Tag Archives: facebook

March 10, 2012

le roy mystery illness sweeps through the internet and maybe i’m a carrier. . . .

By arlynnpresser

over a dozen teen girls in and around leroy, new york have reported experiencing the same tourette’s-like symptoms of twtiching, tics, and uncontrollable verbal outbursts. With the case now generating a great deal of media attention and public interest, some of the teens affected have been posting videos on youtube, facebook and other social networking channels showing their symptoms.

parents gathered at a meeting last weekend to demand answers about whether the leroy high school is safe. After extensive testing, the school district found no environmental cause for the symptoms. Results of the testing have all come back negative. A team of environmentalists, including erin brockovich, are testing soil samples to see if the illness could be related to a chemical spill from a train wreck near the school years earlier.

the adorable and pneumatic erin brockovich is an environmentalist once portrayed by julia roberts in an eponymous movie. she is trying to figure out if the leroy troubles are related to an environmental spill which occurred near the town in 1970.

 

but some psychiatrists have been suggesting a simpler solution. they’re calling it conversion disorder (formerly known as “mass hysteria”), which is the physical expression of psychological stress. stop texting, videoing, facebooking, sharing, twittering, youtubing, and then i wondered. .. . if facebook makes everybody just four degrees of separation* away from everyone else, am i at risk?  am i at risk of spreading a disease? am i contagious????

 

*http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/technology/between-you-and-me-4-74-degrees.html

 

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March 9, 2012

am i a person, an interest, a hobby, a hobbit, a barbie. . . or a friend?

By arlynnpresser

five thousand is a rather arbitrary number.  sure, it’s the largest isogrammic number in the english language, meaning that the letters that make up the name “five thousand” don’t repeat.  a five thousand dollar bill, should you ever be so lucky to have one, will delight you with a picture of the fourth united states president james madison–you would have to be awfully lucky because that bill is no longer in circulation.  and for facebook?  five thousand friends means you are no longer a person.

this morning, i was surprised to discover that i am “an interest”. . . .

this is my profile picture as ArLynn Leiber Presser interest. i can "like" this page but i can't post on this page. i am completely clueless as to what this means. . . . can i be somebody's hobby?

 

i have no idea who created the page but it is accompanied by a wikipedia biography.  i have a facebook friend who has created a “public figure” Arlynn Leiber Presser page.  apparently, this will become massively important if i ever end up with five thousand friends.  over the course of the last year, as i have visited the original 325 friends i have acquired some more new friends.  but i’m really unclear as to why that means i have to be a public figure.

i'd rather be an action figure but i'll settle for being a barbie doll. i find this really confusing. . . .

 

today i went to lunch with f2fb friend #304 tracy lynn deis, who IS a public figure because she is a photographer with more than five thousand “fans”.  and yet, she seems like a really nice friend.  she works out of her home, designing online courses for professors who work out of their homes for students who will learn out of their homes. . . . probably everybody lives next door to each other they just don’t know it.  tracy and i talked about how sometimes it feels like we can spend days without leaving the house and . . . it feels okay.  it’s a choice.  but then it’s hard to work up the energy to get out of the house.  i was grateful she did. . . i was grateful i did.

my car is fixed so i can travel. i have a full backseat. at five o'clock i sort of had to fish or cut bait on seeing tracy lynn and i had the usual plethora of excuses for weaseling out and staying home. . . . so was tracy lynn!

and she told me the most insane facebook romance story ever. . . and i’ve heard a lot!

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March 7, 2012

the most beautiful present from a facebook friend and angels make their intentions known

By arlynnpresser

in the christian, muslim and jewish traditions, the archangel gabriel is often responsible for relaying messages to mortals, such as when gabriel told mary that she would bear a child and his name would be emmanuel. this picture is not of that moment.

my cracked windshield has been repaired although i’m not supposed to drive for a while to allow the glass to “cure”.

as angels so often take many forms, it is possible that the archangel gabriel, or some sort of messenger, has taken the form of a slow moving geico insurance claims system and a really slow safelight glass repair shop. because my son joseph has been saying "you need to stop traveling and sit down and start writing a book about what you did last year." maybe the only way it can happen is if my car is disabled and my airplane slush fund emptied.

but i’ll be on the road tomorrow visiting facebook friend #304. . ..

last night, as i drifted to sleep, i believed that the angel gabriel and a few others had come to fly over my head. nope, it was bats, i think three of them, i was pretty hysterical at the time. swiping the air with a broom didn't intimidate them and crying left them unmoved. maybe i could ask these bats to guard the house, intimidating any robbers while i am away.

tomorrow i start to make plans for trips to new york (with a side trip through pennsylvania) and nevada.  but i think there is something to what the angel gabriel and my son joseph have been telling me. . . i need to write a book about last year because it was the most wonderful experience of friendship.  if you know a publisher who would want a book with embedded videos and photos, or an agent with imagination, or ryan gosling (i just want to meet him, okay????)  tell me all about it.

yesterday, i did receive the most wonderful present from f2fb (face to facebook) friend  #301 brenda jeffries.  she is the gal who has agoraphobia and lives in detroit with the help of her surviving children (her daughter raven was murdered several years ago).  i picked up that her oldest son in particular felt that physical exercise and the experience of the “high” you get when you’re really working out would be good for her.  i sent a present.  this is the result:

a lot of people who have agoraphobia feel comfortable outside so long as they are with a "safe" person. my two safe people are my sons and brenda feels safe with her children. tim and brenda are going bike riding. i'm so happy for them. if you're in detroit and you see her tooling around on this bike, wave to her!

thank you brenda, you MADE my day, my week, my month!

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March 6, 2012

home for the holidays. . . .

By arlynnpresser

winnetka is a very sweet, very small town on the edge of lake michigan, scant miles but many years away from the modern world.  everyone knows everyone else.  the word “appropriate” is used a lot and not in any sort of ironic way.  education is important.  it’s why we’re here.  and i haven’t spent a lot of time here in the past year and a half even though i love my little home.  

the windshield on my car was blown out and dealing with geico and safelight is a little like dealing with the two of the three stooges.  but one day the pratfalls will stop and i’ll get my car back and can hit the road.  in the meantime, i realize i am home for one of winnetka’s most cherished holiday weeks. .. .

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March 3, 2012

the star, the sun, the enquirer. . .

By arlynnpresser

i admit to many addictions:  white wine, chocolate, fettucine alfredo, the office, 30 rock, vitamin water zero, angel perfume.  and my friday morning addiction:  the star, the sun, and the national enquirer.  the grand grocery store in winnetka even knows to set aside one each because i’ll be there by seven in the morning.  then i hustle over to the community house to while away an hour on the stairmill.

the national enquirer was founded in 1926 and has a circulation of approximately 650,000 readers. this is not this week's cover.

i got a double dose of pleasure on friday morning.  don gentile, a reporter based at the enquirer’s florida headquarters, has been following my facebook adventures and he put together a story about it.  when it came out this week i had twin feelings:  excitement and a great notion to hide.  so i did both.  stairmill first, then a pajama day.  sometimes the very thing you want is the very thing that is so scary.  sometimes i have to remember to keep the emotions of excitement and fear separated.  and i also have to remember that every day that i hide in the house makes it harder to leave the next day. . . .

 

 

 

don gentile writes human interest stories. he doesn't usually dig for dirt, which means he knows nothing about that sex tape with reg bush, the time i told kim her butt was too big or all that red bull i gave to demi. shhhh! this is just between you and me!

 

everything i have done in the past fifteen months has been possible because of my facebook friends.  every time a facebook friend posts encouragement on my wall, hits the like button or pokes me, i feel it.  and i have been so grateful to the facebook friends who have met with me, taught me things, showed me their spiritual side, talked to me about what really matters to them–i have been blessed.

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February 28, 2012

aim high and don’t forget st. paul’s advice about personal grooming

By arlynnpresser

on december 31, 2010 i made a different sort of new years resolution:  i decided i would meet all 324 of my facebook friends.  i posted a video about my resolution on facebook.  it was the first video i had ever uploaded and i was quite proud of myself.  the next morning, as i had time to reconsider this,  so many of my facebook friends had commented that they were looking forward to seeing me.  i even got a facebook friendship request from a woman who said that while she lived in wyoming (very far away from my home in winneta) i was not to worry because she was moving to iowa (much closer).  and a friend from the philippines posted a picture of a roasted pig and wrote that his entire village was going to give me a big party when i showed up.  too late to delete the video. . .

that felt like a lot of pressure.

UH OH! what have i done??? most years, i resolve to lose five pounds and give up drinking--and that lasts until twelfth night when i go on a white wine and chocolate bender. and nobody even knows about my failures!

but i really believe that what is truly worth doing must at first glance appear impossible.  and my resolution seemed impossible:  i would have to be on an airplane nearly every week.  i would have to visit nome, alaska at the northwestern tip of america, florida at its southeastern tip and everywhere in between.  i would have to visit thirteen countries.  i would have to be organized about it because, like every other new years resolution, it’s for one year.  365 days, 325 friends.  and i couldn’t weasel out of it because everybody i knew on facebook knew about it.

so i started visiting friends, the ones closest to home until i got a little more confident and could consider a lane ride. . . and i ignored the “how are you ever going to get yourself around the world?” that popped in my head.  there isn’t a single day last year that i didn’t think “i’m giving up” and “this is stupid”. . . and there isn’t a single day  last year when someone didn’t tell me “you should give up” and “this is stupid”. . . oddly, my facebook friends–the so called “just facebook friends” — posted encouragements and support.  it really does make a difference.  if you have a facebook account, go out today and randomly pick five friends.  post something positive on their wall.  i promise you, they will glow. . .

at the end of 2011, i had visited with 292 friends–exactly ninety percent.  the remaining ten percent either didn’t want to see me, are dead, are in jail, have abandoned their accounts, have been involved in their own travels so that i can’t pin them down, or are spambots.  oh, and four people who have become too famous to consider me their friend anymore.

this year, i have been more focused on visiting friends who are like me.  there’s a name for me–agoraphobia, or what the ancient greeks would call “fear of the marketplace”.  i like to think of myself as reclusive, hermetic, withdrawn, or maybe just shy.  and maybe scaredy cat is a good one.  i’m one of those people who would never leave my house if i didn’t have to.  you have people like that in your family, in one of the houses on your street, amongst your friends.

yesterday, i really didn’t want to leave the house but i was scheduled to visit facebook friend #302.  janet browall lives about two hours away from me and i was worried because my windshield is cracked.  my car is falling apart.  and also, to be fair, i ALWAYS want to stay home.  but i dutifully drove west. . .

i know what you're thinking--that i didn't actually see janet and that i googled "goldie hawn" and have slapped her picture up on this blog. no, this is actually janet. she's gorgeous!

we spent a wonderful hour filling in the gaps of facebook.  you can’t be friends just by paying attention to posts.  there has to be some physical interaction, even if it’s just sharing a cup of coffee at starbucks.  she has panic attacks and is worried about an upcoming flight she has to take on her own.  i have suggested self-hypnosis because it worked for me.  also, a preflight beer.  or four.

i felt like janet and i had known each other forever and i would have liked to spend more time with janet, but i had one other errand to do. . .

one of the things i am amazed by is the wide variety of religious and spiritual beliefs amongst my friends.  i have come to appreciate how we all strive to make a connection to something beyond ourselves.  my facebook friend bonnie bradlee was the #70 friend i visited last year.  we knew each other in high school and last year we met in person for the first time in thirty years.  bonnie has become a christian and her faith has led her to become part of missions of healing and support around the world.  last year, she went to hydrabad, india to mission.  she had a remarkable story to tell me yesterday.

she also related to me that when she was in india, people wanted to have their pictures taken with her more so than with any other person on her mission.  at the end of the trip, it was with a weary and sorry heart that she discovered that the reason people wanted that souvenir was because she is, well, overweight.  and she believed God has spoken to her, telling her that she cannot mission to his people who are sick or starving when she represents excess.  so for her, this year is about bonnie.  we worked out together and i saw an incredible determination to lose weight.  not for vanity’s sake, or to attract the attentions of a man, but to be able to better serve the Lord.

however, i am a mischievous woman.  and i believe God appreciates a little whimsy.  i took bonnie to get a manicure and a pedicure.  after all, Paul the Apostle said to the Corinthians “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  you are not your own; you were bought at a price.  therefore honor God with your body” (1 Cor. 6:19-20).  he had some definite opinions about manicures, pedicures, working out, getting a good haircut, although he really didn’t go in for laser hair removal and restylane.

today, i will work on getting that windshield fixed and then i have to get myself out on the road again. . .

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February 25, 2012

the unbearable is borne with such grace

By arlynnpresser

i wandered lost in detroit circling 11 mile road before pulling up to the home of f2fb friend #301 brenda jeffries.  i was late, my gps has something wrong with it.  as i pulled the mini up to the curb, i noticed movement behind the front door.  but i was distracted by the lot across the street.

“that’s my daughter,”  a voice said from behind me.

“brenda!”

we hugged.  and then she repeated that across the street was her daughter.

at first i thought she meant that her daughter lived in the quirky little camper surrounded by tiny stone angels and plastic flowers brightening the gray city snow.  then i noticed the weathered posterboard of a young girl.

“that’s where the car was parked,”  brenda said, shrugging her head towards a clump of bushes.  “when raven was taken.”

six year old raven was playing on august 4, 2008 in the lot while the car idled.  brenda could check in every once in a while by looking out her window.  the other kids went home safely.  raven disappeared.  three days later, her charred body was found.  the police wouldn’t let brenda see her baby girl and it was left to her eldest son to text her pictures from the morgue.  the crime remains unsolved although brenda has a pretty good idea (and so do the police) as to who did it.  the camper is where people have sometimes gathered for vigils in raven’s honor.  the lot is owned by the city, as are many pieces of property in the neighborhood although brenda is as tied to the lot as any generation of farmers to their fields.  i put one of the stuffed animals that eastman has given me next to an angel.

brenda didn’t get out of the house much before–and going to the funeral was the hardest experience of her life on so many levels–but after her daughter’s murder, she found it unbearable to work at the store two blocks away where raven often hung out after school while brenda worked.

brenda finds it difficult to be in the house by herself and her three remaining children coordinate their schedules so that they can be with her as much as possible.  when i was there, her eldest son had moved in with her–his bedroom is at one end of the hall and brenda’s room (which she shares with all of raven’s possessions) is at the other end of the hall.

i went to use the bathroom and i couldn’t get the light to work.  then it dawned on me that the electricity had been turned off.  which may have explained the necessity for turning on the burners on the kitchen stove.   i met her adult children and her baby granddaughter — who is so adorable i nearly made the oft repeated compliment of “i just want to take this one home with me!”  for once, my mouth wasn’t as fast as my cautious brain.

we looked at pictures of raven and some dolls that brenda has for her.  we both share the catholic faith and there is a beautiful rosary dangling over a portrait of raven in the living room.  i noticed the prayer card from her funeral and then another card–one of raven’s best friends was killed in a car accident two years to the exact day after raven.

brenda is part of a number of agoraphobia support groups on facebook.  i never knew they existed until this year and they are generally closed and invitation only.  it’s one way in which facebook protects privacy.  a lot of brenda’s friends are from england.  her  adult children are her “safe” people–but she trusted me enough to take a walk with me.

we stopped in front of the store where she had worked.  where raven had played.  where she told me about her attitude about the amber alert.  oddly, while i was filming her, a dark nondescript car (hell, i can’t tell the difference between any brands) parked behind me.  the car and its driver stayed put, just watching–i felt kind of spooked.  in fact, i sort of felt like if i had brenda’s life i wouldn’t leave the house much either.

i drove away wishing i had a magic wand.  that i could make brenda’s life better.  that i could make raven come back.  i drove back through the snowstorm to chicago thinking that all the petty stupid things i get mad at my sons for–not calling enough, not cleaning their rooms, forgetting valentine’s day (!)–i needed to back up and count my blessings.  i made a promise to brenda’s eldest son that i would return and i will.

brenda, who bears the unbearable with such grace, has often sent me messages of encouragement or of support and i wonder where she has the energy and the stamina to care so much for others!

oh, and the car that pulled up behind me while i was filming brenda?  it followed me out onto lonyo avenue and up michigan until i veered off onto the 94 ramp . . . .

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February 25, 2012

for every facebook friend who has never seen snow. . .

By arlynnpresser

the before. . .

the after. . .

i was really really surprised by what i found in detroit but this is before that. i am grateful to my facebook friend for seeing me.

and this is now we do it!!

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February 23, 2012

sometimes it’s a strategic retreat not a full scale sprint to safety

By arlynnpresser

so i blew into oberlin, ohio expecting quality time with f2fb friend #1 my son eastman presser.  unfortunately, he was dealing with some major drama (girls), work (do they actually do that in college), and rehearsals for a concert he hoped i’d attend.  i had a full day to kill and it got to me.  i descended into my own personal form of darkness.

a chorus of voices in my head, each having their own lines--you're a bad mom, you're a failure as a writer, you have squandered your youth, you will never find happiness, you are going to die alone and broke, you gained ten pounds and look disgusting. . .

oddly, i was at the computer so i posted a status that i was having a major anxiety attack.  i was looking up where the oberlin hospital is located.  i wondered if they had state of the art cardiac and stroke care.  then i noticed lots of messages and comments popping up from facebook friends.  breathe, a great many suggested.  take a hot shower.  watch the movie enchanted april (hey, if i knew how to get the television to work in my room i would!), go out and sing the national anthem, someone wrote and pretend you can do it better than whitney houston.  well, i can but that’s only because she can’t do it anymore at all.  hugs, many sent me and others sent me their own experiences. i’m not alone.  i was really really really touched.  this is exactly the sort of thing that makes mark zuckerberg’s creation meaningful.

i pulled it together to get to eastman’s performance at a recital by michael pisaro who is visiting from the california institute of the arts near los angeles.  what he does with a two minute “rest”–well, he definitely solves the Mozart problem of too many notes.

an hour and a half of experimental, atonal music–very modern and sophisticated.  my stomach growling drew the attention of several audience members.  an hour and forty five minutes no intermission.

and then i went back to the hotel room, took two ativan and got into bed.  thinking about pennsylvania.  the trip, the hours, the turnpike.  took another ativan.  looked for something to read.  the gideon bible.  but too much stuff about being struck down dead.  and then the yellow pages for oberlin.  sort of funny.  under elderly care they had something called the scooter shop!

i enjoyed the image of oberlin citizens of a certain age getting out their hog scooters and terrorizing the neighborhood!

 

this morning, i had no sleep and was frankly more exhausted than when i went to bed.  i made a decision.  onward to detroit.  it’s closer to home.  i’m feeling a bit bruised.  i think this is a strategic retreat, not a dive for the covers of home.

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