls that the Portland Police answer every year, and the fact that our economy is worse than it’s been since 1983 and that people are losing their houses and jobs and that it may snow here tomorrow.

Instead. . . Drink Wine and Eat Chocolate. I’ll join you and we’ll forget our woes. The rest of it will work itself out somehow.

Written on the Body

I have to read that book today, or at least start it. This will be my very last book to read for my Women’s Literature class for the term, which has gone by so very fast. I need to read, I have errands, my kid jammed her finger, I should vacuum. I haven’t yet had my second cup of tea because I slept in a little bit and had weird dreams about daylight-savings time.

We had a fun weekend.

HG had her first derby bout on Saturday. She only played in one jam, but she did great; it was so exciting! Her team won after being 30 points behind and after we went out for some lezzie dancing with some of her teammates to celebrate. Here’s a picture of her in action. The lighting was terrible and I only had my little camera, but she still looks good:

It’s March. Already. How did that happen? March is my birthday month so I expect gifts all month long, or at least love letters; you can send them here.

It’s a big one, my birthday. If you’re my friend on Facebook you already know and that little thing on the right hand side will remind you so you can write on my wall. Everyone does that you know and I bet if you’re on Facebook and you don’t get Happy Birthday Wishes left on your Wall you could develop a bit of a complex. I hope I don’t find out.

It’s March and March is the time for those little flowers that come out of your lawn and daffodils and tulips. It’s Lent too, but I didn’t give anything up except being angry, which is going well so far. I know a few of you are doing it with me, be sure to keep me informed of your progress. Whatever you do, don’t give up being angry and chocolate and wine all at the same time–that wouldn’t be good. March is also the month that my brand new column will be premiering in a World-Famous News-magazine (okay, maybe not World-Famous but very close.) I’ll certainly link to it when it’s up in order to shamelessly promote myself and it. If it leads to a guest spot on Oprah, I’ll be sure to get you all tickets. Remind me.

The sun is shining in Portland today and I hope it’s shining where you are, at least in spirit. I’m off to the DMV and other life-altering experiences. Ciao Babies.