My Second Life

Back when I was single and childless (and blog-less), I spent a fair amount of time on Friendster.com. Thank God, since that's how I met my one-and-only. Now I almost never enter Friendster-land, but if I remember correctly, belonging to Friendster was pretty simple. I could invite friends, accept invitations from others, update my pictures and my list of favorite TV shows, and...that was about all that was required of me.

In the last few months I've been besieged with invites to places like Facebook (mostly from my younger cousins) and LinkedIn (mostly from professional associates). I was feeling bad about neglecting these invitations, so I finally joined both services, accepted the invites that had been piling up, then quickly uploaded a picture and posted a link to my blog.

Now that I've joined Facebook, it turns out there are many social obligations in this social network — just today one Facebook friend "poked" me and another asked me to "chop down a cherry tree" with her (what the heck does that mean?). If I was so inclined, I could probably spend my whole day in Facebook joining online "Scrabulous" games and "throwing sheep" (huh?) at people. I've also been asked by Facebook to confirm how I know various people — are we friends? relatives? business associates? or did we "hook up"? (seems like pretty personal information to share with the interwebs!)

These online diversions look like fun, but I'm not sure how I might squeeze all of this cyber-socializing into my schedule. Not that I don't spend my fair share of time on the internet between trying to post daily on my blog, plus stopping by other blogs for inspiration. Then there's my, you know, "first life" — my kid, hubby, and job that all require occasional attention. Which is all to say, my dance card is feeling a bit full at the moment, so if you ask me to throw a sheep with you and I don't get around to it for a few weeks, don't take it personally. ;-)

Comments

[Carol]

Amen!

[Lisa Kenney]

Yikes! I know just what you mean -- I joined Facebook because I wanted to see a website and the next thing I knew, all kinds of weird things started popping up. I'm just too busy and uncool to figure it out ;)

[Renee]

Too funny. Count me among the uncool. The biggest move I've made in cyberspace lately is... well.... posting a comment on Missy's blog. I'm so resistant to anything that eats up my time that I'm slowly falling off the planet. But, what else am I supposed to do? Tell my kids to watch more TV while I "throw sheep?" I already spend too much time in front of my computer. If I did have more time to spend online? Well... I could browse iTunes all day. Or read Missy's blog, of course.

[Missy Keenan]

I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling overwhelmed by so many cyber-options! My sister Jana informs me that chopping down a cherry tree is a President's Day greeting. You can also tase someone, wish them a happy Chinese New Year, or, my favorite: drunk dial them.