In your Facebook

My job requires me to be on Facebook daily.
I had my own page for a couple of years and in the beginning I really enjoyed it. Finding people I'd lost touch with, seeing how their children had grown, trying to write clever status updates, reading comments.
Yes, I played Farmville ~ but let's save that for another blog.

I was disappointed that there was less to talk about when I saw some friends in person. Their walls sometimes told the whole story, and often the conversation became a mere regurgitation of that, with an added who said what, or who friended who.
I soon stopped caring and thought "What happened to real conversation?"

People who didn't set up privacy settings would be upset by what they felt was some sort of stalking behavior. I thought if there are things I don't want people to see, why are they my Facebook friends, it was time to rethink and un-friend.

Once the status shuffle app was created I was less impressed with the wit of certain friends. I also became leery of my adult friends who had too many friends. I had a brief stint as a Facebook whore, but it made me feel dirty and cheap so I reconsidered and un-friended.

I've seen friends post over 300 pictures at a time, including the blurry ones, the concept of editing is obviously lost on these people. Then there are the illness, death and operations postings. Talk about privacy, do these things need to be in a public forum? Lets not forget the Birthday post... the only control you have over this is if you purposely don't list your birthday. Which I have done. Only to be disappointed when only two friends posted a birthday wish on my wall. It's sick, I'm sick, Facebook is sick.

I had to say to myself "Just Don't do it"

Wow, I haven't seen that person in years!! (yeah, I wonder why?)

Facebook drives me nuts!

Less on my bed, less in my head.

Sometimes I use my bed as my office. Books I'm reading, projects I'm making notes on, bills that need to be paid, school papers that need to be signed, its all there, on my bed. ~ There's a cat at my feet and another at my head. I have about five or six pillows, one top sheet, one electric blanket and one comforter. The window must be cracked, and something to drink must be on the night stand. My two remote controls, heating pad and cell phone charger, along with the phone are tucked in the spot between the night table and the bed. My computer lays on the floor at the side of the bed to play some form of solitaire at a moments notice. My bed clothes (that I can't sleep in) lay at the foot of the bed. There's also a big stuffed bear at the end of the bed because the cat that sleeps at my feet likes it that way.

I long for the days when I fell asleep on the sofa with the TV on.

Time Flies

I thought how odd it was to have been married to someone, and no longer talk to the person.

I mean, think about it. You think you love someone enough to marry them (whatever that means) you share families, meals, a living space, sob stories, colds and friends for however many years.

Then zero, zilch, nada. Cold and incommunicado.

Years go by, I think it is only natural to start to wonder how is this person? Are my ex-in-laws still living? What about my brother in-laws? Is he still doing that thing that I found so annoying? So many questions. After all, this is a fellow human I once cared for on some level.

I googled him.

It’s been 35 years, he's a full fledged Doctor – had I held in there a bit longer I may be living more comfortably now. His receptionist answered. I guess he was in between patients because when I gave the woman my name and she repeated it he picked the phone up right away. “The Jane Smith I was married to?” he said in a jokey kind of way when he came on the line. “That would be me “ I replied. We were shocked at how our voices hadn’t changed. It was a pleasant conversation. I was surprised at how much he remembered. Actually, I surprised myself at how much information flooded my memory as we continued to speak.

I hung up with a smile on my face.

We had not ended our marriage on the best of terms.

In this case time had healed.

Au revoir Flower Show

In Philadelphia there is an annual Flower Show. I think I have attended it twice before, but I was much younger then. The first time it was in a different building than it is in now, the ceilings were high, very high. The theme was something about "Woodlands"~

I remember walking in and thinking... "there are trees in this building!"

It was impressive. Trees. Inside the building. I was in my early 20's.

Some years later, (a Holland theme, I think). I couldn't see anything, there were far too many people. Clearly my "excuse me's" fell on deaf ears. I was 30 something.

Since the tulips, I've had no interest in attending. But the winter weather has been dismal and this years theme was "April in Paris."

I have never been to Paris but I have a passing familiarity with April, so I figured...

I had seen the pictures of the Eiffel Tower from the show. Still feeling awed by those trees, I expected to see the whole tower ~ not a 33 ft high steel and plywood replica. I understand that's not realistic being as the real thing is 1,063 feet high. But still, my dream was shattered. I watched shell shocked visitors walk aimlessly through the show needing a place to sit and rest amidst the wilting chaos. Sadly, the streets of Paris had no unoccupied benches.

I'm glad I left my beret at home.

Mother of an Eleven Year Old.

I'm not sure how I got to this place. I was in my third marriage, he was eight years my junior. I was in my upper forties and never imagined I could get pregnant. Until the little stick said I was. I was joyful for him. He had a daughter and I wanted to give him a son. I was very much in love, that's the thing about love you want to give everything you possibly can to your loved one.

On my long monotonous ride to work everyday my mind wandered and one day just like the song from Carousel when Billy Bigelow said:
"Wait a minute!
Could it be?
What the hell!
What if he is a girl?" 
Tears filled my eyes. Until that moment I had not allowed myself to think about having a girl.
I had never thought of having a child who may be like me, some who could be an extension of myself.
I had an abortion at 21. I was sure I would or should be punished for that.

At my age my pregnancy was considered "high risk", which means the Doctors watched me like a hawk.
It got to the point where I was no longer embarrassed carrying my 24 hour jug of urine into the clinic. I found out it was a girl after my Amniocenteses. Tests, tests and more tests. Shortly after my third
month I was tested for gestational diabetes. I drank the glucose in the early morning before work, by the time I was finishing lunch I had an appointment arranged for me at three pm that day to see an endocrinologist, By four pm I was being taught how to use the insulin and give myself a needle. It was an awful lot to take in within less than a twenty four hour period. But I just kept my mind on a healthy little girl. 

After awhile I became very las a faire about giving myself needles and pricking myself. I would usually go into the bathroom stall. I was always discrete, and able to get the whole ordeal over with pretty quickly. I was recently out in public and I saw an old women taking up the entire sink area and grossing everyone out by doing it in public. 

I felt bad for the women that just wanted to apply her lipstick, and primp her hair. After all who's to know if she had not just spent five minutes in the stall, with her own diabetic paraphernalia.

The Artist in Me

Some years ago, while walking through the mall I spotted a young woman with a t-shirt that touted "Connections but NO Talent". Of course my brain immediately reversed it to fit my own jaded description of my plight to "Talent but NO Connections". I went to Art school.

Seems today every Tom. Dick and EmmyLou is a creative entrepreneur. But I often ponder, what exactly is the difference between true creative art and a gimmick disguised as art. What are the fine variables that define the artist from the entrepreneur? The art that emotes from the art that revolts? How does an artist find success if he or she is not motivated by money? Is the artist who is motivated by it any less creative? How do connections play in?

There are theories and definitions that have been written through the ages about this so I won't go on and on.

I just needed to get this off my chest.

Leave me Alone

I don't understand how people don't die from loneliness. The brutal reality catches me in the middle of the night as I lie alone in my queen sized bed, I can be reading, and suddenly it hits me.
Or it can just be the quiet of the night that lets in the reality of the day.


But if I'm honest about it there have been many times I am loneliest with people. Occassionally when I am with one person, but more often with more people around. Just a few people, or at a party of 25ish. Not so much in a large crowd, like at a concert or stadium ~ in a crowd I can clearly see the other lonelies, they just don't always know it. Besides crowds that large MAKE me want to be alone!


My astute sensitivities certainly are not my friends at these times. Not at these "feeling lonely" times.


Other times I feel more clearly satisfied with my situation, not fitting in - is not such a bad thing. I see, hear, feel what others don't. I really don't understand this phenomenon but it is something that gives me some sort of edge - not on other people on my own feelings.


I did an unscientific survey and was surprised to find that many people do not suffer from loneliness. Are they lying?
Ashamed of what they feel?

Who knows, it made me feel more lonely.