Facebook Friends

I don't really get Facebook. I signed up on it because my crazy friend Todd invited me, and since I never see him and he makes me laugh, I did it. I kind of forgot about it for a while, and then a bunch of other friends got on it and I started getting all kinds of "friend requests" and "vampire bites" (still haven't figured out that one) and Steve got into it, but still, I don't get it. Here's my feeling: Just call someone up and talk to them, send them an email, or do what I'm doing; blog. It all just seems like a gigantic waste of time, and is making people even more disconnected by taking them one step further from actual, face-to-face interaction. Also, like a lot of people, I don't really know why the Internet needs to know what I am doing and thinking every minute of the day. I think the CIA is somehow involved. I do love some of the friends I have on Facebook, because they are the ones that I don't get to see very often, if ever. Here's a few:

Drew: We met over (can it be) 18 years ago in New England. I adore him and I have often called him the brother I never wanted. He's works in film and is totally creative and knows just about everything there is to know about films. And music, so he's a great conversationalist. I love watching Woody Allen movies with him because he totally gets them and loves them as much as I do. I will always think of him when I watch Broadway Danny Rose, which is one of my all time favorites, because I saw it with him the first time. He also always, I mean always sends me a card for my birthday and really any other major holiday. I'm terrible at that kind of stuff, so I really admire him for it. Maybe one day I can start being good at it too.

Jason: Another friend from New England over 17 years ago, and another brother I never wanted. He is a crazy liberal hippie type from Oregon and is a literature geek just like me. Until recently he was living in the same city as me, so we had a chance to get together once in a while, but he's since left the state. He has a fantastic wife and kids, a PhD in Jewish Literature, but is now in Law School. His wife is also very patient to put up with all the schooling. I love this black and white photo of him; it looks like a shot of one of the of the Weathermen in the sixties and seventies, which if hadn't been an infant at the time, he probably would have been.

Shannon: I met Shannon when I worked in the Salt Lake Tribune advertising department. She was so cool and we had the same taste and she even had a little romantic tryst with one of my friends after she met him at my wedding. Actually, I haven't even seen her since my wedding, more than ten years now. She has been really great at keeping in touch, which again, I'm terrible at. She lives in California and travels like crazy and surfs and does all the things cool girls in California do.

Todd: The guy who started all this Facebook stuff in the first place. I met him at the U of U while I was dating his best friend and room mate Andy. I haven't seen Andy in years, but Todd lives in Idaho and comes into town once every couple of years and we go out to dinner with Cha-Cha and our other good friend Tom. We always make so much noise laughing at whatever restaurant we go to (we all love good food) that I am always afraid they are going to kick us out. I think everyone else in the restaurant thinks we're drunk, and it's always a very good time. Cha-Cha and I call it legal dating while married. Good thing our husbands have nothing to worry about. I'll let you figure that one out on your own, but pictures do speak volumes. If the one at the right doesn't explain enough, just check out the one he posted on my Facebook wall last Christmas:


The other friends I have on Facebook I see on a regular basis, so I won't go into them here, but my point is that even though I don't really get Facebook, I am sorta starting to see the point. I don't know if I would be in touch with any of these people without it, so I'm happy Todd signed me up. But I just want the CIA to know that I'm onto them.