in my little quest to meet every facebook friend i have, i sometimes come across friends who share my secret: agoraphobia. fear of the marketplace is the translation from Greek, but really, it’s fear of everything.
in the 1939 movie the wizard of oz, bert lahr played the cowardly lion, afraid of everything! sometimes i feel like the lion!
one of the things i will be doing in los angeles is meeting with my facebook friend brandon spellman day. he is a video game slash computer slash programming genius and he has experienced his own moments of being a cowardly lion. he is over that period in his life and he wants to help others who are in the thick of that fear.
he is creating a phone app that will allow agoraphobics to chart, monitor and encourage themselves to shove past boundaries. brandon is kind enough to have me help him with it and the los angeles trip is an opportunity for us to complete that project!
yesterday i had lunch with facebook friends bonnie, tony and charles. charles is presently struggling with agoraphobia. and he’s promised to test drive the phone app.
what about you? would you find an app like this helpful?
i look forward to meeting my facebook friend brandon!
when i started my facebook friendship journey, it was january 2011 and i had 325 friends. i figured it was a long distance run with a timer set at exactly one year. i didn’t meet every single friend, but i got the asian f.
on the third episode of season three of the hit series glee, mike chang’s father demands mike be drug tested and drop out of the glee club because he has received an a minus on a test. mike and the other kids referred to the ninety percent grade as an “asian f”. one could say i got the asian f, because ten percent of my facebook friends didn’t get a visit from me. i was surprised to find out i was friends with spambots, dead people, prison inmates, and some friends who maybe just didn’t like me enough to make a facebook friendship a face to face friendship!
this past weekend, reveling in my newly minted homelessness, i visited rock island, illinois to see my facebook friends #27 eric fields and #9 heather tyler. i don’t really think of my friends as being numbers but i found it was easier for me to keep track of what i was doing by giving a friend a number based on when i saw them. my first facebook friend was my son eastman. heather was the ninth person i visited last year. eric was the twenty seventh.
sometimes when you have a goal that is really important to you and really big, it helps to divide it into smaller chunks and keep track of the small successes as they pile up. many times i would look at the “number” of the friend i had just visited and look at the day of the year and i would think “i’m doing okay” which is a pretty good feeling to have!
eric and heather are married and live with eric’s family in rock island. recently, they have experienced an economic reversal: they need a place to live and some work. if you live in or around rock island, illinois, do you have any ideas for them?
after visiting with eric and heather, i went east to see my facebook friend #322 charles henry. charles became my friend after january 1, 2011. i got a lot of new facebook friends but i stayed focused during the year on the “original” 325 friends.
you might ask yourself why i would think it was so important to meet my facebook friends. well, sure, there’s the inte-ma-lectual inquiry into the nature of social media and networking systems in the early twenty first century. . . but there’s also this: i was a fifty year old empty nester with no reason to open the front door except to welcome the pizza delivery guy. i was scared to leave the house and i consoled myself with the delusion that i engaged in the world and had an active social life because, hell, i had 325 friends on facebook. and when i left the house i got crushing panic attacks. absolutely convinced i’m having a heart attack. terrified of the world. ready to cry and scream. i still do that all the time, but i am learning to just keep driving.
charles shares some of my problems: he has panic attacks when he leaves his “safe” area which is a radius of about two miles outside of his home. he has panic attacks when he has to wait out a red light. he went through a period of being housebound when he was younger and then, after many years of feeling great, he again struggles. he has been unemployed and he is working through a divorce. one would think meeting him would be a downer. one would be wrong.
facebook friend #315 tony tyner, #71 bonnie bradlee, me and #322 charles henry met at charles’ home. we had a lot of fun and next month, charles will pick out a restaurant outside of his safe area and we’re going to do this again! oddly, on august ninth i’ll be having lunch in a manhattan restaurant with a facebook friend who is housebound in staten island. she has been opening up her boundaries a lot in preparation!
one of the many things we talked about was faith and our respective relationships with God. although we four have differences, we agreed that the best prayer begins with “thank you for. . . ”
last year i visited 292 of my then 325 facebook friends. i went to thirteen countries, the four tips of the united states. i visited a strip club in cincinnati because my facebook friend owned it. i went hiking in the topanga mountains because a facebook friend persuaded me that the mountain lion warnings were just for show. i had dinner in a home in calabassas that is in the same gated community that has within it a gated community that britney spears lives in! i went fishing, golfing, to a casino, to dinner at everything from the chili’s in morgantown, pa to the pizza place in nome whose delivery team uses planes. i wore out the tires on my car and my patience with airlines and the transportation security administration. two hundred and ninety two out of 325 is 90% and the remaining ten percent were dead, spambots, ignored my invitations, or declined my conditions.
in the albany, new york apartment i was told by a t.s.a. agent that she would put her hands on my ankles and feel me up until she “reached resistance”. like a good catholic girl, i put my knees together. in her own little braille, she was able to establish that i was wearing a tanga panty and that it had been several weeks since i had brazilianized myself. everybody stopped to watch. i was chagrined but i think anything a t.s.a. agent is going to do to you in their offer of a “private” room is going to be much worse.
my passport has a lot of stamps and looks like i’m either a terrorist, a drug mule, or a war criminal who is confused about which countries have extradition policies. most countries, i got off the plane, paid a customs official some money, got that magic stamp on the passport and went on my way. the exception was india which required three weeks notice, a money order and an appointment at the consulate.
this coming week was set aside for brazil. i had managed the visa application. no problems. but then my two chaperones had their visas denied.
captain reginald gholston was the 32d facebook friend i visited last year. he also chaperoned me on two facebook trips. i was planning to go to brazil with him and last year’s facebook friend #57 vince peters. it’s important in meeting any new friends that you have safeguards: for instance, take a trusted friend, meet in public, and NEVER agree to meet someone in their home or to invite them into yours. out of the ten percent of facebook friends with whom i didn’t meet, two were gentlemen who would only meet me in my house or theirs. so i didn’t. but i would have if i could have brought a chaperone.
a week before a scheduled trip, a brazilian visa speed bump. reggie and vince can’t get visas. i’ve got one.
my choices: go it alone, reschedule, go to the next place on the agenda and come back to brazil another time, or cry. i did the cry thing.
reggie is being deployed to afghanistan next month. he has been deployed to iraq twice. i feel like he’s a son–er, younger brother–to me. i had hoped he would have fun in brazil.
in mexico city, reggie and i met my facebook friend #79 yoshi maeshiro whom i knew because he admires my grandfather fritz leiber, jr.’s science fiction novels. long after i was asleep at the hotel, reggie went out to a samba bar. it was a photo finish getting to the airport for an eight a.m. flight back to the states. reggie was smiling. i wanted him to smile after he had seen brazil!
after the nice, long cry, i remembered what one has to do when there’s a speed bump —
we strike west for los angeles and las vegas. this is going to be like a combination of three musketeers, driving miss daisie and the hangover. except i don’t want to be the dude who loses a tooth!
obrigada brazil–i will reschedule and be there soon!
facebook challenges the notion of a world of nations bound by geographical borders and nationally shared identities. facebook nation will, by the end of the summer, have a citizenry of over 900 million. which makes facebook’s census figures just shy of those of china or of the entire african continent. facebook has a government insofar as SOMEBODY is making the rules. i figure mark zuckerberg is king and his wife priscilla chan our queen. facebook national travel policy? you can go anywhere as long as your passport is stamped “like”!
kate and william, by comparison are of a royal family that rules over the united kingdom, population 62 million, and it’s roughly twice the size of the state of new york. happy anniversary wills and kate!
facebook citizens can be separated by oceans or seated side by side at computers (or any reasonably intelligent phone).
i’ve been thinking about national boundaries in the past week. in 2011, i began a journey that has hopscotched around the world and around my geographic country of america–all to meet my facebook friends, my fellow citizens of a country without borders. before this journey, this resolution, i had never purchased a plane ticket for myself. didn’t have a valid passport (only about one third of americans actually have one). and i had never been out of the country before. making a commitment to meet every one of my facebook friends in person has changed all that.
for most countries, a visa–a permission to enter the country–is either a fee one pays at the airport or just a wave hello from an official after you stand in line for a while. other countries are a bit more stringent. i sweated through several weeks waiting for my visa to india. and it cost a lot of money. this week i’m sweating through waiting on three visas to brazil. brazil is feeling a bit bruised because american policy about allowing brazilians into america has become more of a hassle since 9/11. wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all belonged to the nation of facebook where there are no boundaries?
for the most part, i try to have a chaperone when i am traveling to see a facebook friend i’ve never met before. reggie has twice been my chaperone. without him, i’m sure i’d still be in mexico city at the plaza revolucion eating ice cream and chatting with my facebook friend yoshi maeshiro whom i met on facebook because he is a fan of my grandfather who wrote science fiction novels.
reggie is my chaperone for brazil, as is one other facebook friend vincent peters. reggie is about to be deployed to afghanistan. he cannot personally visit a brazilian consulate without going offbase. so vince is pleading his cause at the brazilian consulate in washington. meanwhile, i have gotten my shots and filled out my paperwork. it’s very unnerving to hand over one’s passport to a representative of another country and have them say “we’ll get back to you on this.” i do what i do because i believe strongly that if we are only interacting on the internet we are not fully engaged. we are only friends if we can cement that friendship with reality. we leave for brazil next week. between now and then i need to learn the words i learn for every country i visit: hello, goodbye, thank you and friendship!
the buyers of my home haven’t received their mortgage approval. therefore, we can’t close on the house. but they had closed on the sale of their condo. they had no place to live unless i agreed to let them move into the house and rent from me until they are approved. they have a really cute baby and two dachshunds. if i find out they rented the trio in order to persuade me i will be quite miffed.
instead of aiming east or south, i returned to winnetka to sign some papers related to the house and to visit the brazilian consulate. they have my passport. they have my visa application. they also have a jacket i was wearing when i visited the first time and i forgot to take it with me because it’s a hundred degrees outside and the midwest thinks it’s a tropical paradise.
i leave for brazil on the eleventh of july and will have two chaperones. it’s important to set up safeguards when you’re meeting an online friend for the first time. i never meet a new friend in their home. i never invite a new friend to mine — well, i guess the car is sort of different! and i often bring a chaperone.
the two chaperones are vincent peters and reggie gholston. vince and reggie were classmates at west point. vince is now a government contractor. reggie is in active service and is being deployed later this summer to afghanistan. he has served twice in iraq. watch out brazil–these two are quite handsome!
and as my facebook friends from brazil say, beijos! (kisses!)
i’m the martha stewart of the road, the rachel roy of living out of the car. it’s temporary of course. but it’s still pretty disconcerting to remember that i was once of winnetka, the beautiful land. . .
i am so happy for the new owners who will fill this house with love, joy, happiness! and i can’t wait for wells fargo bank to approve their mortgage!
i was excited to go to eastlake, ohio because that’s where the twentieth president of the united states james garfield is from. . . but also because i could meet facebook friend number #320 jeannie stanley. and she really put out the welcome mat for me!
i was so crying when i saw jeannie’s welcome sign! and she’s right–a journey is not measured in miles but in friends. . .
and we sat down for a chat, including her neighbor shayleh–it was as if we had been best buddies for years. jeannie has sometimes been housebound with fibromyalgia and something called palindromic arthritis. she has been able to reconnect and keep up with friends and family with facebook, which is exactly what facebook is supposed to do for a gal. we met on facebook and are friends but oddly, i can’t be facebook friends with her neighbor shayleh because facebook has a rule that one is not allowed to have more than five thousand friends. one can debate the merits of the rule all day long but shayleh keeps up with me on my “public figure” page. i still say she’s facebook friend #321. i love you dearly mr. zuckerberg but i am feeling a bit rebellious and i was feeling a bit rebellious when i took the gals out for a spin in my official residence.
we first went to the garfield museum. james garfield our twentieth president was shot on july 2, 1881 and died on september 19, 1881. he was the sort of president who could bring together a country and a congress. he made them all see reason, not an easy task right after the civil war. and when he was shot mourning for him brought together a country.*
on the day we visited the flag outside the visitor center was flown at half mast. we asked why and was told rex walker, a 58-year-old maintenance worker at utah’s timpanogos cave, was killed in a fall of 500-600 feet down a steep, rocky slope while trying to help rescue some stranded park visitors. all the national parks were flying their flags at half mast and employees were wearing a black band over their ranger pins. “the park service is family,” the gal at the desk told us.
it might seem like it was a somber day, and it sort of was as the three of us wandered through the garfield grounds. both shayleh and jeannie have dealt with a lot of difficulties and i admire both of them for their grace and courage. facebook is wonderful for friendship, but you really do have to meet your friends on a regular basis and talk with them and appreciate who they are. i was grateful and i was about to get into the official residence and drive away before i remembered that my garmin gps is broken. mapquest time! i sat on jeannie’s couch and she was walking back into her kitchen as i dialed up mr. internet. . . .
shayleh, jeannie, me and jeannie’s boyfriend joe. jeez, he’s such a prankster!
“OMG!!! it’s a sure sign of the apocalypse!” i screamed. “those mayans are right!”
“WHAT?!” jeannie cried out.
“tom cruise and katie holmes are getting divorced!” and all three of us screamed “NO!”
and suddenly, the most important matter at hand wasn’t our individual histories, the history of our nation, the fragility of life. no, no, it was whether we were team kate or team tom.
*i took a facebook friendship f2fb road trip last summer and listened to the entire account of his presidency and death. it was so riveting that i sat in my garage for forty five minutes at the end of the trip just so i could finish the story. you can get the book at http://www.amazon.com/Destiny-Republic-Madness-Medicine-President/dp/0385526261.
deal’s on. deal’s off. deal’s on. deal’s off. deal’s on. it’s a little hard to make life plans when you’re not sure if you have a place to stay.
my home in winnetka was on the market for a long time–in fact, the entire year i visited facebook friends i worried that it would sell and i would be out of the country or on the road. i am very happy that the new owners have a baby and two dachshunds and they will love this place and make it their home! on the other hand, i’ve been weepy.
getting approval for a mortgage is ne plus ultra difficult and the new buyers have been stretched in their patience. without approval for a mortgage they cannot afford to purchase the house. without knowing that they have the mortgage, i’ve dithered about buying renting or even looking for a place to live.
this past weekend, i divested/sold/gaveaway all my possessions except what i can fit in the back of my car. i still wasn’t sure the buyers were moving in, but i had to move forward as if i knew they would. i was helped by so many friends–and my son eastman who came home from college to help me. he could sell a ketchup popsicle to a lady with white gloves–he’s that good at the garage sale wheelin’ and dealin’!
several times this week i have been approached by deer. whether in the forest preserve where i run, the streets of winnetka, or in my own backyard. i think they were saying goodbye.
for some native americans, the deer totem is a signal that one is about to experience great change and possibly go on a journey. this deer was in my backyard. i felt sorta bad because i didn’t know her name and i didn’t have anything except beer, diet coke, and perfume in my refrigerator. such a bad hostess!
on tuesday morning, the new owners pulled into the driveway. the missus and i hugged and i said “welcome to your home!” i felt that teary thing coming on and then stopped myself–the moment was not about me letting go of a house, it was about a young couple starting a new life.
as eastman and i pulled out of the driveway, i called the renaissance hotel. full. the marriot. full. the super 8. full. wow, being homeless is a little harder than it looks. then we called eastman’s dad, my ex-husband. with a great generosity, he invited us to his apartment. tomorrow, i visit the brazilian consulate to get a visa so i can visit facebook friends in brazil. after all, i am free to roam the planet. and then i drive eastman back to college.
there is a moment in a young man’s life when his mom has to say “wow, you’re an adult, i respect you, i rely on you, and i admire you.” this past weekend was that moment. especially when he told the radnors h to the n when mr. radnor came into the house on sunday afternoon and said he would purchase the remaining pieces of furniture for twenty dollars but only if we transported all of it into his home. those pieces of furniture are now resting at the winnetka community church rummage sale storage facility. we had our limits.
this afternoon, i gave five bucks to a homeless dude sitting on the sidewalk and i asked him to pray for me. i know we all struggle with what to do in the face of seeing someone who is homeless. i am not in that position. i shouldn’t use the word homeless, i should use the phrase “officially without residence”. . .
doesn’t it sound very very downton abbey british to say “officially without residence” — and now i visit facebook friends. .. . everywhere!
this weekend has been incredibly terrifying and exhilerating. i am writing from the last remaining piece of furniture and laptop in my house. twenty three rooms have been disassembled. my neighbor mr. radnor took my lawn furniture without warning me. i followed him across the driveway and attempted to repossess it. i’ve had shoplifters. i cried when a woman purchased a hat my son joseph had given me and i nearly followed her down the street to buy it back from her. i got a thank you note from a woman whose daughter i gifted with a suitcase and a talk about how if you want to grow up to be an adventurer, you have to have good luggage.
and i’ve had a crew of facebook friends–paulibus schumann, dan kingery, john dawnson and others–as well as my son eastman. a nonfacebook friend drove three hours just to move book shelves.
however, minor problem. we won’t be closing on tuesday as expected because the buyers have been unable to get approval for their mortgage. i had a heartfelt call from the buyer who is a new mom and is quite panicked about not having a place to stay on tuesday. so i’ll be moving out. i’m just a little anxious about where i’ll be.
last year, i was on the road nearly every week visiting facebook friends around the world. i will be at a hotel on tuesday night and the first thing i’ll do is call room service, turn on the television, and be grateful for the experience!
it’s nearly time to close up the doors, tell the last shoppers to go home, and to take the remains and throw them out on the curb. the minicoop is packed and i’m ready, really ready, for whatever’s next as i am just a few weeks away from the magic birthday of 52!
i intend to die when i’m one hundred and four years old. my much younger lover will be devastated!!
so the house is sold. i’m moving on. moving forward to meet new facebook friends (in fact, i have two chaperones for the new brazil trip!)
but i’ve been receiving odd messages from the craigslist ad for my house sale. please advise:
Hey, is your item still available? I don’t normally do this but you seemed sizzling in your listing and I’m drawn to you. I live nearby and up for anything. My only concern is that you might be a bot as CL is full of them. So if you’re indeed real, can we chat on my profile page? It’s the safest way and very discreet. I’ll message you as soon as I see you sign in! 😉
Only you’ll be able to view my photos and phone # on there so if you like what you see, get hold of me. People say I’m very good looking but you can be the judge. 😉 I apologize to annoy you…life is too short so I had to give this a shot. I think you’ll be surprised.
Im fascinated about you and your ad. I’d like to ask more and was pondering if you could call/text me with your address? Please give me your cell phone # on my confidential page, you have to sign up first but all good there’s zero cost. This way I am securing my private information, I have money right next to me. I just need to ask you something over the phone and confirm this is not a scam. Thanks!
it should be the beginning of a joke that your insensitive uncle would tell at thanksgiving dinner and your mennonite cousin would burst into tears and the wiccan would start a long monologue about the history of her religion.
i have been packing and selling off my possessions and there isn’t a fork or a spoon or a plate left in this house. i have made plane and hotel reservations for visiting facebook friends after the house closes on tuesday. i turned off the gas, electricity, water, cable, and the jehovah’s witnesses coming to the door every friday afternoon.
lust is one of the seven deadly sins. and this is what i lust for. today i am wondering if the wages of lust for tomato red platform heels with a pert little canvas bow is . . . delayed closing.
so many americans are aware of the sliding interest rates that they are refinancing their mortgages and the market is even picking up a little. we should rejoice! and i do! but there’s a selfish side that says “wait, my buyers are being told that they aren’t going to be approved for their loan until maybe as late as midjuly because of this backlog! we can’t close on the house this coming tuesday! what am i going to do?”
first, i plan on getting those jehovah’s witnesses back! every friday, miss rose comes and we pray together. i don’t believe in the tenets of the witnesses but i appreciate that she cares so much that she’s willing to walk from house to house in winnetka every friday, winter and summer. she talks about her faith, gives me a copy of the watch tower and we pray together. i gotta make sure i’m here friday afternoon for miss rose’s visit! second, i am praying. and third, enlisting my friends to pray for me. so far, i have five catholics, one muslim, a presbyterian, a baptist, a wiccan, a jew, a mennonite, and an atheist. that’s a very big life raft of faith and, oddly, all are my facebook friends.
i have been astonished at how facebook has taught me about the diversity of experience and lifestyle of my friends. and i have become more tolerant and appreciative. i am more at peace about my own religious perspective as well.
it is in the book of matthew 18:19 of the Bible wherein Jesus says “again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.” all i pray is that i will be flexible, strong, sure of myself, and will remember that chaos and confusion is a perfectly ordinary part of life.
i’m grateful for prayers and i pray for others as well. but i’m a little curious about my friend who is an atheist. is there going to be a lightening strike?
i’m also wondering about those red shoes. . . is there a causal connection between my lust for those shoes and the backlog of mortgage applications at wells fargo?
arlynnpresser 