Sherri Cornelius

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Okay, so I've been (almost) completely Facebook-free for two days now. I did sneak back to see if anyone commented on my post that I was leaving. No one did. Not that I care, you know, I was just wondering. I don't care that nobody cares.*

Anyhoo, there was a suggestion that I might be suffering from withdrawals. I don't miss it, per se, but I am having to get used to it.

The best way I can explain it is like everytime FB refreshes there's a click in your brain. So about every 30 seconds your brain expects new information. The first day I stayed away, those clicks came every 30 seconds, just like I was still staring at my news feed, waiting for someone to entertain me. Now the clicks are slowing down.

While I was way better informed on FB, I didn't have the space to process all the information. Maybe it's a middle-age thing, or a pre-Internet brain thing, or just a Sherri thing, but I'm finding I work best with chunks of input, rather than a stream.

I'm pretty sure that while there are some people who work well this way, most are like me. It's not the ideal way to operate, and yet we flock in droves to crowd our brains with information, the way we cram Twinkies into our mouths despite knowing we're contributing to the obesity epidemic. I see a divide in our future, a movement to withdraw from social media at the same time others are wet-wiring their brains to broadcast their thoughts to Twitter. Might this be the next great social conflict? Something to think about.

 

*While my forebrain asserts that no one would comment on a post that I'm not likely to see, my amygdala is telling me nobody loves me.

You know I’ve been staying away from Facebook, and my life is simpler for it. Still, there’s a certain urge to post that I might never get over. Here are some status updates I wanted to post but didn’t.

• Gosh, my computer is so dusty!
• Called my mom. She said she learned how to tickle her amygdala. Then she told me how. Hm.
• Bad tummy. :(
• Soooooo booooooorrrrrrrred. ZZZZZ

As you can see, Facebook is really missing out. I hope this urge stops soon.

It’s that time of year, the time where I delete most of the blogs from my reader and turn off Facebook notifications. I thought about doing it the other way and deleting this blog and making FB my main place, but I realized how very tired I am of the fast-paced conversation and the constant intrusion of FB into my day. To say it’s addictive is an understatement. It’s just such an uncanny replica of the fantasy life in my head, with total control of my interactions and utter immersion in Other People.

It loses something when I’m only reading and not interacting, and that’s what I find myself doing lately.

Especially since launching You Are the Muse, which showed me I’m undeniably tired. I thought it would inject some new life into my online persona, but what it actually did was show me my muse had better things to worry about. ‘Course, it seems like I’m not really interested in much of anything nowadays, except what you’re saying on Facebook. My brain is tired from processing all that info, so I think I’m going to give it a rest. I might even start commenting on your blogs more if I don’t use up all my brain power on FB—won’t that be nice? I might start posting more, writing more, fill-in-the-blank more…

It just occurred to me that I probably melded my life essence with Facebook long ago, and if I’m disconnected too long I’ll start to fade.

Greedy, soul-sucking monster.

But don’t you worry your pretty little head about that. It’s probably too late for you, too. Have fun!

Remember when life sucked because the van died and the hubs had to take my car to work, leaving me stuck at home all day and forcing me to run errands in the evening’s cold darkness? Remember?

Well thanks to that truck you see up there, I have my freedom back. It’s a 2000 Silverado with a back seat big enough for the kids and enough cool features to satisfy the testosterone coursing through my husband and a bed for me to haul my building materials home from the lumber yard.

Two problems I can see are the lower gas mileage of a V6 combined with high gas prices, and the front seats have apparently been sprayed with the devil, AKA Febreze. I can’t do much about the first thing, but the second thing I’ve already started combating with a Bissell Little Green Machine. And of course the solution the Bissell came with stinks to high heaven, so I had to make my own with vinegar and dish soap. I cleaned the passenger seat yesterday, and it seems to be working.

My ‘97 Saturn is the latest model we’ve ever owned, believe it or not, so we’ve been joking about finally coming into the 21st century. The hubs has been so happy to finally have a decent vehicle to drive. It makes me happy to see him happy.

And it makes me happy to have my freedom back.