Husband of The Year (Or, How I Ended Up in NJ)

I do a lot of pretty rad stuff as a married man, and most of it is for my wife.  And while I quietly self-congratulate, this feat, I feel, deserves some attention.

Last weekend my wife was off visiting friends and family in New Orleans, leaving me behind to pet- and house-sit.  I didn't mind.  Manweekend, what I was calling it; I did very little except run, eat wasabi peas and banana chips, drink a Guinness or two, and play Xbox.

You might've noticed that "showering" was not on that list.

Regardless, my wife was due back in New England by Monday afternoon.  When the appointed time came, I made my way up to Boston's Logan Airport, to (do what any good husband who doesn't want to find his balls chopped off in the middle of the night does) pick up his travel weary wife.

Only, ... I was a bit early.  And.  My wife's connecting flight from Newark, NJ had been canceled.

For this very reason, I always opt for direct flights.  I hate having to de-plane, hustle across to a different terminal, hope to god my checked luggage (if I was stupid enough to check any of it) makes the connection with me, to queue up to board what is essentially the same plane all over again, with the same obnoxious passengers.

As much as I enjoy the idea of flying from place to place (it's convenient, fast, makes me feel like a spy sometimes) the people have essentially ruined the experience, from a personal and security standpoint. 

No longer do you see men and women dressed up to fly someplace.  If anything, you see people in sweats and flip-flops.  "I want to be comfortable," is generally the complaint.  "I don't want to have to strip at security" comes the other end of it. 

Can't say I blame them, as I shuffle thru a metal detector, holding my pants up in one hand, my shoes in another like a village idiot.

So, back to the story, my wife's flight from Newark to Boston had been canceled.  She was on "standby status" til about 1pm, when she MIGHT get a flight from there.

My beef was ... Newark is a hub... meaning, there's a ton of flights leaving Newark, all day.... going in all directions, to every other major hub in the country (Boston included).  Why in the blue fuck was there a four hour wait for another Boston-bound flight?

And the flight wasn't even GUARANTEED!  Her only guaranteed flight status was for a flight departing Newark at 9pm... a full 12 hours away.

There was no fucking way I was about to let me wife sit in New Jersey for that long, lest she be mutated into a Snooki.

The request came quickly, via text message: "Will you come and get me."  And honestly, I made my decision with the same raised pulse I would have if she asked me to pick up some bread on the way home.  It was a natural conclusion for me to make.

To be sure, I texted back: "You want me to drive to NJ to come and get you?"  And she said "Yes please."

And just like that, I was off.  I had everything I needed: a full tank in the Prius, GPS, full charge on my phone, gun, money.... I made my way to pull out of the short-term parking lot.

"Didn't you just get here?"  Said the attendant when she read my ticket.  I explained the situation in as few words as possible, making sure to mention I was driving all the way to New Jersey to pick up my tiny wife.  The woman in the booth sigh and flipped a switch.  The gate in front of me lifted.

"Get out of here," she said, and failed to charge me the $3 minimum.

I was fortunate that I was getting on the road at a time when there was virtually no traffic; Rt 90W was empty and I was making excellent time thru Conn. as well.  I was being filled with these long-lost memories of making this same drive to Brooklyn and Queens years ago.  Everything was bathed in this weird sort of trans-dimensional glow.

I pulled off at a highway rest area to pee and top off the tank (I didn't want to imagine a scenario where I'd have to look for a gas station in The Bronx).  This was one of those McDonald's/Mobile/Chintzy Souvenir places that require an American to ask for an interpreter to facilitate any sort of commerce. 

In the parking lot, I watched two 11 year olds punch the living Bejesus out of each other, over only what I could imagine was the last McNugget.  And I mean, they weren't just "rasslin" like brothers, but actually throwing (and landing in some cases) real-deal, closed fisted blows to each other's face.

It was pretty intense. 

No one was breaking them up, just a ring of adults looking on, perhaps making bets or egging them on in a crude parking lot gladiatorial spectacle.

Back on the road, Ang and I stayed in pretty much hourly contact, giving each other sit-reps.  According to the GPS, I'd be arriving at Newark around 245pm.

The GPS, however, failed to account for the massive parking lot taking form at the GWB approach.

For those of you who are not familiar with the greater NYC area, the George Washington Bridge is one of the few connectors between the city and Northern NJ.  I had never traveled this far into the city before, on my own (I usually took the Whitestone on to the LIE, or Long Island Expressway, into College Point, Qns).  I had no idea I'd be stuck on the GWB for over an hour....

Relaying this info to my wife, who by now was tired, cranky and scared, did nothing to alleviate the growing tension.  I took the time to ask her to find out exactly where she was in the airport (terminal wise) to facilitate a quicker pick up.

Once I squirted thru the GWB, I was only maybe ten minutes from the airport.  I called again, asking for a terminal.

"They don't have terminals here... I'm at international arrivals...."

I should point out here, too, that my wife might have been delusional from eating New Jersey Airport Sushi for lunch.  ....No one has ever accused my wife of being a savvy traveler.

On my approach to the airport, I saw signs for different terminals.  A, B, C airlines were at Terminal A, X, Y, Z airlines were at Terminal B.... international flights were at Terminal C.... ok, I thought.... she must be at Terminal C....

Or one would think.

It would take us a solid 15 minutes to find each other, due to frustration and miscommunications.  During that time, I got yelled at by the cops (twice by the same guy, who was looking more and more mad everytime I made another lap.  But then again, if I were a cop in NJ, I'd probably want to kill myself too), cut off by some arab in a gypsy cab, and nearly ran over a family of Indians with more luggage than pounds in Kim Kardashian's left ass cheek.

Finally, we figured out where each other were, and I made my approach.  I could see my bride, in her sweats and tank top and flip-flops, clutching her duffel bag, looking beat but happy.  I pulled to the curb and eyed another cop making his way towards me.

I hopped out of the Prius, helped her with her bag and for the first time in about seven years, said: "Lets get the fuck out of Jersey...."

We had 6 hours of driving ahead of us.  For being apart for a whole weekend, I didn't mind.

I Hate Owning a Pick-Up Truck

It was love at first sight when I first put eyes on my truck.  My wife and I were still only just dating, it was the summer of 2008... she, the truck, was all black, step-side, shortbed F150, tucked away along the back wall like a shy girl at a 50's sockhop.

I knew I wanted this truck, she had to be mine.

I've owned three different primary modes of transportation (not counting motorcycles) since I've had my license to drive.  My first car was a 1989 Ford Thunderbird that was too long in the tooth to be handled by some idiot 17 year old and his friends with a love of action movie car chase scenes.  When that car died a fiery death in a police station parking lot (no lie, seriously... the car caught fire in a police station parking lot as I was going inside to get an application to be a summer meter maid....) I moved on to a 1998 Chevy S10, bright red, my first pick-up.

The S10 was a "starter pick-up," one no one would dare take seriously.  It was a stick shift 5 speed, did whatever you asked of it and nothing more.  But, after four years, I was ready for a more "adult" truck.

And that's when I saw her.

But the pain with owning a pick-up is that everyone else doesn't own a pick-up, meaning, as a truck owner, you're automatically obligated to help people move the most ridiculously heavy shit across town, or even out of state, for as little compensation as possible.

For me, it's always completely circumstantial as how I'll feel when, at least twice a season, I'm asked to haul shit from point A to point B because I'm the only person that person knows who has the equipment, so to say, to perform such a task.

These people are always really grateful and polite.  It's not ok when they're assuming and expectant.

I had former co-workers spring up on me just as work would be letting out on a Friday with "oh heeyy...." and then go on to be like "can you help me move on Saturday?  I gotta be out by the first and.... we haven't really started anything yet.... and you have a pick-up and all we have is this shitty hatchback...."

Or what's even worse, the guilt-riddled text you'll get all day from someone who asked if you'd be available to help them move, when you said you either "weren't sure" or "were not available" on that day.

I had a co-worker send me like, 60 texts in an afternoon, saying some shit like "oh, we'd be done by now if you had your truck..." sorry, but spending one of only two days I have off a week, helping you move heavy shit or packing boxes (the wrong way, apparently) is not on my agenda, ever.

So this past week, a friend of me and my wife's asked if I'd help him move a small couch off-Cape to his new apartment in Newton.  I like this guy, Matt, he's a solid bloke; the type of guy you could feel rest assured would have your back in a barroom brawl or Memorial Day Sale at Macy's. 

Initially I was a little miffed that I was "volun-told" to help out Matt, but I hadn't had much "man time" recently, so I looked at it as a chance to catch up and be "men."

We met up at the coffee house we go to and got something to eat and drink.  We then went to his uncle's house nearby to pick up the couch.  Here's where I got the inevitable bad news:

"So, yeah, it's a sleeper, actually.... so it'll be a little heavy... and ... uh, there's stairs."  Of course.

But the rest of the trip went well, and Matt bought me lunch at a wing place before we headed back to Cape.

I had a real fun time, but I think my next car will be some shitty hatchback.

Dispatch: Portland: City by The Sea

Portland, Maine is like a roommate I had in college.  When I was in college, we were both unsophisticated, dirty, sometimes scary people.  But we've both grown a little in the last few years and became more worldly, more open to ideas, more accepting of individuals.

I'm really glad to see Portland's grown up.

Or maybe it's just me?  Maybe Portland's always been this Mecca of Style in the Northeast; a not-so-well-kept secret just north of Boston, with a fantastic culinary community, culture and people.  Portland is all of the good things of Boston, with little of the bad.  Sure, there's crime, but there's crime everywhere.  What you won't see, at least in the places the tourists go, is dirt, grime and bad times.

In typical fashion, I was only going to be in Maine for roughly 24 hours.  Just enough time to get some work done, maybe see a friend or two, and be gone again like vapor.  Since I had just seen my mom on the Cape for Mother's Day, I figured she'd be cool with me going out on the one night I'd have in Portland.  I made some phone calls and set something up.

At 6:30, I was on the Northwest corner of Congress and Free streets, by the restaurant Nosh.  Earlier, my childhood friend Mandy had suggested the place for dinner.

"They serve like, really good burgers and .... like, tempura-fried bacon... are you into that stuff?  I know you've gone all health nut on us in the last few years..."  I explain to her that I may run marathons and triathlons, but I'm not dead.  A fried pork belly sandwich and bacon-dusted fries with a Guinness sounded like just the medicine I needed.

Mandy arrives shortly after I do, as I'm playing with my phone on the corner.  She's with her husband David, a guy about my height, glasses, easy smile.  They're newlyweds, coming up on their first year anniversary, and I'm happy to see they're still in that place where they're still ironing out the wrinkles.

A little passive-aggressive back and forth between the two would be the battle rhythm for the evening.

Nosh is a gastro-pub like any other I've been too.  There's nothing here that sets it apart other than the Ms. Pac-Man game at the front door.  The place is also crowded and it's a "seat yourself" sort of deal.  We wait by the door, waiting for a table to clear.  The place is a hipster joint; skinny jeans and cardigans are the uniform of the day.  A tall, lanky kid who looks like he just wrapped a photo shoot for American Apparel walks by us.

Luckily Mandy and David are the types who have connections in the restaurant biz here in Portland.  David makes eye-contact with a server who he works part-time with at the Armory Lounge and soon we're seated.

The menu is glorified pub fare, with strange Asian twists and turns.  David goes with the Falafal, Mandy with the Tuna Tartar and I get the pork belly sandwich.  We each decide to split an order of the bacon-dusted fries, and tempura-fried bacon with Nutella drizzled all over the top.

The conversation inevitably turns towards marriage.  I ask how they're doing in their first year and I'm greeted by a wall of unified bliss.

"It's great!" Mandy says.

"Never been better," David says.

"We hardly ever fight, it's awesome!"

But being that only a few short years ago, I was in there shoes, I can readily see thru this lie.  There's an unspoken tension between the two that's written all over their body language.  I deduce that David doesn't want to be here, as he's too quick to engage in conversation, and even quicker to disengage and stare elsewhere around the restaurant.  Our food is brought out and he nearly pounds half of his vodka and water.

After dinner and many pleasantries, I head home for the night.  I have an early day the next morning and I have to be up at 4 am for some goddamn reason.  We all hug and shake hands and the look of relief on everyone's face is hard to miss.

But Portland has another side to it, that's vastly different from the posh gastro pubs and sushi bars that make up the water front and East End.

But that's always been the case with Portland; it's a city with competing personalities, a literal economic strata to almost an extreme.  While Portland is a city comprised of young up and comers, there's also it's fair share of thugs, homeless, junkies, and burnouts.  Driving home, I watch as two men walk with a menacing purpose down Commercial St from one bar to another. 

Take a wrong turn on the outer fringes of Portland and you could very well end up in the news.  Out of the popular television show "The Wire" street gangs flourish in tenement housing projects.  Routinely, you hear of police-involved shootings with quasi-legal residences. 

It's roughly 5 am and I'm traveling in-bound off the 295 up Congress St again, but the Portland from the night before is still asleep.  Instead, like out of a bad B-Zombie-Film, homeless men shuffle down from the hill towards the Greyhound Bus Station, half out of their minds.  As I'm the only traffic on the roads at this hour, they each stop in their tracks and slowly turn towards the sound of my car.

I drive a while longer and pull off on the side of the street and wait til my appointment at 6 am.  The sun is starting to come up and there's a grayness about everything.  Off in the distance, I see this lurching, painful-looking figure running towards me.  As I finger my locks, what comes to pass is a middle-aged woman out for a morning run.

Her gait is a cross between a seizure and someone trying to fight off invisible bats.  Her elbows careen wildly from her sides, she's bent over at the waist, towards her right as if she's being kicked, her left knee fires off to the left every third footfall. 

But it looks like she's keeping a 7:30 pace, so ... good for her?

I'm parked at a parking meter, one of the many in downtown Portland, but I don't have any change to feed it, and no store is yet open.  My appointment is about to get underway, so I just leave the car, locked, hoping that Portland still has that fabled "get one free" parking ticket policy.

I'm in meetings with various people for a few hours, and by 1030, I'm walking back out to where I parked, fully expecting a sliver of paper to be waving at me in the breeze from the windshield wiper. 

But nothing, no paper, no fine, no reproachful looks from the onlookers now filling the sidewalks. 

I gotta say, I love this city.

They Make Yoga Pants for Men, Right?

"Do they make yoga pants for men?"  I found myself asking this as my wife and I stood next to our dryer, and she fished out a pair of tight-but-comfortable looking capris made out of sweat-material.  I was dressed in essentially my pajamas; green Nike warm ups, slightly oversized electric blue t shirt from EMS with a pair of hiking boots on it with the words "Hikers do it in the woods" - perfect for I felt at that moment: an outsider about to undertake a rather large step from his comfort zone.

Candidly, I had never thought of myself to be the type of person who would wind up sitting on a tiny, thin-ass mat in a room with other people with the lights turned on low and New Age music softly humming over the speakers, trying to push my (obscenely rigid) body into the shape of the letter "W."  While I consider myself to be an athlete, I never took yoga serious.

We had decided, earlier in the week, that we were going to try one of the free yoga classes my gym/health spa/beehive of obnoxious children provides on Saturday mornings.  This want came to mind after sitting thru a lecture on my "Health and Fitness" class regarding a person's level of flexibility and how that's relative to health concerns as they age. 

I do not want to be a bent, crippled, barely-ambulatory little old man at 40 or beyond.  With the level of punishment I put on my body with my endurance training, I need something to help keep my body from deteriorating faster than it already is (for instance, my left knee has really been bothering me lately, and I don't even want to talk about my feet... think "Baghdad 2003" and you'll have an idea.).

So yoga seemed like a fun idea.  Something new, something I could see and find benefits in.  But like anything I'm new to, I tend to be really awkward.

My wife has gone to several different yoga classes over the years, so she knew what she was doing.  The morning of, we arrived early with our mats, in order to get a "good spot" in the studio.  She started to get out of her clothes (a hoodie, uggs) and padded around the hardwood floor barefoot.  I stared down at her feet.

I had to be barefoot for this?

Like I said just a second ago, I don't like my feet.  Actually, I don't like feet, period.  But I'm really self-conscience about MY feet, because, well, their pretty gross.  While training for my marathon last summer/fall, I burnt out three toenails.  One grew back, the other two, on my two big toes, are... well, I can't think of a polite way to describe them.  It's just really gross.  Now, a bunch of strangers would have the pleasure of looking at my mangled, rotten feets (later that night, when I explained my apprehension to my wife, she looked at me and said "we were in a low-lit room, in the back, and you were worried about people seeing your feet?  Who are you?!).

We were alone for only a few minutes.  We waited out in the waiting area on the other side of the retractable studio wall and played on our phones while an all Kenny Loggins' 80's Movie Soundtrack (It's All Right, Danger Zone, Holiday Road, Foot Loose - seriously.  But I can't complain, since this happened, I've add a "Kenny Loggins" station on my Pandora) pumped from the speakers over our heads.  My gym (both locations) lately has been playing music incredibly loud, even when there are minimal people around.  It was 830am on a Saturday.  The only people in the facility were my wife and I, and two employees.

Soon tho, a few elderly-looking women came into the yoga room and we entered behind them, sitting on our mats while these "regulars" chit-chatted.  We stretched... suddenly I felt as if I was getting ready for some sort of competition; warming the body up to perform in front of other people.  To perform better, actually.

By 9am, the instructor, a woman named Jane who had to be at least 60, set the lights low, closed the doors and got everyone centered.  We all sat Indian-Style on our mats with our eyes closed, trying to focus, meditate, align chakras- whatever.  The low, New Age music played, inter-twine with the "Caddyshack" soundtrack just on the other side of the divider we were sitting next to.

Because of this, it was really hard for me to concentrate.  At one point, I was doing some sort of stretch wrong with my back and legs, much to the ire of my wife, who shot me a nasty look from her mat, as if to say "you look like an idiot, don't you know left from right?!"  Also, I was unaware I was to keep my eyes open during the class.  I spent probably 2/3s the class with my eyes shut, only taking peeks to see what everyone else was doing, because I didn't want to be doing something completely different and look anymore like an idiot.

The class went on for 90 minutes, it was soothing in parts; At one point, one of the students sneezed so hard it sounded like a scream, which jarred the shit out of me.  But my mind started to wander around the one hour mark (like an asshole, I had kept my watch on, and was taking glancing checks here and there); I started to think about the upcoming Red Sox/Yankees game, and essentially, this article.

I ended up leaving relaxed in the end, but not terribly challenged.  The largest challenge for me was the wafer-thin divider, as it blocked little-to-no-noise.  As the morning picked up for the gym, the lobby continued to grow rowdier; Kenny Loggins giving way to some assholes guffaw-ing it up hard a mere 15 feet away.

I've sort've come to the conclusion that I would like to make yoga a regular once-a-week thing to intermingle between my running and strength training workouts. 

At the same time, my fat, out of shape, 19 year old self from ten years ago (complete with his patchy-gross goatee and pizza sauce-stained t shirts) wants to kick my ass.  But then again, he never had a body like mine.

Why I'll Never Go Back to Facebook

Via nymag.com

Earlier this semester, one of my professors (creative writing) asked the class, by show of hands, how many were on Facebook.  About 90% of the class had their hands up.  The only two people not with their hands up were me and this old dude whom I think is a trucker-rapist.

I've been off Facebook since about last fall, after spending nearly 5 years on the site.  The reasons for my letting go were numerous, but most significant amongst them was how much time I was wasting just sitting in front of my computer, staring at an unchanging screen, waiting for something to happen.  How much of my life had I wasted just staring at Facebook?  I mean, it was really only minutes a day, but you add those minutes up over days, months, years... it's quite significant.

So the other day, my wife inadvertently left herself logged into her Facebook on my iPad, and for the obvious journalistic research I was about to carry out, I started messing around with it.  Instantly, I remembered all the reasons why I can't stand Facebook; these memories were quite literally at my finger tips.


1. The User Interface is fucking terrible.  Facebook's UI is absolutely baffling.  For a website that see's like, a ba-jillion hits every day and has over hundreds of millions of users, you'd think the fine folks down at Palo Alto would make navigating their site just a touch easier.  Try this out:  How many clicks does it take you to see your whole friend's list from your home screen?  Try it out, I'll wait.

What'd you get?  At least like, three or four, right?  Wouldn't you think a website based around connecting to friends would be a little more intuitive regarding seeing your friends?  This is why I strongly believe that Facebook is for closet narcissists.  Everything about Facebook is about self-promotion, it's about me, me, me, me.  Fuck my friends, users say, how can I put up more pictures of the "fun times" I'm having, so other people will think I'm always out having "fun times?"

And on the subject, I recall uploading photos to be a massive pain in the balls.  You could never just upload one pic to the site without having to make a fucking album for it.  I always found it immensely easier to just upload a picture from my phone to my wall (Facebook's iPhone app was actually quite good.  So good in fact, that I had often wished that the site proper took a lesson from it), but this was problematic when I had pictures on another device, ie, my rather nice Sony Cybershot.  Mmm, I could upload a kinda grainy, lowly lit pic from my iPhone 3GS's ... 4 megapixel camera, or my 14 megapixel Sony.... to upload the pics from my Sony, I'd first have to upload them to my computer, and then sync my phone, and then upload to Facebook from my phone, because all those steps were easier than uploading to Facebook's main page from my computer.

2.  Security and Privacy on Facebook are still huge issues.  A while back, there came this sudden uproar where people who had put pictures of, and information about, themselves online, were now appalled to learn that their information was being sold and essentially used against them.  Zuckerburg and his team swooped in and patted everyone on the ass, saying that they were going to make Facebook a fucking nuclear bunker of internet security, and everyone could be rest assured that their privacy and information would no longer be at risk.

However, Facebook's team couldn't account for third party applications tethered to their site.  Everytime you saved a little piggie in Farm Wars or Mafiaville or whatever, all your information was pumped to the servers of Who-Knows-Where.  And all THIS information came out MONTHS after Facebook rearranged it's privacy policy.

Heads up kids: anything you put on the internet is free for anyone to look at.  It blows my mind that this pillar of internet logic has gone so far from people's minds in the last five years.  Do you think Facebook cares if Susan Johnson in St. Louis has her privacy settings ratcheted up to 11?  No, because they can look into anyone's site at any time, and retrieve any information they want.

How do I know this?

Facebook has a standing agreement with law enforcement agencies, under the guise of helping to locate missing children, that if an agency calls (and can rightfully identify itself usually with a faxed letter head) to request information on a particular person, Facebook will cough it up in spades so fast your head will spin.

Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, right?

Facebook and Zuckerburg do not give a shit about you.  With hundreds of millions of users, each one clicking on something every second of every day, Facebook's staff can turn around and sell those clicks to advertisers at a premium.  What the advertisers do with that data is anyone's guess, but I'm sure it's nothing like upholding the sacredness of your kegger's picture album.

People, it's all about the money.

The last component about Facebook's privacy features comes from the end users themselves.  Anyone's Facebook page can be hacked by anyone else who knows your password, and I'm thinking most of you probably use the same password for everything, and it's something relatively easy to guess, just by knowing you.  Once someone else has your Facebook password, then game over.  They can find all those incriminating, nasty, toilet-hugging photos of you and do whatever they want with them.

You know that tagged pic of you sticking your tongue down some skanky chick's throat?  Say g'bye to ever running for office.....

3.  "Friend" Obligations.  You go out, get introduced to some dude by your date, and 24 hours later you get a friend request from this guy.  You have no idea who he is, but you feel obligated to "friend" him because you (barely) met him in person.  This can go one of two ways, neither very good:  Either you have this "friend" who just sits on your feed all day, sending you bullshit-ass game requests or other annoying horseshit (find out he's a Birther with a soapbox) or you find out he's your girlfriend's ex or something else even more creepy, and you're now letting him stalk the shit out of you.

Or even better, the always awkward Aunt Request.  Your mom's sister finally gets on Facebook and sends you a friend request and what do you do?  You can't deny her; like that won't make Thanksgiving a total shit-show.

By now I'm sure college kids have developed enough tact to be able to parry Awkward Aunt Requests, but not me.  Nope, can't side step that shit to save my life.

And then you have all those people you barely were able to tolerate in real life so many years ago: people from high school you always thought were dicks (turns out, with little investigation, they're still dicks, with a cunt wife and dick children) or obnoxious co-workers you not-so-secretly wish would just stop showing up to work one day, reasons be damned.  These people send you friend requests EXPECTING you to friend them, and when you don't, out come the indignant attitudes, which leads us to....

4.  Unnecessary Facebook Drama:  "Hey, did you see what I put up on Facebook?  No?  Why not?  What do you mean you 'unfriended' me?" or "Who's that girl were you talking to back and forth on your wall?"  Etc.  Just plain bullshit drama generated by everyone being connected to Facebook.  When Facebook shit started to spill over into my real life, and led to real arguments with my wife, I was pretty much sold on the idea of getting rid of it.  But it goes further than that.

We've usurped actual real-deal communication with wall feeds and trolling people's picture albums.  I remember a time when my wife and I were both on our laptops in the living room, sitting next to each other, in dead silence because we were both talking to other people on Facebook.  That's fucked up.

People really aught to reconnect with the people around them, not ex's from five years ago, not people you never spoke to while in high school.

5.  Facebook is an enormous time suck.  You hear stories from your friends who work in offices or whatever, on how FB (as well as other social networking sites) are blocked while at work.  This is because employers were seeing significant drops in productivity during the day, because people were spending their entire days diddling Facebook.

There's this gravitational field of non-productivity that surrounds the site.  As I mentioned earlier, I would spend hours a week just staring at my news feed, waiting for changes to happen.  Since getting rid of my Facebook, I've been able to get to the gym earlier, and I spend less time sitting on my ass (which is better for you from a health perspective: people who sit all day are more prone to back and leg injuries and poor general health.  Plus you get fatter, quicker as your ass expands to mold itself into your chair, truth.).

People, you can use Facebook, ... hell, you can marry it if you want.  These are just my reasons for letting it go, and if you share any of these reasons with me, maybe this will give you pause for thought about finally giving the site the heave-ho.  I KNOW I'm better for it, really.  It was hard at first, but I got over it after a week or so.

There's a million ways to stay in touch with people you care about.  Emails, text messages, Twitter, hell, the good ol' fashion phone call is still a primary means of communication in some parts of our country.  And we're a First World Nation.

Try it out: just don't log in for a week.  Both on the site and on your phone.  See what a week does?

What's the worst that could happen?  You miss out on a campus-wide kegger?  Oh well.

A Tweet Too Long to Post about Sandwiches, Jokes and Married Life

Wife: this butter and honey sandwich is like sex on bread!

Me: gimmie a bite.
Her: no get your own!

=

I heard a joke today, but you'll have to find the guy who told it to me.