Facebooking

This week I have been filled to the brim with words and ideas. The only thing holding back my wild expressions of exuberance, dismay, delight and embarrassment is technology. Maybe you should be thankful.

As you know, I am new to blogging. I have gotten enough of the hang of it to really enjoy it and I admit I am writing more, though the intended recipient is not quite as clear as in letter writing and may only be me. However, it is very cathartic.

Armed with this recent adventure I felt fit enough to attempt the next hill: Facebooking. I have looked over my husband's shoulders as he catches up on friends' activities, and once in a while he passes along a tidbit of gossip—strike that—information--that I haven't heard yet, and when I say, “How do you know that?” he says, “Oh, Facebook.” So I'm jealous. I have always been the social instigator and coordinator and now the news on who is engaged or going to Disneyland is coming from him!

But I have been afraid to come into this world of open community where maybe the wrong thing gets said or someone who you've ditched for a coffee date finds out you had coffee with someone else (not that I have ever, ever, done that) or people you don't even know see your Christmas pictures...It's not that I have anything to hide. I am just more interested in knowing about other people than in having them know about me. Which is why I have read over my husband's shoulders when he's logged on.

Tuesday, I succumbed. I had heard enough from others having fun on Facebook to know that I wanted to be in the club, if not an active member. A wallflower who goes to the party. I wasn't sure I would tell anyone I was on Facebook. So I struggled to figure out how to sign up. They didn't like my Juno account because it was Unsupported, whatever that means. I had a Google name of Mopsy from years back when I needed to comment on Lindsay's entry, but I do not wish to be known to the entire world as Mopsy. I have my school account as Hollace_Chandler and my usual email as ronandholly, but I wanted to be known independently in this venture, supported or Unsupported. I am starting to collect so many passwords I am locked out of my programs by my own hand. I try to keep passwords the same, but you need letters, numbers, case sensitive...oh, it's a wonder. The only person my email, ebay, juno, google, facebook, and blog are secure from is ME.

Anyway, I finally got on to Facebook, at least I think I did. I guess it was a WALL. I wasn't sure if it was mine or someone else's, so I didn't like to say anything. I did finally blurt out that I was now in the loop and I would be seeing them, but for whatever reason our server cut it off repeatedly and I stuttered my way in. Later that evening my daughter called my husband to say “You've got to help her, Dad. It doesn't make any sense”. Hard to be the idiot child of your children. Apparently you are supposed to KNOW somehow that when the computer asks,”What are you doing now?” it is going to supply the first two words, “Hollace Is...”

No sooner than I got into the club I had to leave for my writing class. In one session, the choice of two prompts was: Lost and Found or Find Yourself. This was my 8 minute write:

I found myself

not sure I was really

looking

not sure I even wanted to

go there

not sure I wanted to be

found.

I found myself

on Facebook

hoping I was in reality

not losing

myself

not joining a group of

lost souls,

empty, who need to

find themselves

who want to suck the

life out of

my life

in order to find

their own.

I found myself at the

lost and found.

So you see I had misgivings. Imagine my horror when I got home and found a list of 10 people who asked to be my friend. The next morning when I woke up, 13 more people were waiting. Don't these people go to sleep?

The next day at Bible study someone said they had gotten a request from me to be my friend. They thought it might have come from Ron. So my blushing husband admits that when he thought he was sending me a list of prospective friends (does he really think I'm lonely? Doesn't he read my blog?) he inadvertently sent it to the people requesting them as friends for me. Such a dear man, so helpful.

I am really glad to have friends. Really and truly. I love my friends. Its just that I don't know who all these people are, talking to each other in conversations that sound like Jabberwocky. Hearing one side of a conversation is as good as listening to my husband talk to my daughter in Africa when I don't know what she's saying. I feel frantic!

I might be more of a blogging kind of a girl. Slow. Contemplative. Where your computer doesn't grab it and publish it before you fix it up. Where it doesn't supply words for you. Where people don't pop up and start talking to you just when you think you're headed to bed.

“Hi, pretty lady”, it said. Nervously, I looked around the room to see if someone was looking through the blinds. “Who are you talking to?” I asked, not sure if I was eavesdropping on an intimate moment between strangers. “I hope it's my Aunt Holly” came the welcome response. What relief, but how did she know I was sitting there?

So that's the good part, talking to someone special when it otherwise wouldn't happen. And if you have read this all the way through, you are indeed someone special in my life. So write me a comment.

Next time I am going to tell you about blogging surprises!