Tag Archives: friendship

July 19, 2012

i should be what stays in vegas

By arlynnpresser

in vegas, with my facebook friend chaperones reggie and vince, we planned on meeting up with facebook friend niteen joshilkar.  i was very interested in meeting him because he has done me the most important favor in this facebook project.  when he noticed that i was receiving so many friendship requests that i was teetering on the edge of 5,000, he created a “public profile” page where people who want to keep track of my adventures can subscribe and send me messages.  i was grateful.  but also i think niteen is wonderful.

alas, niteen was in florida stuck in meetings and missed his flight.  so i had some time to kill in vegas.  i asked only one thing:

alas, we left the next day without any new shoes and with niteen having never gotten back to his home in vegas.  but with all the poker, the free champagne, the food, the dazzling showgirls, i think the most fun was going to the monet exhibit at the bellagio hotel.

at lax airport, i asked vince and reggie for their postal addresses.  i wanted to send them thank you notes for their valor and courage in being my chaperones.  because no matter how close you feel to a person you correspond with on facebook, myspace, linkedin, etc., you should allow for safety first.

easy enough to send vince p. a thank you note but reggie is being shipped out to afghanistan in two weeks. so for the moment, he doesn’t have a fixed address. . . just like me. so instead, i have to say it here: thank you reggie! i asked him what he wanted in care packages and he replied toilet paper and food. lots of food. will do, captain!

 

i’m terribly sad that i missed meeting niteen joshilkar.  but flight has delays, cancellations, booking problems, hassles.  and so i will wait and try again.  meanwhile,  i look forward to turning fifty two and thinking i am part of a wonderful adventure–life!

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July 18, 2012

facemash becomes facebook becomes friendship matchmaking

By arlynnpresser

facebook was originally a term given to the student directories that certain schools gave out to make remembering the name of the cute dude in calculus easier.  harvard, where mark zuckerberg attended, didn’t have a facebook but several of the fraternities and sororities had their own individual facebooks.

mark had a little fun by hacking into the databases for these facebooks and creating “facemash” — an online game of “hot or not” in which players rated side by side pictures of their classmates. the game attracted 450 players and 22,000 views in the first four hours. mark got into some trouble and was nearly expelled but then he decided that “facemash” had tapped into some primal needs for connection and for looking at cute potentials. facemash didn’t ask players to rate pictures of adorable kittens, inspirational thoughts, or team logos–all of which have been or are presently used by some of my facebook friends!

mark played around with other similar applications, eventually hitting on what we now use as facebook.  facebook sometimes makes us believe we have a rich and varied social life when we really haven’t even gotten out of bed all day.  and facebook sometimes brings people together who wouldn’t normally interact.  one of the surprises of my new years resolution to meet my facebook friends was discovering how different and yet how similar i am to my friends.

this past week i went to los angeles with two chaperones reggie gholston and vincent peters.  i sometimes take chaperones because it’s a good safety measure.

i also took these chaperones because reggie (on the left) is being deployed to afghanistan in a few weeks. he will be gone for a year and my “care” packages will include smokes, toilet paper, and food. both vince and reggie are my facebook friends, but they are more than that. they are my buddies.

one of the facebook friends i wanted to meet was #324 brandon day.  he is a twentysomething genius who ran into a bit of trouble a few years ago when he experienced full on agoraphobia.  it was difficult for him to explain to his family and friends what he was going through–panic attacks that made it impossible for him to get beyond the front door.  i think with facebook people can connect and relate their common experiences and they don’t feel so alone or so weird.

and that’s an even more important application of mark zuckerberg’s genius than offering the world the opportunity to rate their fellow humans hot or not.

brandon’s genius is in the creation of phone apps, video games and whatnot.  through the magic of facebook i am friends with sarah, whom i visited in detroit.  she is agoraphobic.  and she wants very much to create video games, which she oughta be real good at because video games is how she gets through her day.  i introduced the two of them via facebook and when i met brandon we had a message for her.

brandon is working on a phone application and website to help agoraphobics like sarah and our fondest wish is that the three of us will be together for lunch in los angeles, detroit, chicago, london, paris, rome?

meanwhile, on the other coast, last night i received a message from facebook friend michele piersiak.  she lives in staten island and has had trouble leaving the house for a year.  i visited her and she felt i was “safe” to walk around the neighborhood with.  we talked about major goals–hers is to become a psychologist who helps people with social anxieties.  and then we talked about minor goals.  i think of minor goals as the things that may sound silly to other people but they are building blocks for your major goal.  michele’s is to have dinner at laconde verde, a restaurant in manhattan owned by robert deniro.  there are reservations under my name for august ninth!  in order to do that, she has had to make mini-goals of walking around her neighborhood on her own, going to shops and stores, using public transportation.  just yesterday, she readied herself for the laconde verde lunch by going to lunch with facebook pal carolyn quinn.  facebook matchmaking.

you can play hot or not on facebook, but i think facebook and other social networking sites have a lot more to offer. or maybe i am just worried i’d get a “not”!

after saying goodbye to brandon, the chaperones and i headed for las vegas where we would ultimately end up with friendship tragedy.  still, if our adventure could be a moviemash it would be “driving miss daisie” and “the hangover”. . .

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July 14, 2012

in the face of such beauty, get a stylist, a designer, a mirror, a screen . . . or flee to las vegas

By arlynnpresser

los angeles is a place of great beauty and i’m not talking about the topanga mountains, the pacific ocean glittering at its feet, or the sun that slips into the western horizon without asking anybody to say “thank you” for its warmth.  no, no, EVERYBODY in los angeles is a great beauty and what do great beauties require?  a stylist, a designer, and some screentime.

my two chaperones reggie joe and vince p. are my facebook friends.  reggie is being deployed to afghanistan in a few weeks and my fondest wish is that he use this trip to make the acquaintance of beautiful women.  and that vince will drive him.

i walked out onto the sidewalk this morning–it was empty because sidewalks are a recent invention and los angelenos are rightfully cautious of them.  everyone lives in their cars, preferring to park them in the middle of one of the many fourteen lane highways and freeways that criss cross the city.  nonetheless, there was a real sidewalk outside the hotel and rather than drive the rental car across the street to the starbucks, i thought i would rough it.  the valet at the hotel was concerned.

there were screens everywhere.  advertisements and commercials and previews for upcoming movies on the sides of buildings.  i watched them and thought that i would never have to buy a television if i lived here.  i’d just have to look up to the sky.  i noticed that vince and reggie can’t sleep unless the television is on.  without the sound.  is this some sort of culture shift?   or am i just sleep deprived?

 

f2fb friend #323 jackie byrdsong is a natural ageless beauty who claims to have no stylist, no designer, just her own sense of what to do, what to wear, what is for her and what will not work.  i adored meeting her finally.  her daughter and i share some phobias and we talked about how to overcome them.

vince p. and reggie brought with them a sunglasses designer stevie boi.  stevie and i can’t be facebook friends because stevie is a public person with over three thousand people following or “liking” him.  he tweets a lot and instagrams and does all sorts of things that make me feel that having a facebook account is a bit passe.  nonetheless, he is fashion forward.  he explained to me that his sunglasses have appeared over 25 times in vogue magazine.

sunglasses by stevie boi.  can i pull off this look?

vince, reggie, stevie and i spent the rest of the afternoon meeting with stylists, designers, and people who “pull” clothes for celebrities.  you think kim kardashian just wakes up every morning looking like that?  but i got stevie boi to give me some fashion advice i can take on the road with me!

tomorrow, las vegas which i understand to be a sleepy, rural enclave where people are a lot more “real” and “down to earth”. . . i’ll feel much more at home.

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July 13, 2012

airplanes don’t make nobody happy

By arlynnpresser

i’m grateful for planes.  don’t get me wrong.  i started off this morning in chicago, darted over to detroit and picked up a flight to los angeles so i can visit with facebook friends.

i thought my flight was at two o’clock. so i had a leisurely morning of working out and scoping out tmz.com then i looked at the ticket and figured out that the first flight of the day would arrive in detroit at two o’clock. i needed to be at o’hare at NOON. what a delightful sprint to the airport. followed by a sprint from one terminal to another in detroit’s airport! i think i left the coffee maker on in my ex-husband’s apartment!  he’s in montana, i’m in los angeles and the coffeemaker is in chicago.  i have a feeling i might not be invited to use the apartment again!

my panic attack started as i boarded the flight from detroit to los angeles.  the plane was cramped that a flight attendant started using my head as a elbow rest as he stowed luggage.  the lady in the seat next to me fell asleep with her head on my shoulder.  the flight attendant stepped on my foot three times.  the guy in the seat behind me was quite pretezel-like and managed some stretching exercises that involved him raising his hands in the air and then back so far that if i had given him a tube of mascara he could have done my makeup!

i started shaking.  crying.  thinking about that coffeemaker and the entire building burning down.  all the apology notes i’d have to write.  i took two ativan and tried to concentrate on an episode of “how i met your mother” on the overhead screen.

and then something curious happened.  the flight attendant, for whom i had no good feelings, had relocated a passenger in the row across from me to the back of the plane.  and the attendant sat down next to the remaining seated passenger.  it took a moment to realize what i was looking at–a flight attendant trying to calm someone in the midst of a panic attack.  i wasn’t the only one having trouble.

the flight is over, i’m on the ground in los angeles.  if you’re in chicago, you might notice a curious burnt coffee smell wafting out of the streeterville neighborhood.  i get ready to meet a facebook friend tomorrow.  and i have decided it’s okay to have panic attacks on planes.  because that’s what airplanes do!

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July 11, 2012

there’s a phone app for everything and now there’s one for my friends!

By arlynnpresser

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!

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July 10, 2012

the best prayer of all

By arlynnpresser

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. . . ”

what’s your prayer for today?

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July 7, 2012

speed bump? all you gotta do is jump!

By arlynnpresser

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!

 

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July 5, 2012

the facebook nation travel policy

By arlynnpresser

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!

 

 

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July 3, 2012

facebook beijos!

By arlynnpresser

facebook

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!)

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June 30, 2012

a voyage not measured in miles but in friendship

By arlynnpresser

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.

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