the loneliness of facebook

Facebook keeps me sane.
I'm almost 44 years old. I live alone. I work from home, alone. I have a couple of friends in the area who I see occasionally. Yeah, of course I'm lonely sometimes. Sometimes I can go for a whole day without seeing another person face to face. For some people, that's heaven. For me, a polar extrovert, it's awful.
No Pitty! What I'm trying to say is that it's the social networks that keep reminding me that there are other people out there. On the other-hand, it's difficult to develop a real, intimate relationship with someone in 140 characters or less. Regardless, here are my three good things about social networking.

1) Twitter
Short sweet and to the point. I try to be interesting and creative, and yet still keep things brief. It's a discipline, but I like the exercise.

2) Facebook
I populate my feed from Twitter, and try to post at least twice each day, morning and afternoon. I'm often struck by events or interesting nonsense throughout my day and I try to put that kind of stuff out there. You learn one thing as an internet writer or blogger, write for yourself first. I write about what interests me, and try to find the fun in everything. What's good about that? About 10 people seem to like it. The other 1300 are doing their best to ignore me.

3) The connections
My 25 year high school reunion was planned through social networks. On the one-hand, I was able to connect with almost 100 people from the hometown I haven't lived in since I was 16. On the other-hand, I've met a ton of really wonderful people just by them hearing I'm fun to follow. It's affirming.

TGIF

It's funny how a four-day week looks inviting on the calendar, but when it's jammed packed with appointments, activities, and obligations, Friday can't come soon enough!

Here are some random good things from this week:

1. Wacky Hair Day! Please note: any similarity of these photos to a police line-up is merely coincidental.



2. Ooohhh, Ahhhh! Ooohhh! My daughter the divine Miss O performed a gymnastics routine to Katy Perry's Firework at her school's talent show. She was THE bomb!




3. One day, I had a root beer, fries,
and this for lunch:

and Brian did not!

Baseball

I love baseball.
I'm a Cubs fan, so I know what disappointment feels like. My counterpart has a family of White Sox fans, who I understand, have actually won a World Series sometime in the last 100 years.

My three good things about baseball:
1) Wrigley Field is pretty much my favorite place in the world. It's outdoors, it's friendly. Everyone around you is your buddy, on that day, at that time. I even spent my 40th birthday there.

2) Minor league ball clubs - for example, the Camden Riversharks - often have the most charming places to sit and enjoy a game, cheap tickets, but don't worry - you'll still drop $6 on a hot dog. Every minor league park I've been to has a great family environment and reminds me of the Friendly Confines of Wrigley.

3) It's a past-time. I'm not so concerned about the game, as I am about spending time with friends at the game. It's totally an excuse to relish each other's company.

kittehs

I really don't like cats. But I don't hate them any more.
During the last few years, my girlfriend... then wife... now ex-wife was a cat fancier and there were three cats. You can't really help it when they are around all the time, you get to know a few things about them. When she and I first met, she asked me if I liked cats. I said, "sure, if they're properly seasoned." I should have known better. Now with an attempt at redeeming the species, here are...

3 good things about cats

1) Kitteh Dope: working outside in the breeze and shade - I have a new office assistant. This cat has been hanging around the neighborhood as long as I've lived here and seems very people-oriented. It's been keeping me company all morning and that's been pretty good, except for the choking cat hair all over me. However, very little is as entertaining as a cat on dope. Catnip is awesome. Observe -


2) LOL cats: oh my sides. If I'm ever in need of a good belly laugh, I visit the site. It's cats and kittehs with hilarious captions. Hardly a better site on the web.

3) Fur - the other condiment: ok - not a good thing. But seriously, did you think I would come up with three actual good things about cats? Ok ok... laser pointer antics. happy?

Spoonfuls of sugar

Since I'm a person living with a chronic illness, I often have the "pleasure" of meeting with one of my many doctors or undergoing various medical tests. I'm usually not that happy about this aspect of my life, but I do try to make the best of a situation that is beyond my control.

Today I will focus on three good things about my most recent medical visit.

1. My all-time best friend in the whole wide world accompanied me to my appointment. That would be my dear husband, let's call him T. I like when T comes along. He drives through nasty traffic, he carries things, he talks like Forrest Gump to make me laugh, and he provides much needed support and comfort.

2. I didn't have to complete a test that I didn't want to do in the first place. I was scheduled to have a cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPX.) In other words, I would have been walking really fast on a treadmill while hooked up to a bunch of machines and stuff. In a nutshell, my docs wanted to see how my heart works while exercising. However, the test protocol was above and beyond my capabilities, so my doc said I didn't have to do it! Yippee!

3. After my visit, T and I went for pie. Not just any run of the mill pie, but pie from our favorite shop - Hoosier Mama Pie Company. Hoosier Mama Pies are all homemade, both sweet and savory, and so delish! (In your face Bri, lover of pie!) I had my all-time favorite - the chocolate cream. T had buttermilk, and we shared a spinach, mushroom, and goat cheese pie. As a bonus, a Food Network crew was on hand when we were there! We were asked to be taped and interviewed for an upcoming pie show. Hopefully, we will not end up on the cutting room floor. Way cool!

So my guy, no difficult test, and yummy pie - three spoonfuls of sweet things!

Music, music, music!

I cannot imagine a world without music. There are so many good things about it, that I could go on . . .
and on . . .
and on . . .
just like the beat.

However, I will refrain from tuning you out with my talk, talk, talk, and just stick to three good things about music for today.

1. Music brings people together. Brian and I are friends today because of music. We met when we were members of our high school marching band. Yes, we were (still are?) band geeks. Besides Brian, I have many good friends from both my high school and college marching band days.

2. My kids have the music in them. I have a little drummer boy and a wanna-be trumpet player who sings in the shower. Sometimes they just burst into song, blast CDs on the stereo, or simply hum a merry tune. Warms my heart!

3. I can't sing well, but I will anyway. But never in public (except church), and never ever karaoke. I will sing with my hubby and kids, and in my car especially if I'm listening to my favorite radio station, WXRT-Chicago. I love the mix of old and new, and the mid-day music express. An entire hour of uninterrupted music - now that's a good thing!

Bob Marley said, "One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain."

I think he was onto something.

mmmm coffee

WAKE UP!!!!
it's coffee time!
Coffee, coffee, coffee!

Please forgive the cross-post with my food blog. but I'm really excited about my coffee today!!

My three good things today include:
1) Coffee. In this case, it's Pete's Major Dickason's Blend. Man! it is some good coffee!

2) A really good coffee shop. Sure, I made my own coffee today, but there's nothing like a really great little place, with friends, some nifty live music and of course... coffee.

3) Church coffee. Now, let's be honest. The coffee at 99% of churches is just plain awful. However, it's really just an excuse to stand around and talk to people. And that's one of my favorite good things.

mmmm.... coffee!