133. The Good 'Book

One of my more interesting personality traits is that I am essentially an addict in waiting.  I can't call the next thing I'll be "addicted" to, but I'm sure there's something on the horizon.  It's normally something benign like oranges or Subway sandwiches.  Sometimes it's a little more sinister.  But the cravings usually go hard for a while and then settle down into a respectable "appreciation" for whatever it is.  The only standing addiction I have is to ice cream.  I have actually had to talk myself out of a food court, concentrating step-by-step, to keep from jumping in a Ben & Jerry's line I knew I didn't need to be in. (Please don't think less of me.  I'm working on it.)

Anyway, because I know this about myself, I'm pretty careful about cultivating dependencies.  I figure if I wasn't born with a need for it, I shouldn't "need" it now.  When I find myself compulsively going back to something again and again, I start to think it's time to cut it off.  So as the summer approached, and I was rocking the standard 15-times a day Facebook habit, I decided to give it a rest.  No Facebook for the summer.  Three months ago I deactivated (there really should be a "delete" option), and today I popped back in.

Strange, strange times.  I should add that one of the bonuses of going off for the summer was that I'm not a huge fan of what Facebook does to relationships.  "Holler at me" does not mean write on my Facebook wall (just fyi).  Still, I had expected being back to be something like dipping in the cookie jar at the end of a diet.  All the pictures and the wall posts and the witty commentary on some completely banal thing that somehow becomes totally interesting.  At least interesting enough to keep me browsing and not writing for another 20 minutes.

But it wasn't that.  It was nothing like a cookie-fest.  It was just stuff.  Not particularly interesting stuff.  Just stuff.  Mike Greenberg once railed against Twitter because he said people tweeted the most mindless observations.  He pointed out a tweet his co-host sent that went something like, "On the couch watching the game. Thinking about getting a sandwich."  When I signed in, lots of people had posted lots of things that showed up in my Newsfeed.  Somehow it all seemed like, "On the couch watching the game.  Thinking about getting a sandwich."

That isn't to say that everyone's posts weren't totally interesting.  I'm just observing that something in me is clearly reading them differently than I was three months ago.  And reading people's wall posts... I almost felt like I was hacking into folks' email accounts and going through their personal correspondence.  So private, and yet not so.  Not at all.  And I'm not one to say it should be.  But something about it.... I don't know man.

Anywho... On the up side, the good 'book reminded me that today is the homie's birthday.  So I'll be sending that e-mail in a lil bit. (Good lookin out.)  After today though, who knows?  I've missed updating my Facebook status with the occassional "must share" thought about LeBron or Haagen-Dazs' newest Limited Edition.  But GChat statuses kinda work for that, too, right?  I mean... I don't have the audience I'd have on Facebook.  But I only had 150 friends, lol.  It can't make that much of a difference.

We'll see.  I still might wanna throw up the occassional photo album and get the homies' feeback.  Not really any good alternatives for that one.  Decisions, decisions.

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P.S.  Since I'm throwing out Facebook fyi's, here's another one.  Putting something in your status does not count as telling me about it.  And posting something to Facebook does not count as sharing it with me.  Just for future reference.