My 14-year-old son laughs if I ever open up Facebook. “No one uses Facebook anymore.” The unspoken underlying statement is “young people don’t use Facebook.” I started thinking about why. I use Facebook mostly as a means to reconnect with people from my past. People I went to college and high school with and fellow colleagues I collected from a decade of corporate jobs and … Continue reading “Facebook as a Link to My Youth” Club
My husband’s first girlfriend stalked my LinkedIn profile. I know this because technological breadcrumbs revealed her messy trail. LinkedIn sends me periodic messages showing me everyone who’s checking out my page and when I looked down at the recent dirty dozen, a name caught my eye. I approached my husband, pointed to her pictures and said, “Is this YOUR Carrie?” He squinted at the small … Continue reading “My Husband’s First Girlfriend Stalked Me” Club
“Don’t look at someone else’s plate” is either a known Russian saying or else it’s particular to my mother. Usually, she said this during dinner when I made inappropriate commentary about how someone eats something. My six-year-old daughter learned a similar phrase in preschool: “don’t yuck my yum.” The phrase goes beyond saying “ick” as someone eats a three-meat sandwich; it’s staring into someone else’s … Continue reading “Don’t Look at Someone Else’s Plate” Club
I’m not a social media over-poster. In fact, after a two week trip to Hawaii, I only posted 69 of my 2,000+ photos to Facebook or Instagram. It’s not the photos I’m over-sharing; it’s my words. On Tuesday I woke up to a small flood in my apartment and on Tuesday night I wrote my blog post about it. On Wednesday I went to traffic … Continue reading “I Over-Share” Club
I thought reaching the exact middle of the project would unleash a vibrant burst of successfulness. I envisioned the middle to be “when” something… When I’d have a certain number of followers or when someone might discover me or when I’d have something else written, something of substantial significance. Instead, the date came and went, burst free. July 2, 2016, marked the exact middle of … Continue reading “Perpetually Doubting Myself” Club
The newest cleansing rage is not the green smoothie, but the Facebook detox – taking a declared (unspecified) time off from the social media time suck. I took a month off Facebook. I took a break from my daily scroll through pseudo-strangers’ lives, wondering which smiles are real and which ones phony; whose photos are accurate and who is hiding behind childhood images. I also … Continue reading “I Took a Facebook Hiatus” Club
There are too many new sad stories every day. Shootings and terrorism and cancer and what the fuck is happening to our world? “Are we on the brink of a revolution?” my husband said the other day and I didn’t answer him because I didn’t want to go there in my head. I try to stay local, stay present, stay in the now, but these … Continue reading “Hesitant to Share Good News” Club
I manage two Facebook accounts; one is my personal page, the other, my husband’s clown business. On most days, on both accounts, Facebook dutifully greets me with this message: “Galina, we care about you and the memories you share here. We thought you’d like to look back on this post from 1 year ago.” (Or 9 years ago.)” I love a good time hop as … Continue reading “Facebook Memories Plague Me” Club
If I’m being completely honest, I never enjoyed viewing my step-mother’s life on parade bogging down my Facebook feeds. She was a postaholic, sharing photos of my 10-year-old half brother’s tennis lessons, playdates, and their twice yearly vacations. She was younger than my father by 30 years and a generation ahead in social media. Last March, my dad and his new family went on a … Continue reading “When Your Family Member Deletes You From Facebook” Club
I lived the career version of Sex and the City, jumping from one rebound job to another in search of the “right one.” For 15 years I refused to truthfully answer the question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” When I looked in the mirror, a ghost reflection of who I am stared back at me. My dormant passion burned on … Continue reading “Writing When Your Family Doesn’t Want You To” Club
One of the most time-consuming elements associated with my 365-essay-a-day writing project has been the social media promotional element that goes with it. In the last 162 days, I maybe have spent at least 162 hours (that’s almost a solid week of 24/7) Tweeting and posting and sharing. It has been overwhelmingly easier to share with strangers on sites like Twitter and Instagram than with … Continue reading “I Was the Expert of the Minute” Club
A decade ago when Twitter was this fun new thing, I jumped aboard like a hip wanna-be Gen-Xer. I was such a late bloomer with everything else, it felt great to be riding on the Millenial bandwagon. Thinking of tweets consumed my mind more than I care to admit. Driving my son to school, chopping carrots, staring at a blank box with a little blue … Continue reading “I Took to Twitter” Club
I’m writing every day. Yay. Good job. Celebrating my little victories, ceremonial pat on the back at 100 days; 265 to go. What’s 28% of anything? I’m a marathon runner on mile 7.4 of 26.2. In the back of my head I’m thinking, OK so I’m gaining some expertise; I’m flexing my muscles daily but where am I getting. If I’m just doing the training … Continue reading “I Blog” Club
My daughter was born 6 years ago, in the Pre-Timeline Facebook era. This scary period in early modern history allowed friends to post anything they wanted on your page without giving you the opportunity to approve it first. I keenly recall laying in the recovery room after my emergency cesarean section, separated from two other women by curtains, with a painkiller drip. The world spun … Continue reading “Let Me Announce My Own Announcements” Club
I joined Twitter in December 2008 (only 21 months late to the party) and pitched hard from the TweetDeck until 2012. Then I took a break. In those 4 years time, I sent about 1,800 tweets; averaging to roughly 1.23 tweets per day. I’m not sure what that means about me or my life, but I didn’t miss it when I dropped off the Twitterverse … Continue reading “I’m Back to the Twitter Party” Club
HeartsEverywhere 