weight on january 1, 2011 — 138

children as of january 1, 2011 — joseph, living in new york, and eastman, a freshman at oberlin college in oberlin, ohio

facebook friends–325

new sons acquired during the past year and one month–

emilia who is from indonesia.  he’s muslim, likes hip hop and jempoler’s mania.  aldo who lives in seoul but is originally from indonesia.  he’s also a friend of emilia.  it’s nice when siblings get along.

shizuka who is from nagano, japan and has more siblings and daughters and cousins than anybody i know.  and oddly, i’m not his only mom.  and he’s just three years younger than me.

daughters:  maya and andrey from indonesia and ayin from malaysia–cory who is about to leave quezon city and move to kuwait to work for burger machine.

i think on facebook it’s sort of a sweet “extra” friendship to list friends as your relatives.  so they join my father justin and my sister casey, and my biological sons joseph and eastman as part of my facebook family.  and i have a lot of new facebook friends, many of whom have written to me about their experiences with being what once was called a “recluse” but is now more frequently called agoraphobic or having a social phobia.  facebook allows us to have friends and family but not necessarily have to travel or see them in order to keep up in real time.  so the reclusive or the socially anxious person isn’t shut out of social interaction.  the only difficulty is figuring out what is real and what is not real on facebook.  for instance, you might believe i have nine children. . . .

weight as of this morning:  146 pounds.  i blame my thyroid.  or maybe spending a year (2011) traveling–airport food is a diet buster.  does anybody know how to lose weight quickly?

tomorrow, we celebrate valentine’s day, a day that combines family, friends, and gaining weight.  how?  well, there’s chocolate, the traditional gift of the day–that’s going to put some more pounds on me.  and there’s love–which we share with our friends and family and on this day we try to make a point of expressing to them.  and then there’s the pressure. . .