Mary hail a cab

Seeing a nun in NYC always throws me. It gets me thinking, what are you doing in this city? There's no god here.

Hugs Not Drugs

So I'll have you know I passed. I was able to stay away from Facebook for a whole day. Truth be told I jumped back in the very next day and FB'd the shit out of everything, but it's nice to know I can put my social crutch in the closet for a day or so. I'm actually taking today off FB as well, thank you very much. Baby steps to freedom y'all.

So yesterday I ventured into the city wearing my "Hugs Not Drugs" t-shirt. I'll tell you something, that shirt was a hit about town. Most everyone either looked twice or made some favorable comment about it. I actually had an elderly woman stop to tell me in all sincerity that my shirt was "simply wonderful," which is great because I was literally stoned off my ass when she stopped me. The security guard at an Italian eatery place in Flatiron gave me props too. The boys in Chelsea however, weren't so favorable. The front desk boy at David Barton Gym told me he was happy to hear I was enjoying the gym as much as I did, though in appointing himself to speak for everyone, the message on my shirt wasn't welcomed in that particular facility. For the members of David Barton, things were the other way around. It was all about drugs and not hugs.

 Whoa. I had no idea. I was wearing something that proved to be the equivalent of a YES! on Prop 8 shirt.

I suggested the shirt had an ironic purpose to it, or at least that was my vision when I left the house. He lightened up a bit, but said he would accept the idea of drugs being stricken in favor of hugs on a shirt only if it were a big fat joke. Really.

The Chelsea gays take their drugs seriously. They like 'party.' And though I initially thought the front desk boy was just being a chode, he was kind of right. I was taking Steven Limpin's class again in a final attempt to suck ass and get put on as a substitute yoga teacher at DBG, however when Steven saw me, he pretty much blew me off. This was not going well at all. The "Hugs Not Drugs" shirt was tossing salt in my game with the Chelsea gays!

Before checking out I light-heartedly attempted to convey my overall stance to the front desk, proposing that in a perfect world we could have both hugs and drugs, but this t-shirt only had one of the two available, so for the moment I'd just take what I could get.

Fortunately I didn't have to wait too long. As I was leaving David Barton, one of the personal trainers offered me ecstasy after asking my age and guessing I was 20 years old. Nice.

Facebook, Why Do You Ruin My Life?

I have a dilemma. Facebook is ruining my life.

Why? For the obvious reasons. Time being top dog. How much time do I spend on Facebook? Shit I don't know. A lot. A great part of my day, I might say. Why is this? Am I really that nosy? Let's think about this more deeply...

Look at how much fun we're having!

Oh the togetherness of the social network. You get to catch blurbs of your friends lives as they live them, round the clock. Even the parts you don't give a hoot about. Most of the time really, if your friends are attention whores. Not to mention that often times those FB "friends" aren't really your friends. They may be friends of friends, or fan pages. Or people you've been guilted into being friends with, because you don't want to seem mean. Plus there's the inevitable co-worker friend request dilemma, which proves to be pesky especially if you work in a stiff environment, teeming with tight-assed stiffs. Yet if you don't add your co-worker you have to face them 40 hours a week and know they resent you for not adding them. So you cave in and filter the shit out of them.

Yes it's all there at your disposal if you want it. There are moments when we don't want it of course, primarily upon discovering that you've added a sociopath to your friends list. And by sociopath I mean the type of person who updates their status more than once a day, every day. There is no need for this. Nothing in your life is that interesting that you need to give your audience a continual play by play. Just stop. And stop repeatedly suggesting I 'fan' something, or sending me cute page suggestions that rage against lame fan pages or page suggestions, because those too are in fact, lame. Send me a heartfelt message instead. Cut the shit.

Still, when you legitimately leave close friends behind, FB becomes something of a salve to fill the disparaging gap between you and your loved ones. So to play good cop/bad cop, I will admit FB is brilliant blady-blah but let's just skip ahead to the criticisms...

Little red flag, where are you? There should be a study on the average length of time the contemporary adult will spend waiting for a status update. Really look inside yourself and be honest...did you just spend the last 40 minutes checking to see if anyone likes the bitchin' new photo album of you at brunch? What countless number of times did you go back to your computer just to refresh your news feed today? How many times did you decide to log out, then log back in, in the last 3.5 hours? Are you secretly disappointed when the masses don't in fact, like your photo album? Or comment on it for that matter? Do you covet other people's likes and comments? No, you say? Yeah me neither...

The goddamn news feed. That in itself is a beast of a concept. I sit in front of my laptop, my eyeballs skipping along the stream of verbal diarrhea updates and I am amused. Lots of speculation, gossip, socializing opportunities, cries for help and clever musings are commingling and bombarding you in waves. It's pretty great. The FB news feed actually saved my life when I moved to NYC. Unfortunately it also became a crutch of sorts, debilitating me. You want to know what's happening in the world so you turn to Facebook, but where does the push-pull begin shoving, as you realize you've compromised the time you could've actually stepped out and experienced the world directly, rather than waited for it to come to you, via internet superhighway? Especially when people are updating you with what is often time inane bullshit, several times a day. It saddens me to think that I'm sitting around in anticipation for an inconsequential status update. I wish not to stop living, while waiting for life to come to me.

Then there's the stalking. We have to come to terms with voyeurism. It's human tendency, let us accept it and begin to understand it, rather than write it off as a guilty pleasure while pretending to feel ashamed. When Bunim-Murray capitalized on the concept of voyeurism, reality television gave birth to a demon child that decided it was here to stay. It has been 18 years since 'reality' as entertainment first emerged. I'm pretty sure it's not going away.

The spin offs subsequently are, smutty celebrity tabloids, reality show/game show conglomerates, Myspace and it's older, prettier and not to mention smarter sister, Facebook. Ta-da! Six years and 500 million active users later, here you are, trying to find that guy you met last weekend who you felt you connected with, squinting and straining at the computer screen to make out what could potentially be his profile picture. While we're on the topic of profile pictures, because you actually can tell a lot about a person by them, let's just go ahead and file the do's and don'ts of profile picture taking down to a nub.

Don't take a picture of yourself in the bathroom. I'm speaking from experience here. Especially if you're not going to photoshop your cruddy bathtub out of the photo. Grotty to the max. Goes against the whole idea, since you are likely trying to look sexy in this bathroom photo op. The same goes with your messy bedroom. I don't want to see a pile of dirty laundry in the background. The end result will look contrived, or worse yet, low class.

If you want to seem sultry and profound in your profile picture, don't take yourself too seriously. You'll just look constipated. Ana Roman did that. If you don't remember Ana, she's the beezy that tried to fuck with me at the wine shop. Now her ass is long fired and I have all her hours. Pawned. I'm still working on destroying Fauziyah, my Absolute Power Fitness nemesis...

Anyhow, one of my favorite of Ana's 213 profile pictures is the one where she put her stanky high heel clad foot atop a chair in her disaster of a room and peered into her camera with a seductive look on her face, whilst showcasing her sexy legs in short shorts. Baaaaaarf. What an overt cliche. Could you be any more obvious about how desperate for sexual attention you are? Jeeeez. And 213 profile pictures? Really? Isn't that a bit excessive? I do say.

You may, however, be wondering how I know about Ana's profile picture. Well it's simple really. I was stalking her. Let's not stray too far off the mark here. Getting back into the concept of cyber stalking, this modern past time can be informative or dangerous. It can also be painful. You ever hear the expression, "don't ask questions you don't want to hear the answer to?" Yeah. It's like that. If you are spying your ex boyfriend's or crushes (who's indubitably rejected you numerous times) Facebook wall or photo albums for clues on who else he's hooking up with, be prepared to feel hurt. And more rejected. Heaven knows I've tormented myself enough to learn that cyber stalking is not the way. It's like tearing off a scab that's hardened, taking you back to square one in terms of healing yourself. You are looking at a facade and interpreting it with your preprepared bias. I mean who's really going to put the weakness in their lives out on public display, unless they're candid about being totally disturbed? Only pleasantries and fantasy are on the other side of your looking glass. This makes for an exaggerated or inaccurate conclusion. Plus can you say creepy? I know you can...

Albeit in a charming manner, I'll comfortably proclaim myself the mayor of creepyville. I enjoy a good peruse of ostensibly interesting people I know nothing about, who know nothing about me, given that they don't have their page set to private. How much time I spend doing this I'd rather not say. The fact of the matter is, I don't want to know. If I actually did know, I'd probably feel compelled to sit on my own hand until it went numb, then slap myself with it.

I know it's wrong, but these sorts of habits are hard to quit. I am a coveter, a breaker of the epic human commandments. I love to look into to peoples pretty lives and convince myself they're better while hoping they're really worse so I can feel better. I'm working with both ends of the spectrum here. Does this motivate me or destroy me internally? Probably both. Facebook is good that way. It allows you to subject yourself to something that both builds you up and breaks you down at the same time. Much like crack.

Of course there is a place for Facebook. In terms of marketing product, it's a no brainer. Pushing your own product requires you to continue evolving your salesmanship and stay in the know technologically, otherwise you are left and forgotten. Facebook is a necessary tool for that. As someone who potentially wishes to DJ, I find FB essential for promotion, so I can't exactly quit it cold turkey. In sharing my stance on FB with others, I was suggested to just jump free from it completely, but the very prospect of quiting FB got me shaky and sweaty. I started to come up with excuses for why I shouldn't quit and there was a twinge of desperation in my voice when I justified my needs. It really frightened me.

Perhaps momentarily stepping away from it will be the key. Moderation moderation moderation tis' the way! La-dee-dah, said Diane Keaton. Honestly, will moderation always be the answer? That's such a trite concept. I don't want to hear that shit. I want blood and guts. I want epic proportions of emotion and zealotry. I want resolution. And this is not just because I am the mayor of creepyville, but because I want to feel alive!

Wait, what where we talking about again? Oh, yes. Quitting Facebook. Or cutting down at least.

I suppose our mild perversions get the best of us. I have recognized this so I'm a single step ahead. But like I've said, those small victories are not to be waved away like a bad fart. To go ahead and throw the gauntlet down, I now pledge my attempt to not check Facebook tomorrow. Not once. Just to see if I can do it. Just for the taste of it...Wish me luck.

R.I.P

Yesterday I arrived at work dressed like I was going to a Sicilian funeral and coincidentally, so did my boss. What were we burying, albeit subconsciously? I aimed to bury hesitation, caution and timidity from my professional life. He, his parents as visitors from out of town.