Thursday, July 30, 2009
two facebook friends
Facebook is popular. Yesterday I became friends with two people as unlike each other as one could imagine, & whose presence on Facebook was completely unexpected. They found me.
One is a leftist, pot smoking male poet & retired professor of classics & journalism. The other is a woman from Virginia, quite conservative in some of her views, not all. They've had very different lives.
The professor was a dear & loyal friend of my poetry mentor, & became his friend when the friendship required a good deal of patience & understanding. He is wise & trustworthy in the same matters of conscience that my mentor was, & wiser in some others.
The woman from Virginia has a poetic side expressed in her sense of humor & sensuality. She understands the beach in same way I do, not as a place to cook yourself. & she showed me Monticello as only someone who grew up with a view of it could know it.
I've been a comfortable guest in the homes of both, for different reasons. If they ever met, I have no idea what they could say to each other. Do they represent the breadth of my experience or just expose the banality of my beliefs - that I can overlook too much or blur important distinctions? I have beliefs & opinions, but I don't think I need to have them about everything. What if a woman doesn't bring up politics on the beach or during pillow talk?
Facebook is not an information stream for me, although it's there & tempting. I look in two or three times each week, clear the accumulated invitations to join this group or take that quiz, see what my friends have been doing for the previous few hours, upload an amusing Jersey postcard, & logout. Just waving hello.
One is a leftist, pot smoking male poet & retired professor of classics & journalism. The other is a woman from Virginia, quite conservative in some of her views, not all. They've had very different lives.
The professor was a dear & loyal friend of my poetry mentor, & became his friend when the friendship required a good deal of patience & understanding. He is wise & trustworthy in the same matters of conscience that my mentor was, & wiser in some others.
The woman from Virginia has a poetic side expressed in her sense of humor & sensuality. She understands the beach in same way I do, not as a place to cook yourself. & she showed me Monticello as only someone who grew up with a view of it could know it.
I've been a comfortable guest in the homes of both, for different reasons. If they ever met, I have no idea what they could say to each other. Do they represent the breadth of my experience or just expose the banality of my beliefs - that I can overlook too much or blur important distinctions? I have beliefs & opinions, but I don't think I need to have them about everything. What if a woman doesn't bring up politics on the beach or during pillow talk?
Facebook is not an information stream for me, although it's there & tempting. I look in two or three times each week, clear the accumulated invitations to join this group or take that quiz, see what my friends have been doing for the previous few hours, upload an amusing Jersey postcard, & logout. Just waving hello.
Labels: culture, sex with a Republican
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
You are braver than me, for sure. I refuse, absolutely refuse to tweet, facebook or myspace in any fashion. Bloggin is it for me. Plus, I use Carrie as my pseudonym for the sole purpose of NOT being able to be found on the net under my real name! And since it's been my name since 1996, I seem to have done a good job of losing any internet identity with my real person -- well my real name, not my real person. Carrie is me, just not my real name. You know what I mean. (and, of course, you know my real name LOL)
As an aside, since I've canceled my AOL account, you won't be seeing me in any public chat rooms playing my music! Although, thanks to AIM, I can still chat with anyone on AOL that has me on their buddy list (like you) and in a funny way, you won't know the difference when I'm online (even if I use my cell phone, which allows me to access the net and chat on AIM, Yahoo or MSN) because all of my icons and stuff remain the same.
As an aside, since I've canceled my AOL account, you won't be seeing me in any public chat rooms playing my music! Although, thanks to AIM, I can still chat with anyone on AOL that has me on their buddy list (like you) and in a funny way, you won't know the difference when I'm online (even if I use my cell phone, which allows me to access the net and chat on AIM, Yahoo or MSN) because all of my icons and stuff remain the same.
I had a public personna before I went online, & first went online as a radio jock, so I was comfortable with that (& stuck with it). But I understand why some people have to keep their screennames & real names completely separate. But you're not "anonymous" - you make your e mail available & stand by what you say.
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