Boy Did I Fall Behind

I could go on about falling behind and a busy life with kids, BUT:

It's Mardi Gras!

Otherwise known in the Midwest as "Tuesday". I could wax poetic about the parades, the babies on shoulders catchin throws, sippin Bloody Marys, but it will only make me want red wine and a warm place to sleep.

Despite how much time I spent living in New Orleans, it was never during the school year, so I didn't get to go to parades until I was much older. My first one was 2006, because that was the year New Orleans showed the rest of the world what it's made of. It was the first one after The Storm, and while the entire rest of the country speculated on whether or not Mardi Gras parades should be celebrated...New Orleanians never questioned it.

And Suddenly It's Ash Wednesday

That's pretty much how the last few days have been. A few strands of unattached thoughts punctuated by the occasional realization that I should be doing something else. But I digress. Or something. It's also the greater reason of why I Facebook instead of blog. Time.

Facebook vs Blog

Blogs take effort. Time. Attention that I sometimes just lack. I sometimes use Facebook as a sort of flash-blog, just to toss up a sentence or two, share something I think is neat, funny, or cute. It was also a good place to share some personal stuff (through meme, story or simple photograph) just in case someone else out there needed to know they weren't alone.

But I am more jaded these days and it's affecting my sense of humor.

I tend to be a comment generator, and usually that's ok. In fact I usually welcome it, but there are times I'm not interested in getting advice when I hadn't asked for it. There are times I'm not interested in a debate--especially when my information is well researched, peer-reviewed with double blind studies over the course of fifty years. But the comments come. And some are so insulting--I am sure without that intent--that I've had to walk away (why don't I delete the comments? See below). And that, right there, affects how I perceive a great number of comments that I used to view as witty. Wit has started to look like insult and that makes me sad. I don't want to be that person.

Thing is, commentors play off one another--this is not simply my experience; I've found it true on several other walls. B posts something they care about. X says something witty, so Y has to be wittier, and A then has to come in from the blue to be The Wittiest of All. And that's great, when the original post had the intent of generating such a conversation. When it's not, it starts to look like X,Y and A are intent on making sure the world knows B is any number of things from racist to idiot. Perhaps they are just enjoying the moment.

Yes I know, walk away, give it a few days and the great number of bits of advice that follow a post like this. But I live in the middle of nowhere and I"m alone or alone with the kids a lot. There are things about Facebook I appreciate--mostly the feeling of being connected somehow, somewhere. I've taken to deleting some of the comments that simply piss me off, which helps a little.

I suppose that's it for now.

On a Sidenote

I originally titled an entry "In Your Facebook" and that's where I had planned my commentary. We see how far that got.