I signed up for Facebook due to good old fashioned, pre-internet style, peer pressure. 

“Everybody’s on Facebook.  You gotta get on there!” 

Sheeple that I am, I joined.  Now I’m stuck.  I can’t un-facebook myself.  All the people that are my friends on facebook are either my family, my husbands family, or old friends from high school.  In other words – people I in no way communicate with online.  Family you just call, and old friends – you don’t actually talk to them, that’s what your new friends are for…  But, I can’t un-facebook, oh no, or these same people might get the impression that I no longer want to be their friend.  Facebook has me bent over.  I don’t want to be there, but I can’t leave.  It’s like a bad marriage and your facebook “friends” are the children that keep you stuck with your spouse (that would be Facebook, if you have trouble following analogies).

Don’t get me started on friend requests either.  I feel compelled to be your “friend” as quickly as humanly possible out of fear that you might think I’m being rude or mean.  God help me if I don’t want to be your “friend” – the guilt nearly consumes me.  This applies both to people I know, and don’t want to be “friends” with, and for the people I’m pretty damn sure I don’t know, but feel guilty about just in case I did know them and forgot…  Either way, you can be pretty sure that the “Friend Request” message in my email box usually makes me feel queasy.

Twitter = Garbage.  Need I say more?  I need to? OK.  Here’s some current “tweets” from the Twitter homepage…  I sh*t you not, I couldn’t make these up…  I didn’t even look for bad tweets, just took the ones scrolling right off the main page.

Nameless (names removed to protect the socially retarded) - drinking game by myself during the world cup. I take a sip when the usa scores a goal. Soccer blows, im thirsty and my wine coolers warm

Few things sadder than drinking alone and tweeting about it, hoping somebody cares… fyi, they don’t.

Nameless – Dear Twitter #ThouShaltNOT be OVER CAPACITY every 5 seconds.. upgrade the server #imjustsaying

imjustsaying, that everything I have to tweet about every 5 seconds is, like, so, like, totally important!

Nameless -  I know the Greeks invented gayness but that Papastathopoulos must be in love with Lionel Messi cause he’s stalking him all over the park.

Huhh?? Ok, I may have to google this one…

Nameless –  Hope Nigeria wins match. Don’t want to brag, but I have lucrative e-mail deal going with son of their former official.

Ok, for the sake of honesty I had to put this one up cause it made me laugh.  If you don’t get it, you don’t get enough junk mail.

Well, that’s enough on social networking.  Blog out.

Good question, and I’m still asking myself that as I type away without having had any lunch…

Some of the reasons I’m blogging;

• I looove to read, and would love to write books.  However,  I’m not particularly creative and couldn’t come up with a fiction bestseller if my life depended on it, and my real life isn’t quite exhilarating enough to merit a non fiction triumph.  (Unless there’s an audience out there dying for a book with a plot similar to: Got up. Ate cereal. Answered email and phone calls.  Sold something.  Ate more cereal.  Didn’t sell something else. Did banking.  Pushed papers.  Ate dinner. Watched TV.  Went to bed.  I love my life, I’m not knocking it, but let’s be real, most days it’s not something other people want to hear about… except maybe my Mom. Maybe.)
• I recently got introduced to blogging when my husband and I did one for a recent vacation.  We thought it would save us the multiple emails to different family members, only to discover that the blog became an obsession of it’s own.  Are you surprised? Really??  Did you read post number one???
• Despite it’s obsessive tendencies, I liked blogging and found it fun (especially when I wasn’t on 50 cent a minute internet on a cruise ship – can you say pressure?)  The people who read it seemed to enjoy it and said it was well written.  Granted all the people reading it were related in some way, but still, they are people.
• Doesn’t every digital age girl dream of writing a blog and hitting the big time (or at least the hopefully big paycheck)  like Julie/Julia?  I could say I didn’t care about any of that but I’d totally be lying. Totally.
• Big time notwithstanding, I am writing this blog for me.  I don’t have to “be” anyone here but my own voice.  I’m not telling anyone about it so it’s just a me thing for now…  Of course I didn’t make the blog private though, should the Julie/Julia people happen to come calling… Don’t worry, I’m not holding my breath.  Or my lunch for that matter – me not eating lunch is super big fluke.  Now I’m just saving up for a big dinner!
• A blog also seems like a great way to vent my computer frustrations… don’t even get me started on domain name transfers… my husband had to tranquilize me with cinnamon buns after one super annoying, head splitting day of that the other week.
• I think I’m also writing this blog because I know I’m not the only one stuck in technological world who dreams of doing something different… unleashing from the eleash. 

Anyway, so that’s why I’m here.  I think.  All reasons are subject to change without notice.

We have been on the “electronic leash”. 

The electronic leash is the ability to work  from anywhere in the world.  Which sounds great, until you realize that where ever you go in the world, your work is there waiting for you…

” The good news is that you can work from the beach if you want to, and the bad news is you can work from the beach.” (Mike Manion, Escapeartist.com)

If you are suffering from electronic leash syndrome your symptoms may include; 

• complete inability to relax even in the most beautiful, scenic locations
• restless twitching when you haven’t been in some form of online contact in more than five minutes time
• anxious feelings over what you might need to be doing that you don’t yet know about (it could be desperately important – perhaps a crucial online survey or the reading of an article you haven’t seen, didn’t know existed, but now absolutely must read this very second) 
• despair that somebody is “going to get you” at any time, day or night 
• anger at yourself and/or your spouse for countless hours spent on the computer/blackberry/iphone looking at ???  Usually you can’t remember where the last 3 hours of your life just went, but you’re convinced it was important.
• and at the top of most lists…  searing frustration at your inability to just walk away from it all – for at least the 5 bloody minutes before you get the shakes!

Oh, and heaven help you if you have even the smallest, teeniest, tiniest tendency towards an OCD.  You will never leave the computer.  Period.  The new world of connectivity has provided OCD’ers worldwide with a new source of fun.  Checking that you turned off the stove?  That’s so 1990 .  Now you have to check every 10 seconds (if you can wait that long – I know some who can’t) to see if you have a new email message.

When I first got my “Crackberry” this winter (after strenuously resisting for a very looong time) I was priding myself on my self control.  I wasn’t checking it all the time like those other losers…  I was just using it make my life easier by being able to deal with work stuff (I’m self employed) in a more efficient fashion.  I no longer needed to rush home to the office to deal with minor issues and questions.  Fast forward 6 months and I find myself checking for email at every red light when I’m driving (I haven’t sunk so dangerously low as to look while I’m driving.  That’s a whole other level of dumb).  Sigh… how the mighty have fallen.  But sadly, I am still in denial over my affliction – even as I write this I am thinking to myself - ”but the Crackberry really does help me.  It is useful.  I can stop checking email anytime I want to!”  Good thing I never liked cigarettes…

I have also recently discovered the wonderful world of texting.  Again I held out for as long as possible…  My husband and I are techies, but we didn’t get a DVD player until our favourite video store stopped carrying VHS tapes.  Let’s just say we were a little stubbornly behind the times for quite a while.  I had the same attitude with texting.  It never worked on my old cell phone, so I just never did it.  I could receive texts, but not send.  Fine by me.  Now, enter the Crackberry and suddenly I think it might be interesting to my husband if I text him to tell him I just bought a cupcake at the bakery.  Pretty sure he doesn’t care, but that doesn’t stop the compulsion to text and tell him.  Luckily, none of my friends are “texters” – only my Dad (super sporadically) and my hubby.  So, for now, I am relatively safe.

So, what’s a girl on an “eleash” to do?  Why start a blog of course…  seems perfectly logical to me. 

See you in less than 5 minutes!