Archives: 2011

January 25, 2011

face to facebook challenge–i’m going to win ten thousand dollars!

By arlynnpresser

i’m having a wonderful time meeting friends from my facebook profile.  janie rah rah gibson has the most impossibly glamorous profile picture EVER!!!  and she met me at a luncheon today where i tried to palm off northfield and winnetka history books on unsuspecting diners.  after the luncheon, she and i talked about how i’m going to win ten thousand dollars finding a bride for an actuarial sweetpea:

janie was impossibly  chic, in a vintage sweater dress she stole from her mother’s closet.  i hadn’t realized it was through children’s theater that janie met my two sons.  we talked about friendship . . . 

janie explained something i had never understood:  that when two galpals announce they are engaged or married to each other, it’s sometimes a signal that they are not attached.  also, that there’s a hierarchy of relationships:  going out, really going out, announcing it on facebook, and then i guess there’s marriage after that. . . . i’ve never changed my relationship status and don’t think i would unless it were legal in all fifty states.  as for it’s complicated, that apparently is what you say when you’re about to break up. . .

her mother has an interesting idea about how friendship works.  i thought about this.  there are friends i don’t see for months at a time but i know it’s tight and there’s no apologies for absences.  i know there are friends who are every day and it don’t matter.  i have some friends that are from when i was in high school, some from when i was raising my children, and some i’ve only recently met.

i really like janie’s perspective, except i also think i want to lose forty pounds and steal clothes from her mother’s closet.  also, i’m going to find a bride for tom.  i want that ten thousand dollars!

a special thanks to kaveh, madeleine, connie, chief lustig, janie, charlie, gina, kevin, sean, libby, bill and paddy!

next up:  i open a bottle of champagne with a sabre under the instruction of a sommelier-ette!

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January 24, 2011

face to facebook family friends–

By arlynnpresser

so oprah announces today that she has a half sister that she never knew about–when she was nine, her mother gave birth and immediately put the baby up for adoption.  patricia, oprah’s half sister, bounced around some foster homes before being adopted at age seven.  the reunion of half-sisters is enough to get the tears flowing, but what’s going to happen after the cameras are turned off?

i always knew i had been adopted by the patricks–i even have memory of going on “home visits” with a social worker before the papers were signed.  i hired a private detective when i was twenty four in order to find my natural family.  i was studying to take the bar exam and i thought he was one of the most inept detectives because every week i’d ask him about his progress and he would confess that he wasn’t getting any further along in the process.  on the night i was finished with the two day exam, he called me and told me that he had found my father two months before.  he hadn’t wanted me to be distracted from studying for the bar so he had kept it a secret from me.

“you’re the granddaughter of a very famous writer,”  he said.

i thought james michener.  as it happens, it was fritz leiber, which drew a “who?” from me.  fritz was a science fiction and fantasy writer.  his son justin is a writer and philosophy professor.  justin is my father and came to visit me within the week.  i went down to houston, where he lived with his wife and newly born daughter, for thanksgiving.   i believe it was something of a shock to both justin and his wife.  my sister casey is an actress in new york.  justin and casey are both my facebook friends.

i met my mother aleta a few months after meeting justin, but that situation was less congenial–she was a public defender in washington, d.c, and not making enough money to get by.  she asked for assistance right from the start and at one point when i didn’t come through she cut off relations.  i have no idea where she is now.  i met her sister (from whom she was estranged at the time) and blanche was very sweet to me–until the day their mother (my grandmother) made contact with me.  the three sisters–blanche, aleta, and michelle–have no relationship with my grandmother alyce.  alyce is now in a nursing home in seaford, delaware and i have some facebook friends to visit when i go there this spring.

good luck to oprah and her sister patricia.  they have to make a decision about whether they want to have a family relationship or whether they are going to be friends who happen to share some genetic material.  somehow i don’t think they’re going to walk away from each other.

in other news, i met facebook friends #21 bruce burdick and #22 paulibus shumann yesterday at a go bears! party–facebook friend #20 charles seymour was having a bad hair day and it turns out he’s thought every day was a bad hair day.  here’s what happened when they went outside for a few minutes during half time.  instead of mourning the poor bears, they talked hair.  what’s fun about them is that these three guys have been friends since they were in nursery school.

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January 22, 2011

my defriended facebook friend

By arlynnpresser

when i first joined facebook, there were three status choices:  single, married, it’s complicated.  i was separated from stephen and i picked single because it seemed the most sensible.  i didn’t know you had an option to not have a status.  and when more choices were offered, i didn’t know how to change my status.  it was easier to just get divorced.  . . .

when stephen joined facebook, it seemed the civilized thing to do to friend each other.  but that didn’t work out at all.  deeply uncivilized, we made an agreement:

stephen and i were married for over twenty years.  he was married before to carole smith, who lives about six blocks away from my house.  she’s my facebook friend.  occasionally carole, her partner, elisabeth, elisabeth’s husband, grace (she of the fishnets), joseph, eastman and i will get together for holidays.  i think it’s very important for joseph and eastman to have good relationships with stephen’s children — david and elisabeth — from the marriage to carole.  a good enough relationship so that when i’m dead, they’ll have somebody to call to bail them out of the pokey.

next:  a dinner party with three (!) facebook friends including a curious story of a facebook obsession.

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January 20, 2011

connie yonan, f2fb#17, saving the world one hundred butterflies at a time!

By arlynnpresser

the day connie yonan decides to become a hostess for qvc, i want to be her agent.  because fifteeen percent of connie yonan’s enthusiasm is quite enough to keep me in pretty dresses and champagn.

part of her charm is that she has found something she is completely passionate about.  watch her talk about it herself:

the passion she brings to raising butterflies translates into every aspect of what she does:  she’s on a fundraising board of the winnetka community house with me and every time she discusses a new project, her eyes light up, her voice rises just a bit, the smiles are quick and bright.  i have known connie for nearly ten years and i’m not sure i’ve ever seen her feeling down. . . . i want to learn her secret, but i don’t think i want to raise butterflies.

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January 19, 2011

okay, mike castagna, i promise!

By arlynnpresser

mike castagna, facebook friend #3, has devised an ingenius map which is just the sort that indiana jones would carry in his back pocket.  it has thumb tacks and every thumb tack represents a facebook friend.  fortunately, the thumb tacks are imaginary.

and now i have  a problem that is the opposite of defriending–i’ve sworn a blood oath to mike that i won’t add on any new facebook friends, except of course for steve gondorcin my ups guy because he sends all the care packages to reggie, joseph and eastman.  and of course lorraine hara yolles who has been so sweet to invite me to her home for parties.  in winnetka, most people don’t invite single, divorced or widowed women into their homes.  it’s considered bad luck.  so if lorraine and steve are so nice to me, how can i not say yes when they want to be my friend?

my two best friends of my life are not on facebook and, in fact, are dead.  dick and vivian eastman were in their mid sixties when they met the teenager me.  they shared their family with me, which is the greatest gift of friendship.  they both passed within the last several years and i still miss them.

when the grant family says that paige can travel with me on some of my face to facebook trips, they are sharing their most important treasure.  and i’m very grateful.   if anybody else wants to travel with me on any of the legs of the journey, the sign up sheets are posted now. . . .

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January 18, 2011

face to facebook teammates

By arlynnpresser

nothing worth doing does not at first appear to be impossible and meeting 332 people in one year seems impossible.  unless i could somehow persuade all of them to meet me at mirani’s for lunch on successive days.  otherwise, i have to travel to see them!  and today paige grant (face to facebook friend number 15) volunteered to do some of the traveling for me.  particularly the england-italy-istanbul-mumbai junket.

paige is a friend of eastman’s and is an adventuress–i am looking to her for courage and perserverence.  we aren’t sure why we’re friends on facebook.  she’s taking a gap year and most of her friends are from new trier high school.  we related over common facebook experiences.  this was filmed by lori who is joining the team as well:

nothing happens without a team.  i’m starting to see a team come together.

which reminds me. . . i met with peter lind, face to facebook friend 16.  he was in the winnetka northfield rotary club with me but within a few days of katrina, he disappeared.  he was charged with the task of reopening the hospitals of new orleans and he left his family to do that task.  he didn’t return for two and a half years.  his wife, oh so adorable, once saw me in the carpool line at new trier.  i was crying.  i figure you cry in your car nobody can hear you.  i was wrong.  she got out of her car, walked over to mine, banged on the driver’s side window and demanded to give me a hug.  peter is so humble that he wouldn’t let me take his picture, much less video him.  but he told me many stories about what new orleans was like just after the hurricane blew through town.  he had these thoughts about our own emergency preparedness:

1.  always have in your house three days of water and food.

2.  in your car, twenty four hours of food and water (the food probably should be in the form of dried fruit, nuts, slim jims) and a blanket.

i would add to that a proviso that if you can’t muster up those provisions, just stockpile champagne, firewood, cigarettes, and cocktail napkins.  a black market will develop.

peter and his wife live across town but he is the designated community emergency response training dude for his block.  in an emergency, he has said i’m an honorary member of his block.  yippee!!! i’m gonna be okay!!

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January 17, 2011

it had to happen–i am defriended!

By arlynnpresser

poor, poor, pitiful me!  i have been defriended and facebook don’t make it easy to figure out who defriends you.  it’s like they’re a teenaged girl from the cool clique who is trying to spare your feelings but isn’t really doing such a good job.  i checked the facebook friend who had been with my husband when we first separated–no, she’s still my facebook friend.  ditto the guy i wouldn’t date whose posts are so fun and vulgar that i would despair if they didn’t pop up every once in a while–he’s still my friend.  so is that guy i went out with in college and the rapper inda loop.  and alex beh who used to babysit my kid and now dates jennifer love hewitt.   i don’t blame anybody for defriending me–i might defriend myself given a chance.

but before i defriend myself–victory!  i made it back to my cozy home and if i can do a small trip i can do every trip required by the face to facebook new years’ resolution!  i can meet every one of my remaining 331 facebook friends before december 31, 2011.  this is all said in hubris.

the trip began with kankakee where i saw heather for lunch at her job at target.  she’s not always going to work there–in fact, i think she’s “work at a museum” material.  i can’t wait to watch that develop!  then onto champaign-urbana to see john and alice lafond!  they were such fine hosts and the next morning i woke quite refreshed and ready for adventure.

and i got it!  i was lost several times while trying to find the home of andrew pearce.  andrew is a transplanted brit who worked in the railway industry for twenty years.  his passions are photography and trains so this is the result of our visit:

and p.s. the train engine was running.  my butt got really cold.  andrew makes pickled eggs and declined to give me the recipe but i smelled it and decided it could be used as a diet aid as well.  in exchange for those eggs, he gets free beer for life from the local brewery.  i’d like that deal.

then a sweeping tour of bloomington and i am having dinner with my stepdaughter elisabeth and her husband steve.  elisabeth was seven when i married her father.  her brother was eleven.  i was pregnant with joseph.  i was a wretched stepmom.  i never beat her or locked her up in the basement, but i wasn’t too keen on making school lunches five days in a row and i never celebrated her successes as much as i should have.  nonetheless, she has forgiven me.  partly that’s because of grace–being a new mom really makes one appreciate the stresses of your own mom (or stepmom) much better.  here’s some important information on how to make fishnet stocking if you’re a princess and you have to dress in rugged conditions.

i spent the night at the indiana union and got a call from chris redmond, joseph’s childhood friend.  i remember him as a loud, hyperactive, mischievous boy.  the guy who showed up the next morning to work out was a tall, gentlemanly man.  his parents have done all right by him.  he has agreed to be my necessary bodyguard for the asian leg of the face to facebook new years resolution tour and if anybody wants to apply for any other legs of the trip, sign up now!  here, he demonstrates how to train to be a bodyguard:

one thing i’ve learned is that i know some friends who have purpose and meaning in their lives, whether their purpose is trains, raising grace, Jesus Christ, or even just knowing they will have a purpose one day. i hope to find my purpose.  i hope to find my way.  with my face to facebook friends, i am learning. 331 friends, 319 to go!

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January 16, 2011

a face to facebook puzzle

By arlynnpresser

when i finally made it to andrew pearce’s house, i was so glad i recognized him.  i had only seen him once–as the bartender of the marriot in bloomington where i stayed just once.  but he smiles like nobody’s business and that’s how you know it’s andrew.  he invited me in for a cup of tea to brace ourselves for the afternoon’s business–a photo shoot at a trainyard.  in his kitchen i found this. . .

 

is andrew pearce breeding snakes?i was a little creeped out, but this is a project of adventure.  of learning new things and this was definitely something new.  if you know what it is, leave a comment.

later today, i will post the pictures from the tracks, a video of me drawing fishnets on the cutest gal in all of bloomington indiana and then . . . one more mystery facebook friend experience!

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January 14, 2011

face to facebook modest victory!

By arlynnpresser

there was enough drama that i thought i wouldn’t get out the door, but i own the first leg of the f2fb short trip!  i drove down to the target superstore in bourbounnais, illinois.  heather tyler is my facebook friend–she’s the wife of eric who is friends with john lafond.  heather is 38, adorable, and when she smiles you just can’t have a bad day!  we had lunch and shopped for a present for the princessa of champaign-urbana.

heather doesn’t always want to work at a target store although she’s great at what she does-and she spends a lot of time when she’s not at working playing on facebook:  mafia wars, farmville, etc.  she wants to do something in art history.  i thought maybe she could contact the head of nearby kankakee’s historical society and see if she could work in their museum as a volunteer just to get her feet wet.  heather and i both struggle with internal monologues that are sometimes rather dire.

i nearly cried, right there in the middle of the target food court, because the heather internal voice is strikingly like my own:  you’re a failure, you’re incompetent, you drink too much, you haven’t done anything with your life, you’re fat, you’re not all that.  in fact, i believe that heather and i might actually be hearing from the same entity.  we agreed we have to say “SHUT UP!”

here’s a picture of her just after we ate lunch.

i’m very lucky to have heather for a facebook friend and i’m glad we got to see each other.  unfortunately, her husband eric was at the food pantry and missed me as i sailed off for champaign urbana.  i’ll get to see heather later because i’ll be coming back to kankakee to see eric!

next, it was on to champaign urbana to see the princessa colleen who curtsied when she saw me because she recognizes a fellow princessa!  colleen is a great favorite with the paparazzi and so she knows how to take a good picture.  here’s one that was taken by the star magazine:

the princessa’s parents are john and alice lafond.  john and i went to school together and when i left the patricks when i was a young teen, he hid me in the lafond family garage.  the lafonds are approaching their ten year anniversary.  congratulations to a wonderful royal couple!!!

john and i play scrabble on facebook.  he beats me nearly every time.  and jonathan boyd, his friend, DOES beat me every time.  John also plays Mafia Wars, Farmville, and Sorority Sisters.  I asked “why Sororority Sisters”?   and he said it’s basically the same thing as Mafia Wars just with prettier dresses.  facebook is a hobby.

tomorrow it’s onward to indiana!  i’m doing this!  i’m really doing this!!!  i have 332 friends, including one cat and a guy who’s been dead for over a century–sorry mike i added a few friends, but i have visited with nine of them this year.  this is right around the time that most people give up on a new years resolution–but i had that moment last night.

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January 14, 2011

disaster!!!! and then. . .

By arlynnpresser

i was getting ready for seeing facebook friend janet sussman.  and for the trip.  i thought i was good at packing a bag.  chargers,  black t-shirt, another black t-shirt.  i did spend some time flapping my wings worrying about getting a two day trip in the chiaruggi bag. .  .  and then i freaked!!

i don’t know janet very well.  we have mutual friends who are in theater.  she’s in “chorus line” in march and i hope she comments on this post to tell us all about how to buy tickets!  but this was an emergency-and i started the cancellation calls. . . i am such a damn failure.

so i called janet and said i have lost my wallet and i’m doomed.  can’t do the ahem, provocative dance class that i promised to attend. . .  and this gal showed up with chocolate, strawberries, a bottle of wine and great attitude.

here is the result of fifteen minutes of getting the janet sussman incredible love:

i admire her.  i’m glad she’s my friend. i always think that being by myself is going to be  the best thing when i’m in a bad mood.  maybe being with a friend is better.  the evening ended with facebook friend charlie seymour coming over and the two of them sang show tunes at the piano.  charlie’s dog cuddled up with me on the couch.   i felt like i was at a going away party hosted by my face to facebook friend #8!

p.s. i’m an idiot is acknowledged.  i wonder if there’s a freudian aspect–like i wanted to stay home. . . ?

p.p.s. i had been at a lunch earlier in the day with stephen–my ex–and chris nelson, the director of parent relations at oberlin.  stephen had been kind enough to drive me back home.  i had dropped the wallet in the car.  stephen was kind enough to drive up from the city and drop off the wallet around midnight.

thank you stephen!  thank you janet!  and thank you charlie and eddie!

this morning, i’m off adventuring!

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