Reliving High School Trauma (Or, How Facebook is Ruining My Life)

I think most of my Gentle Readers are familiar with Facebook. If not, just Google it and send in any questions you have in my comments. I'll probably ignore them because I'm lazy and self-centered, but maybe another Gentle Reader will help you out.

Facebook started out as a fun little thing where I was able to touch base with people from college and other past lives - people I hadn't invited into the Blog World, either on purpose or because I didn't know where they were.

Occasionally I am friended by someone whose name sounds vaguely familiar but that I wouldn't know from Adam if you mentioned it to me in passing. And then when they friend me and I see our mutual friends, it all clicks into place. In one example I've enjoyed a lovely online reunion with someone I knew only marginally at St. Olaf but whom I always liked a lot. It turns out that he had grown up in my Brooklyn neighborhood before moving to Minnesota for college.

(Insert audible "oohs" and "ahs" of the excitement from among my Gentle Readers.)

I still maintain that Facebook is a silly, fun little thing to pass the time and mess around with, whereas blogging is for the big guns, people who can and do take the time to write thoughtful essays rather than just doing a bunch of dumb quizzes and telling people what they are doing every given moment. I had a show-down at my wedding with an old friend who mocked my "blogging" as if it were some stupid teenage chatroom hobby.

"I don't see how you have time for that," she said.

"Time for what? You don't think writing is a commendable hobby worthy of an intellectual person's time?"

The fact that I am not an intellectual person was irrelevant, of course. In any event, I think she came around a bit after I tied her down and bitch slapped her for being so ignorant. Blogging is for writers. The rest of it (MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Twitter, and God knows what else) is for hacks.

But all of that was just a silly prologue to what I really want to talk about tonight, Gentle Readers. For it is now a fact that I opened my Facebook door to one person I adored from high school, a person I have not otherwise kept in touch with. A person who adored me back, and who, in addition to befriending weirdos like me, was a cheerleader and ran with a very popular crowd.

A crowd that, well, let's just say they didn't all think much of me.

One of the problems with Facebook is that once you friend somebody, you are subjected to seeing little blurbs flash across your screen about who else they are friending, who is commenting on their wall, who is tagging them in old pictures, and on & on.

This became a problem because Popular Mary is regularly friended by all sorts of people from the crowd that didn't think much of me. And even though it's been 25 years since I left that place, it still stings when I see some person who wouldn't give me the time of day popping up all over my screen when they comment on Mary's page.

I was marginally friends with a few of these really popular people, so I decided to friend them. Jared, Janie, Lorrie, Shawn and a few others. They all replied and made me their friend - but no personal response at all. No reply to my little messages when I sent them my friend requests. "Hi Janie, wow, it's been a long time! How are you?" Nothing but a generic "Janie has accepted your friend request."

Like I'm supposed to be so fucking honored. Grrr.

The last straw came this weekend when Jared, Janie, Lorrie, Shawn and others were all sending each other that stupid "25 Random Things About Me" thing. They were all writing their 25 things, mentioning each other, tagging each other and I'm still sitting here like some loser wallflower.

Grrr.

It's not to say that I have to be friends with everyone. I also had a lot of my own friends in high school, not to mention college and later years, and I wouldn't trade any of them for the world. Furthermore, I'm very comfortable in my misfit station in life.

But there still remain a few high school memories that are a little painful to relive. Maybe I'll write in more detail about some of them as part of my letting go process - "give til it hurts posting" as Dale calls it.

But for now, suffice it to say that this whole Facebook experience is making me feel like sh*t and I've decided to go up the river and take names. No one who makes me feel like shit gets to remain my friend on Facebook.

And while I still adore Popular Mary and will keep her as a FB friend, I have now officially unfriended Jared, Janie, Lorrie and Shawn. And because of a special test that Mindy June and I ran to examine the consequences of unfriending someone on Facebook, we know that the website is subtle, i.e. FB does not alert the unfriendee that they have been dumped.

So, the only way Jared, Janie, Lorrie and Shawn will know I've unfriended them is if they notice that their number of friends has decreased and they go on a fishing expedition to figure out why. Which I know they would never do, on accounta they are all popular and shit.

I don't know how all this Facebook crap will play out at the end of the day. But I do know one thing, Gentle Readers. And that is that you can all look forward to more painfully awkward posts on this and related topics.

CP

This time the meme's on me

I just made up this meme to pass the time while I'm tired. If you read my blog, you are tagged but you should comment to make sure I pop over to read up.

1. How old were you the first time you had sex? Were you alone?

2. When is the last time you threw up? Bulimic episodes don't count. But tell us what happened, how long you felt sick before you gave it up to the porcelain god, and what color it was.

3. Describe the meanest thing you've ever done. If you could still get arrested for it today, you are excused. But then you have to tell us the second meanest thing you've ever done.

4. Have you ever told a complete stranger something pretty personal about yourself and then later had about two hemmorhages apiece because you were embarrassed? Describe. And be sure to tell us the pretty personal thing or you don't get credit for answering this question.

5. Have you ever picked up a trick at a bar and then when you got him or her into clear light you thought "oh God, no!" and then told him or her that you had to leave to drive your parents to the airport, knowing full well he or she wouldn't believe you?

6. Tell us about your experiences with re-gifting. Were you on the giving or receiving end?

7. Poor George says he actually remembers being in Mama Gin's womb as a fetus. Should we believe him or not? What is the earlist memory you have?

My answers are below.

Love and coasters,

CP

1. 16 was my first time with a person. It just sort of happened, and I regretted it. Still do. Things were very awkward after that and we never spoke again.

2. This is a gross. What a disgusting question. Why on earth would you write something like this, CP? Anyway, the last time I threw up was a few years ago when I ate some cheap Chinese take-out. I didn't feel sick for very long - all at once I was in the bathroom blowing major chunks. It was nasty. So nasty that I --- well, never mind.

3. Too many mean things to count. One mean thing I still feel bad about was when I made fun of my younger cousin in front of all her friends at her own birthday party. She had been crying a few days before that because one of her friends had called her a "dumb dumb" and I thought it was really funny so I kept imitating her crying and saying "Kathy called me a dumb dumb!" I was only 10, but still, what a complete little shit.

4. One time in law school I told a complete stranger this barely relevant story about how one time I was late to kindergarten and we had a substitute teacher that day and I got all upset because I thought I was in the wrong classroom. I told this story in front of about 10 other people, and no one made any reply at all. Then I felt shame.

5. No, but there have been too many times when I wish I had done that.

6. Just recently at an office party where we had a grab bag, I loudly proclaimed the one I received to be a re-gift based on the age of the box it came in. Someone groaned, and now everyone thinks I'm an asshole.

7. I think Poor George is making it up, but if it is true we should offer him up for medical experiments. My earliest memory is sitting on the couch eating toast. I kept saying "I'm two and I'm having toast."

Wow, that was all really stupid.

This inauguration can suck a bag of dicks

Obama taking away the ladder

Yes, it's an historic moment. The first (half) black president. More importantly, we're finally rid of Bush, although Karl Rove and the rest of the pit bulls will most certainly be back in four to eight years to put Jeb in office. So our period of relief is certain to be short lived.

And although we are supposed to be celebrating this great "change" we are about to experience by Obama taking the oath of office, there are also those who can rest quietly knowing that some things never change.


Case in point: Prominent "liberals" running for office always court the gay vote while they are running, and throw the fags and dykes under the bus the moment they get into office. The ultimate "fuck you!" school-yard bully trick.


At least Clinton had the decency to wait until he was IN office before kissing our support good-bye with "don't ask don't tell." Obama began pulling the ladder while planning his inauguration by choosing Rick Warren, a vocal supporter of Proposition H8, to perform the invocation.


Obama is an asshole. How many ministers of faith do we have in the USA? Is it just possible that there might have been another minister, anywhere, who has done the kind of good work that Warren has done in the world WITHOUT having made the inexcusable foray into politics?


Short answer: yes, it is possible he could have found someone who was not inordinately offensive to an important part of his constituency. It is entirely possible.


But did he want to do that? No. He WANTED to offend us - and guess why? Because in choosing to offend us, he is garnering support from the religious crazies who didn't put him into office. Just so he can call himself a "uniter." He did it on purpose.


Because in the end, gays don't really matter, and don't have anyone else to turn to anyway. We are completely expendable politically. After all, it is still the common belief that any major candidate for the presidency has to support "traditional" marriage even to have a chance of winning the office.

It would be nice if that outmoded idea would change.


In case anyone is planning on commenting about Obama's subsequent choice of Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop, to say a prayer at a pre-inaugural event, I would simply say "too little too late." If he cared that much about not offending us, he should have invited him to stand up next to Warren and deliver a second prayer at the actual inauguration, the one that everyone (but me) will be watching.


Yes, I'm bitter. I was uninvited to the country's party at the 11th hour - why shouldn't I be?





Obama, you can suck my balls. God damned ladder-puller.

San Diego update: California now has two more cats!

Grover is San Diego's newest resident. He's not happy about it.

Happy New Year, Gentle Readers!

Poor George and I had a lovely Christmas together in Vermont with my family, where we convened from several different states to enjoy the quintessential White Christmas, sleigh ride and all. (I'm serious, we actually took a sleigh ride.)

Poor George and I have just arrived in San Diego with our cats in tow. Getting them here via airplane was just loads of fun, and they are both traumatized, although Ava has emerged from under the bed and has already figured out how to climb up the chimney.

Grover was so freaked out that Poor George and I had to extract him from under the bed and hold him tightly between us under the covers while we napped, all just to get him to stop shivering in fear. I think he's starting to feel better, but all the same I'm leaving him in the guest bedroom until he has enough of his moral strength back to allow for further house exploration.

Meanwhile Ava, is meowing her discontent and confusion non-stop as she sniffs every square inch of every room.

Our furniture consists of the following:

- one couch

- one twin bed (with just barely enough room for two full grown men and two larger than life cats)

- one dining room table/desk and six wooden chairs

- one coffee table

- six foldup camping chairs that my dad bought so that a few people could sit down during our marriage ceremony in the park last October.

Needless to say, it's not quite a "home" yet - - - but I have faith that it will get there. Poor George will relocate here permanently sometime over the next 3 months or so. Maybe he'll bring some more of our furniture with him.

Love,

CP