Nom de Plume

Yesterday, I ran up to the house for 20 minutes. Came back, door had been broken into and laptops stolen.

Yes, these are adventures in shackitude.

I am deleting my Facebook account.

There’s been a lot lot of noise about privacy and what have you on the Web, and I really don’t feel the need to add anything to what anyone else says. They’re a company; they sell information–and that’s life in the 21st century. The myth of privacy at this point is just that: a myth. To be really honest, I don’t know how much that bothers me. What does bother me, however, is that I’ve noticed a huge surge in spam since I signed up for the service. Stupid me for not using a junk e-mail address. Now I’m not saying that they are the reason my e-mail address has been released into the hands of spammers–but I have noticed that in their Privacy Policy , they do not, at any point, ever, nowhere, nohow state, “We do not sell your e-mail addresses.” What they say is:

Facebook is about sharing information with others — friends and people in your networks — while providing you with privacy settings that restrict other users from accessing your information. We allow you to choose the information you provide to friends and networks through Facebook. Our network architecture and your privacy settings allow you to make informed choices about who has access to your information. We do not provide contact information to third party marketers without your permission.

What that says to me is that you have to jump through hoops to make sure your e-mail address isn’t sold. And I’m pretty sure I set my privacy settings at a high enough level–though it was long enough ago that I don’t remember.

And here’s the thing: I don’t like Facebook enough to deal with it. As I mentioned a few posts ago, I have, like, zero interest in being a werewolf or a vampire, I don’t want to fly some fighter jet, and I think writing on someone’s wall is a complete and utter waste of time. And trust me when I say that I’m really good at wasting time without someone else’s help.

it may seem like I’m a naysayer, but that’s not it at all. I love technology as much as the next person. Here I am, after all, blogging. I write about technology (granted for pay). And maybe that’s the point: I’m freelance, which means that I spend the majority of my workdays sitting alone in the shack in front of a computer. 90 percent of my communication during the average day is by e-mail. I work with people I’ve never talked to on the phone, much less met in person. I don’t complain–indeed, it’s a-okay with me. But free time? Well, I don’t want to write on someone’s wall.

Facebook puzzles me because it doesn’t have a clear purpose. I mean, linkedin connects business people; youtube lets you post videos; flickr is for photos. Facebook rolls a whole bunch of functions into one uber site, and while yeah, it’s the natural progression technologically-speaking, I think in some ways social networking has become a concrete example of the way technology has fractured interpersonal relationships. It’s bad enough when I tell Steve to e-mail me his racing schedule when he lives in the same house. It’s worse when the only time I hear from people that I’d like to hear from is when they invite me to plant a peapatch. Or whatever. The point is that yes, I’m now in contact with friends I haven’t heard from in a long time–but when it comes down to it, I’m not really in touch at all. Instead, I’m still sitting in front of my computer without any real connection to who they are as people.

I got cocky.

For a couple of months, it’s seemed like the area over my eyebrows is a little lighter again, and I have studiously been avoiding it–but dreading getting tan in the summer all the same. Now it looks like it may be getting worse, and to make matters even more distressing, there’s some hyperpigmentation above the lighter areas. It doesn’t look all that bad to anyone but me. With my hyphochondriac tendencies, however, I am stressed over it.

It’s also interesting because I’ve been very stressed and overworked for the past couple of months, and it seems like some of the spots (under my left arm, one spot in an unmentionable space) that were closing in have expanded again. Again, it’s not that big a deal, but I do wonder about the role of stress. I also have not been consistent with taking my supplements every day; I probably average about 3 or 4 times a week. So I need to be better about that.

I hate this thing. I keep telling myself that what I have is minor–and it’s true–but I still feel as though my body has betrayed me. I have always been a little bit of a hypochondriac, but I find that I’m really stressing out over pretty much anything that seems out of the ordinary. I wonder how much of the vit anxiety I’ve transferred to other things, and I need to redirect all this energy that I spend on fretting to something more productive. I just don’t know how.

Now doesn’t THAT sound all art gallery-ish.

I have a ton of unframed prints I haven’t posted up at the house. Those that come with frames, I lug down to the shack and put up on the many bare walls. Which is where I am, and where my digital camera is, so ….

Eichii Kotozuka. I’m not a huge fan, with the exception of a couple of prints. She looks so young and tense, and the way her kimono is depicted is lovely. That said, if this hadn’t been dirt cheap, I probably wouldn’t have bought it:

Another one I wouldn’t have bought if it hadn’t been dirt cheap. But I have another print with a girl and rabbit, and it appealed to my whimsy to have two. The frame and glass are terrible, but the print itself is in good shape, notwithstanding the fact that someone folded the margins to make it fit in the frame. It looks much better outside the frame–but I have other prints I would rather spend money on framing, so back in it went.
Oh yes, this is Shuzo Ikeda.

Sometimes, one (that is the royal one, one understands) does not pay very close attention to the size of what one is bidding on–and one ends up paying a lot for two little “nothing” prints rather than not very much for two prints one knows nothing about but likes.

Sigh. I love Toshi Yoshida’s less representational stuff. Pencil titled, signed, and dated 1954. It needs to be reframed at some point, but I rather like it as is:

Nor do I want to be a werewolf, a slayer, a fleet commander, or santa. I do not want to plant a green patch or get a free aircraft. I don’t really care all that much about six degrees of separation or solving other people’s online jigsaw puzzles. This is all to say that Facebook is great for getting back in touch with people, but I’d rather stay in touch the “old-fashioned way.” Yep, send me an e-mail.