I really mean to update more than once a month. And, yes, thank you, things are better than they were than when I last posted.
Last week at work, my partner-in-secret-but-plentiful-tattoos popped her head in my office to say, “Careful with Facebook. Our president is on there now.” I said, “Ohhhhh nooooooooo.” Our president is, oh, how can I explain. Classy with a side of perfect etiquette. She makes Jackie O look like an extra from a Jim Carrey movie. Just seeing her in the hall makes me stand up straighter and run to the mirror to check my lipstick. You just have to know her to understand.
Later, I saw a girl I’m linked to in the copy room and I said, “Why did you have to re-friend me? Did you get drunk this weekend and friend someone by accident and have to delete your whole profile?” She said, “No! Our president is on there! I had to make a work safe profile.” Jesus. Christ. I wondered if I should do that. It turns out all this started from my boss who accidentally sent a Facebook friend request to everyone in her personal email book. Though, my boss is cool. I wouldn’t care if she knew about this blog. Wait. Let me think about that while you keep reading.
I looked at my Facebook. Now, let me be clear on something, people. I have high school and college friends, and I have blog friends. And those two worlds rarely meet. Well, sometimes they meet, like with the Blonde, the PHD three and the Freckled one. But other than that? Yeah, if you think I’m letting pictures or personal information get out there after the whole last-name-gate of 2006, you are sorely mistaken. That’s why FreckledK, one of my dearest friends, is not my Facebook friend. Sorry FK. You are allowed to theive my newsboy hats, diet pepsi and harass my ex boyfriends to give me back my god damned lamps but you have scary bloggers on Facebook and I’m happy in my anonymity.
Magic 8 ball says, “Don’t do it! Damage Control is not in your future.”
That said, the reverse is also true. I don’t want my work-related real world on my blog or in my blog world, save a couple trustables. This is a very old story, we’ve all been around the block with this one several times over the years. However, it is still an issue. But did I put the Velvet link on my Facebook? Hell yeah. Because the people in my friend list are the people who scraped me off the floor of many a bar in the Harlem-Hudson-New Haven corridor; they are the people who helped my shellack my bangs straight up from my forehead in 1988; they are the people who called me in sick to school, from the school payphone. Cha-Ching! They are the friends of my youth, high school and college. And a few from after. But you get the point.
So now I have to worry that someone at work who I couldn’t trust with the material in this blog, will somehow see the link on my info page, the link I don’t care to remove, and then scroll through the archives.
This prompted me to tell a trusted coworker (who I have known from prior to this job) about the situation and she started reading some archives at her desk. Then she called me on the phone with two conclusions.
D: Wow. You had a crazy life. You were really bad!
Me: I used to be.
D: You are a really good writer.
Me: I used to be.
And so that is my long way of saying, I’ve had writers block for the better part of a year. I’m not good. I read back two years ago and I’m impressed at some of my own turns of phrase that I cannot comprehend where that talent went. When I lack that talent for whatever the reason, I just don’t feel like producing because it seems fake and contrived.
So, I apologize. I’m going to try harder. And I think if I get any Facebook requests from people at work who I would rather not know I was a dater of most of Northwest, I’ll just delete and block. Because that’s mature, right?
You have to do what you have to do, lady. And you’re (mostly?) happy. No one needs to write then. Which totally explains why my blog has been so overwrought lately.
When the weather finally warms up, let’s have a gin and tonic. And you can give me running tips.
Blocking is half the fun of facebook, if you ask me.
Re: your president: LIMITED PROFILE. Saves family ties (and jobs) every day.
Glad to have you back, lovey. 🙂
MA – yes, I have some catching up to do with you. Gin and tonics and running are two of my favorite things!
JB – I agree. I blocked an ex, and that was fun!! I want more!
LiLu – I must know more. I’ll need to investigate that. I’d have to accept first, then hurry and make the setting, right? Cause I have a couple lined up in my friend request queue that I don’t want to accept for various reasons.
Velvet,
You need a stimulus package. The package in your pants that is! muhaha!
I love reading whatever you post, but don’t worry about writing about your life if you’re out living it. You just have to take a break to meet for a drink in real life. 🙂
You and I don’t see eye to eye on this, Velvet, but you know I adore you.
Back when I started blogging (and this goes back to even chat room days,) I kept the worlds separate, for the most part. A few trustworthies knew. Back in all of those blogger happy hours-wars days, they would have an annual contest. Do you remember? I always won “Most Mysterious.” People pounded at me to come forth. I never did. Later, when the wars hit, people were writing me saying, “Now I understand.”
Could I come forth? Sure. Will I? No. Why? I reveal enough.
I have thought about having a separate Twitter-My Space-Facebook world, and I have never succumbed, and I don’t think I’m going to. Twitter is stupid. What do any of us have to say to each other on a running roll basis that is so important? I don’t want to be linked all over the whazzoo and wuzits with people I know-have known. Why? And once it’s out there–try getting rid of it.
I have five blogs. Three public. Compartmentalized? Yes. Smart move? I think so. I gave you good advice on something else. Listen to me. Get Velvet off Facebook.
Oh, bugger. I almost want to make up a fake Facebook account, just so we can be *friends*. If you get a request from Hugh G. Rexion, do yourself a favor and accept it, will you? You won’t regret it.
Just today I was lamenting my inability to post anonymously and was seriously considering a secret blog, a nom de plume — so I can write things without the fear of my friends reading (and judging). But now I’m thinking that one can never really be anonymous enough.
I used to have a “no blogger friends in real life” principle — I never went to happy hours. I sort of regret it now, since the heydey seems to have passed, and there are some people that I am fairly certain would be excellent people to hang with. Plus I’ve started letting blog people be my facebook friends — because I don’t write anything on the blog anymore that I won’t own. Besides, the facebook pictures my friends from high school have posted are way more embarrassing than anything I could possibly say now as an adult.
See now, Dara and Cube, I would be Facebook friends with you two. Freckled, you are still on the “no fly” list, but if I get that friend request, I will accept indeed! And Dara, you did not miss the heyday. Because frankly, there really wasn’t a heyday. Some bloggers just wanted everyone to think there was. The best I can recall of a heyday? Well, See Cube’s comment about the wars. Yeah. Life is better sans drama.
I object Velvet- when you were writing almost every day it WAS a heyday- no one has come close, before or since.
I love you Tacoma! There were good old days…they were fun!
I agree — it was more fun when you blogged more. None of the cool people write nearly often enough anymore.
And Velvet, you have my email. You can totally be my fb friend.