S & M With Facebook And Twitter

I'm too involved with social media this summer. I'm not enjoying myself as could and days are running away while I scroll through Twitter. I gave up NPR because I couldn't avoid the incessant reporting of the orange maggot, but I haven't held social media to that same standard. Instead, I'm engaging in low discourse, staying angry, and dividing myself from others. I pick at the scab til it bleeds despite good advice to the contrary. 

Photographer Chris Murray wrote the following (on Facebook):

Life often favors and rewards the brash and outspoken. When I was a geologist and started my first job (with a large corporation that shall remain nameless) I was told that being quiet and reserved wouldn’t cut it if I wanted to move up the ladder, that quality of work alone wasn’t enough. It would seem that applies to the art world as well. Rampant self-promotion and the production of trendy 500px.com style imagery is the rule for many, and it gets noticed because it often showcases outstanding natural phenomena unfolding in beautiful locations. In this age of social media and competition the quest for popularity is a goal of many. A recent issue of Shutterbug magazine trumpeted the goal of amassing a huge number of followers on Instagram. Likes and followers are not rewards worth attaining. Produce honest, quality work that is a true reflection of you as an individual and the rewards will be far greater. (emphasis mine)

The quest for popularity reminds me of high school when popularity was beyond me. I lacked the looks, likability, understanding of the rules, and daring. I abandoned that quest. Instead, I created myself as I hoped would be for the best. I got into semi-obscure music, read books, made friends that fit and challenged me, and found my way. It hasn't lead to fame or fortune, but I've found happiness and a sense of the world more in line with Chris Murray than Kylie Jenners. Thank God. 

If that wasn't convincing enough, Jaron Lanier has written Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. It is convincing. 

I also notice that the friends I most respect use social media sparingly if at all while the friends about whom I have more doubt are on social media all the damn time. I don't like thinking about where I've been on that spectrum. 

All that and I'm not writing. 

This blog is the first I've ever paid to host and promoted with a newsletter. It's an investment in my writing. I often promote the blog on Facebook and Twitter to "drive traffic," but it doesn't do much. Still, I stick with social media believing I have to despite the lack of results. Even I hear the insanity in that. Social media doesn't grow my audience but I'm on social media to grow my audience. Ridiculous.

I also stay on social media out of fear and obligation. I fear disconnecting, missing something, living without the feed even though it mostly makes me mean. 

All of which points to the obvious solution as said so often on Twitter: Delete your account. 

I'm getting closer to that, but for now I'll try abstinence. I won't go on social media today except to winnow the list of people I follow and friend. Yet, even as I say that, I'm drawn to the feed. The habit, the addiction is strong. All the more reason. 

For now, this is goodbye to social media. Please forgive me if I unfollow or unfriend you. It's not you, it's not me, it's social media and I'm sick of the S & M of it all. 

I'm glad you read this and would love to hear from you. Drop me a line at brianfay at gmail. Nothing will go viral, but we'll at least connect. 

The Tumbling Tumbleweeds

Returned last night from four days' vacation in Chicago, got some sleep, and this morning have embarked on a struggle against pet hair. That our cats missed us is evident in their doting, rubbing, the asking for attention. My daughter brushed enough hair our of each small cat to build a Tribble. The dog, though she got plenty of attention at Mom's house, is nonetheless thrilled to see us and loses more hair when excited. Perhaps in a reference to The Windy City, strong breezes are blowing here in Syracuse rolling pet-hair tumbleweeds through the house. The sight has put me in the mood to clean. 

I've swept the kitchen, first-floor hall, and dining and living rooms. I've swept the upstairs hall and each wooden tread of the stairs. I've vacuumed the den. I even picked up each kitchen chair to clean the accumulated hair on each felt bottom. It felt good to have cleaned the house of pet hair. I scratched "sweep and vacuum" from my to-do list and smiled. 

Then a pet-hair tumbleweed blew across the floor. 

Harry Chapin sang, "it's got to be the going, not the getting there, that's good." I'm pretty sure the only ending in life is death, something toward which I'm in no hurry. Oh, and even if I wanted to, the rest of the family would get rid of me if I got rid of the pets. 

I can sweep, vacuum, but the pet hair will still tumble across our floors. Just now another clump blew up against the refrigerator. Still, I feel good having cleaned a bit. The dog is lying here beside me. The day is cool and breezy. I'm home after a good trip and I'm enjoying this hairy ride, drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds. 

So Much For The Wide Open Spaces

My daughter asked why I moved my shampoo to the shower stall floor off of the shelves in there. I lied: it's easier for me to grab down there. It's really that there's no room left on the shelves between my daughters' and wife's bath products. This would be tough for me if I had hair, but I shave it off once a week and can make do bar of soap across my skull. I only use the shampoo my older daughter decided she doesn't like for herself. She asked if I wanted to use it up and now I smell just like a flower, which has long been my dream. 

It was nice of her to ask about the shampoo bottle.

There's a bathroom cupboard in which I keep extra soap, baby powder, and a stick of deodorant. It is one third of one shelf, and I guard it as though against a horde of invaders. I keep finding cotton balls, face cleaning rounds, maxi-pads, and cotton swabs in my space and pushing them back or moving them to other shelves. Can I just have one section of shelf? I plead. The girls are willing to accommodate me. It's just that they need a bit more room. 

Years ago this happened in the basement, our house's main entry point. I put up a coat rack for my sweatshirt, heavy coat, and rain coat. Soon there were snowpants and children's coats hanging from that rack as well as dozens of shoes littered below. I installed another rack, but was out of that within the month. I put a rack inside the door of my basement office, a space forbidden to them for anything beyond a visit. I've hung onto that space. It's good to have a home in which to hang a coat if not a hat. 

I sound like I'm complaining. Mostly, it makes me smile. Sharing the house is a wonder I know I will miss too much when my daughters move out for college and adult life. I'll hurt with missing them. I will have all the room in the basement that I could ever want and wish I had none. I'll have shelves in the bathroom with nothing to put there. 

I can see all that empty space and I'm in no rush to have it. 

This wasn't the case ten years ago. Then I failed to understand that sharing space is better than inhabiting it. I felt pushed and shoved aside when in fact I was becoming more important and loved. Things like this I'm slow to realize. 

Both girls have gone to their rooms to bed. The older one has the dog, the younger leaves her door cracked open for the cat. My wife lies beside me playing a game on her phone. Outside, the rain falls in the most meditative of sounds and Pat Metheny plays solo guitar softly on the speaker. I just heard one girl come out to use the bathroom. 

I so hope she will come crawl into bed between us, pushing me over so I'm precariously balanced on the edge only able to stay in bed by holding on tight to her with all my love. 

Summer Vacation, Day Two

I'm not in love with our new neighbors and don't know what to do with myself.

I don't hate the neighbors. They just aren't exactly the people I would prefer living so close. The previous owner hardly ever set foot in her yard and was silent. These folks, they aren't silent and swear a lot and one of them smokes while another vapes and their dogs bark at all hours and, well, you get the idea. 

Last week the owner of the house said she was having a six-foot fence installed for the dogs and asked if we wanted to have the four-foot picket between our houses replaced. She said of the fence guy, he'd give you a good price. We declined and that disappointed her some. It may be that we are difficult neighbors to her though I wonder what we do to disturb other than turn the pages in our books.

Summer vacation started yesterday. School ended Friday, but I don't feel on vacation until the first Monday. I have a big book to read, Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove which was recommended and is good so far. I get up early to write Morning Pages, go for a run, shave and shower, and, today at least, went to vote in the Democratic primary though voting seems pointless given what the country has become. Before noon, I pretty much have the day wide open. What to do with it? 

Reading in the backyard is good unless the neighbors are out. One of them doesn't work so she's out quite often, talking to the dogs in paragraphs: "Hey, don't you understand that you can't fucking jump all over everything? Stop it! I said, stop jumping. Don't you get it?" Perhaps she should put these things in writing. 

Even if our old, silent neighbor were back, reading isn't enough to keep me going the whole summer, six or seven hours a day. I get sleepy a few hours after running and sleepy when I read so the double whammy is likely to take me out if I don't do something more. I just haven't figured what to do. Yesterday I rebuilt the desk in my office, but that likely won't need doing again for a few years, so I'm out of luck there. 

My brother and I often talk about retiring. We're both ten years away from it but talk about it anyway and when he is over tonight for dinner I might bring it up again. He says, you have to know how you'll fill the days. He says, you need a kind of schedule. I believe him, but on this second day of summer vacation haven't come up with it yet. I suppose I still have some time. 

Taking time out to write and post something most every day is good. I could use an approximate time at which to do it. I don't need a time-clock schedule, but having a plan commits me to doing things. It makes it easy to commit to enjoying doing them too. 

In Lonesome Dove the guys keep sipping (or gulping) whiskey, and I keep thinking that might be the way to spend the afternoon. This feeling is especially strong when my neighbor is loudly asking the dogs to tell her "where's the poop?" then saying, "ah, Jesus Fucking Christ I stepped in some of your shit you fucking thing. Stop eating it! What did I tell you?" A beer or three would work too. 

It's quarter past four in the afternoon. I've read a hundred pages of Lonesome Dove, run seven miles, written three Morning Pages, let our dog in and out of the house thirty eight times (give or take), had lunch, and now have written whatever the hell this is. I could go ask the neighbor dogs.

I'm reminded of the Statler Brothers' song Flowers On The Wall, a favorite of my father's:  

“Countin’ flowers on the wall
That don’t bother me at all
Playin’ solitaire till dawn with a deck of fifty-one
Smokin’ cigarettes and watchin’ Captain Kangaroo
Now don’t tell me I’ve nothin’ to do”

Dad didn't seem like the type to sit and do nothing. My first thought of him is being busy. He painted and roofed our house when we were kids. He remodeled every room in the house. He built a business from the ground up. It's easy now that he's at permanent rest to think of him as always in motion, but then I remember him watching ball games or staring at the St. Lawrence or sitting in his office figuring things that might not have needed figuring, and I see a little of myself in this backyard, mercifully free of neighbors for the moment, just having a moment of rest and not being too worried if I don't know yet what I'll do next. It will come to me and I'll be ready whenever that happens.