Easter: The Return to the Facebook

By the time Easter rolled around, it had already been spring for at least a month. Or, this was the case everywhere else I ever lived. But as today's high of 47 testifies... that was not Kansas.

I'm not Catholic, nor even especially Christian, but when Easter came, it was like a springtime of sorts. Two important things happened. The first, I got back on facebook.

Now, those who use facebook are aware that it changed in the time I was gone. The changes are only surface-deep, though, as facebook still is what it was and does what it did.

L found this graphic and I wanted to borrow it for this post.

True to facebooking form, I loaded all of my spring-break-and-beyond photos in a series labeled after my latest DVD purchase (Lord of the Rings Extended Edition)... I like to make all the things I do and present fit together in a strange mishmash of meaning (I watched Fellowship on break with Joe, and Towers with Erin last rainy, crappy Sunday. Return should be in the mail, from Amazon). I looked at all the recent photos posted of myself and evaluated them based on spontanaity and attractiveness of myself in them. There is a sweet album of Joe's called "Why I 'decided' to take a year off" which stars me and includes photos of my alleged pregnancy. While the fact that this was posted on April 1st should help you out, just for the sake of family and friends, I want to say, don't worry... it's just something he tells his friends when they ask why he is taking the year off school.

When facebook first cropped up into existence, I've mentioned that I refused to take it seriously. But facebook got serious with or without my permission and now all kinds of people use it for all kinds of things. I missed facebook during my time away, but my life wasn't really the worse for not having it. I am, however, happy to have quick internetical access to what follows. Erin took a picture of me after I had just turned around from taking a photo of my own. The day was so bright and glorious I did this:


Incidentally, this is the picture I was taking just before:


So, in any case: huge fan of photo-sharing that occurs via facebook. It is also a handy reference for finding people's phone numbers or e-mail addresses if you don't have them on hand.

But other than that, when we turn to facebook in the darkness of night, in the lonely moments, searching for some kind of affirmation of who we are and who loves us, or when we mercilessly stalk our unrequited loves, or when we build ourselves a shell of wall-posts and inside jokes, the result is, to me, only ever sad. It only ever leaves me feeling more alone and less like I have anything of a life.

Now that I'm free to click that button at the top of my screen, I hope I do it less often.