A True Story For PJ...

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Renz was a college freshman. Having served two years in the Navy up till this point, he was a tad older than the other freshmen and had friends living around the country. For his winter break he decided to go see one of his Navy buddies who was back living in New York - New City to be exact.

One of his college friends lived on Long Island and had a "single" in the dorm - he had brought his massive stereo with him and decided it was too much so he agreed to drive to New York with Renz, share the cost of gas and the driving and get his huge stereo home. They decided to set out after their last finals which put them on the road at about 1PM as I recall.

They made fairly good time and by the middle of the night they were about 2/3 of the way across Pennsylvania. Renz was driving and Mike was dozing in the passenger seat. This was the 1982 Blue Ford Escort that Renz had purchased while serving in the Navy, by the way. The interstate was marked out with cones for construction and the highway had narrowed to a single eastbound lane.

Up ahead, Renz thought he saw something in the road, but there didn't appear to be enough room to maneuver around it so he decided to drive right over it. The noise made as he drove over the wheel rim was enough to wake up Mike who leapt awake. "What the f*#k was that?!?"

The single lane continued and the highway began a long slow incline down into a valley with a gradual curve to the left. As the Escort began to glide down the hill, Renz went to brake to slow a bit...the pedal easily went to the floorboard. "Damn, I must really be tired, I hit the clutch by mistake." But it wasn't the clutch...it WAS the brake pedal. There were no brakes!

Downshifting to keep the car to a reasonable speed, Renz kept driving until they got to the next rest area. It was about 3AM somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Eastern Pennsylvania. An 18-year-old and a 20-year-old far from home with hardly any cash between them. The small amount possessed by Renz being his vacation money.

They paused and tried to decide what to do. Mike said that if only they were at his folks' house in Long Island, his dad's mechanic could fix the car and be trusted. As they had no idea where they were and as Renz figured what mechanic they would find - this may even have been a Friday night into Saturday morning - would likely rake them over the coals - they did what any young, dumb, and stupid American males would do - they decided to press on and hope for the best.

Renz did the rest of the driving - using a combination of down shifting and the parking brake when the car needed to slow - and they hit New York City about 6AM. In the entire trip to Mike's house in Long Island they only missed one turn off due to going to fast. As I recall it was the exit to the Long Island expressway and Renz simply turned around at the next exit.

Once at Mike's folks' house, they got the car to the mechanic's and went to bed. As it happened it was a crushed brake line on one side and a ruptured brake line on the other. With long distance negotiations with the parents, somehow the repairs were covered and the vacation was able to continue on without any further incidents.

Oh, yeah, one other small thing - the fuse for the the horn was blown so there was no horn either...

Unite 4 Human Rights In Iran

Late last week I saw the Facebook update from Amnesty International that included this picture. I proceeded to switch my profile picture on Facebook as well as my picture on Twitter, and included an appropriate Tweet and Status Update to try and get the word out.

I remember the days following the election, where folks had changed their pics to green and we were following closely what was occurring in Iran. The viral video of the woman who was shot and died.

I knew I would blog about Human Rights today. In addition, I posted a number of YouTube video links of appropriate music (e.g., Peter Gabriel singing "Biko," the Neville Brothers singing about Rosa Parks, et al.). I posted information about movies. I linked to a couple news updates from CNN.

#Iran never even made it into the top list of topics on Twitter today. There were scattered folks on Facebook putting up info related to the Human Rights theme. I received a few "Likes." Overall there was very little.

Ironically there's been more posting and commenting on the Facebook changes this week. Perhaps in our right-here-in-front-of-us lives that IS more important. Iran is abstract. Iran is far away. The revolution isn't happening rapidly enough to hold our attention so we have moved on. The same could be true of Haiti.

I should stop here and clearly state that I am not passing judgment on us collectively. I felt motivated to be clever today. It's not clear to me how my actions helped the people of Iran what bit. It just has me thinking, that's all.

Once again I am pondering what all this cyber stuff really means. Barak Obama's campaign used the internet very successfully, building on Howard Dean's success from the previous election cycle. However, I am feeling of late rather used and manipulated in hind site.

I fear that all this chatter on blogs, social networks, web site commentary, etc. is merely adding to the growing isolation the sociologists are seeing or that it is creating the illusion of participation in our democracy. For example, I have contacted my Senators and my representative many more times in recent years via their web pages and e-mail. Yet every response I receive back, via e-mail, is merely a canned response to the generic topic at hand. More often than not these "responses" reveal that the senders clearly did not read the body of my message.

We all furiously post status updates, sign cyber petitions, hit the "Like" buttons, bitch and complain and feel like we've accomplished a lot when we are disturbed by political events. We don't seem terribly moved to get out of our houses though and actually protest. Last weekend I drove past the post office where protesters have been picketing the war for years now - there was one lonely guy, bundled up against the cold, carrying a simple sign that said, "Peace Now."

I assume that in my self induced hermit state I am unique. However, when I finally do manage to connect with friends - face to face over coffee, for example - I discover that most of us are just sitting at home over work, not seeing anyone.

In addition to my personal drama over unfriending a bunch of non-participatory Facebook "Friends," I listened to a piece on NPR that focused on the difficulties people are finding unraveling these "connections." One of my high school classmates up and announced she is leaving Facebook this week. Privately she acknowledged that there was too much nastiness occurring, yet she felt it was easier to pull the plug then try to negotiate unfriending or blocking. My good friend Lisa (who has always felt there was something very wrong about Facebook etc.) reported to me on the phone that two people at her work did just the same thing - pulled the plug.

I called the one friend who had questioned being unfriended. I commented to her about the recent nasty e-mail I had received. She wasn't surprised. Apparently she's been having discussion with some of my other local friends who got purged. According to her, they are in a snit, making statements like, "Well, if he just wants to cut himself off from us..."

None of the locals who were unfriended have called me in months. None of the locals who were unfriended have sent me e-mails, commented on my blog, or even connected with me on Facebook. By some strange stretch of the imagination, they have come to the conclusion that being able to follow little cyber postings as I interact with others on Facebook constitutes on ongoing friendship between us--a friendship that is now in jeopardy because if have unfriended them.

Does this frighten you even a little bit? I don't believe Facebook is to blame. Clearly there is a major shift occurring in how we live our lives. New houses our constructed in gated communities with the garage up front with the house hiding behind. Our public space revolved around consumerism and spending money, yet the internet makes it simpler to shop from home. Our televisions have gotten bigger with clearer pictures - why bother going to the movies any more? The vast majority of people walking down the street either have a cell phone/blue tooth strapped to their ear or are wearing ear buds listening to their iPods. As I said, everyone seems to be disconnected, doing the revolving work/home/sleep/work/home/sleep routine.

Facebook came along and offered up an apparent solution to this growing isolation. I have indeed reconnected with old school mates and friends who now live all over the country. I have made new friends who live all around the globe. However, this has made it easier for me to neglect my local friends. It has made the physical isolation more tempting.

I really don't know what the answer is.

from 1991

at two thirty in the morning

from the window I see him
sitting at the counter before a
cup of coffee

average joe, salt and pepper, bristly forearms, twisting on a
toothpick, scratching his chin with his thumb
staring off into yesterday

one by one men sit like that
all night as the bus goes on down
Belmont and just like the straight guys I only
go for the young and pretty ones and wonder why

at two thirty in the morning

My Thoughts On The Recent Spat Of Nastigrams

"Don't be such a drama queen!!!"

Yes, in the last love note I received over the Facebook downsize, the above was an accusation hurled my way by the angry party.

Ironically, NPR had a bit today on All Things Considered about Facebook and other social networking sites and the complications involved in trying to undo some of the built up connections.

Thank you all who spoke up to offer support. I personally think the issue must be much larger than Facebook, but attempts at engaging were thwarted with a final batch of name calling and the command cited above. I ended my response with the statement, "Sometimes a delete button is the only answer."

Singing The Birth Order Blues...

Have you ever read some of the theory behind how Birth Order can affect your personality? If you look at the traits, in some ways I am a classic first born child and in other ways I am a recovering first born child. Tonight I want to focus on the "mover and shaker" tendencies of being a first born.

I recently purged a number of contacts from my Facebook Friend list. The majority were either real live folks from here in Marquette or members of my family. A couple of the individuals were a direct result of my previous post on rabid anti-theists - those individuals who insist on tearing down faith and religion. However, the bulk of those who were de-listed came off the list because we rarely if ever had any direct communication with each other.

For example, a good friend of mine here in town made a very big point about not wanting to receive any of the game stuff on Facebook, that she wasn't interested in that aspect of the network. As it happens, playing the games is a big part of my FB experience and many of the folks I chat with with involve game play. I removed her from the list with the others and she is the only individual who contacted me to ask what happened.

So what has this to do with birth order? I am a hermit. I haven't always been this way. There was one period in my life back in Chicago where I sat down and looked at my weekly schedule and saw about a 2 hour window on Sunday afternoons that was free. I had a very full list of friends with whom I socialized regularly.

I also started to see that if I didn't organize or initiate the social exchange it started to go away.

I am the oldest of four kids. As we were growing up I was the designated baby sitter after a certain age. By junior high, I was often in charge after school until my mom got home. Within the neighborhood where we were growing up, I was one of the older kids. I was conditioned to be the organizer.

So I stopped being the organizer--more and more I became the hermit instead. As time wore on I paid attention to communication patterns with friends. More often than not, if I didn't call - we didn't speak. If I didn't try to arrange a get together - we didn't get together. I began to contemplate the value of friendships that were so out of balance. These were not bad people. However, I began to lose faith in friendships where I did the work.

Now I am very comfortably living the hermit life style. I am not quite a complete misanthrope - yet. My circle of friends - people I know I can count on in a crisis - is very small. I have many, many friend/acquaintances though - people with which I could carry on a lively conversation if we bumped into each other at the grocery store, for example. As a rule, however, people don't call.

Ironically, I get more phone calls from my cyber sistah/friend Maria who I have never met face to face, then I get from any of my local friends. Maria has randomly called me every other week or so since we exchanged phone numbers - to give this some perspective. I have randomly called her as well. There is a mutuality to the exchange.

I have two other long term friends - both of the formerly close geographically but now far away type - Carolyn and Lisa will periodically call me out of the blue to see how I am and to chit chat. Similarly I will do the same. They are also the only ones who have come to visit and with whom I have visited as well.

Perhaps the biggest challenge for me has been within my own family. For a long time, I carried the water. I tried to make the regular phone calls. I tried to remember the birthdays and anniversaries. However, the more I appreciated the silence of my hermitage, the more I scaled back on my friendships, the more I began to test my familial relationships as well.

As a rule, my siblings don't call. To be completely fair, my youngest brother called me last summer when he learned about my diabetes to see how I was doing. My sister sent me an e-card when she learned I had put Cosmo down in November. My sister-in-law religiously sends out thank you cards and makes sure she invites me to the kids' parties even though odds are I am not going to be able to make it in. Overall though, this is pretty slim pickings.

Facebook has been a wonderful tool. I have a very active cyber community with whom I am friends. Given the distance, they fall somewhere between friends and acquaintances as I could not rely on them to be able to pitch in here in the U.P. in an emergency. I have no doubt that they would in a heart beat if they were able.

I have decided though that Facebook is not going to enable poor communication between me and the individuals that should matter in my life or rather individuals for which I should matter more. Facebook must either supplement a strong real life friendship/relationship or create a cyber foundation for a future real life friendship/relationship. I will not allow it to be a half-assed substitute for the real thing.

As a first born, getting to this point has been challenging. I have been raised to believe that carrying on relationships is on my shoulders. I have worked very hard at untwining the guilt from backing away from out of balance relationships. I have to remind myself that it is not my fault that we are not closer. That, my friends, is what I mean when I say I'm singing the birth order blues...