In some ways, I love that I can have up to the minute information about my friends, even to the color of the bra they are wearing in certain circumstances. But while I was in Vancouver over chrixtmix, a friend made a good point about all of this consistent information back and forthing. It used to be that when a friend left town, they were out of the loop for a time. Which was okay. When they returned, there would be stories of adventure and pictures and cake and tea and giggles and catching up. I totally get what he meant by that.

Now, if a friend leaves town, she blahgs from the airport that she’s on the plane, in some instances she blahgs on the plane, at the other side, all the way through the adventure, even so far as posting the pictures online whether through crackface or any other number of photo posting websites (link on the right side of the screen….) so that everyone back home can see exactly what’s going on while it’s happening! Eventually, she returns home to friends and family (which aren’t always mutually exclusive, especially with the ones I’ve got) and sure there is tea and cake, but what’s left to say? “Hey let me show you these pictures you’ve already seen….Right! Well then I’ll tell you the story of what happened the time I fell in that canal trying to rescue a pizza from drowning! That you already read on my blog which was much funnier then because it was fresh, I was still drunk and much wittier with access to an online thesaurus to make sure that my observations were astute, clever, discerning, sagacious and even cracker-jack..

(I heart online thesauruses. Thesaurusi.Thesaurusesses. Synonym generators.)

There is nothing that compares to being in the room with someone and telling them a story that makes them fall off the sofa/chesterfield/davenport/loveseat/settee with delight/hilarity/enjoyment/rapture/jollity…ok, enough. Seriously though, a righteous tete-a-tete cannot be beat, especially if there’s cake involved. But if there wasn’t the opportunity to share these moments with those we love, as they happen, would we really be missing out on so much? Do we really need a way to convey our immediate mood to everyone we know from thousands of kilometres away?

Of course there is so much potentially insignificant silliness we might miss; for example, “are you wearing a hat?” “why, yes I am.” “oh, I see that you are.”

However, I truly appreciate that I can easily share those experiences that seem momentous, important; for example, “are you wearing a hat?” “why, yes I am.” “oh, I see that you are.” And that we get to choose which category those times fall into.

When I first heard about the various social networking sites, the blogging, the listen to my music here and look at my pictures there and finally! an opportunity to belittle people and act superior without revealing anything about myself except the fact that I am an utterly horrendous speller with too much time on my hands! (Seriously, people who comment on youboob and facebooger and any website with a forum in existence, how hard is it to spellcheck? If you can goozle 50,000 different sources for a cat doing something cute, I’m sure there’s at least one damn dictionary kickin about the interweb. I am obsessive about accurate spelling to the point where I’ve actually broken it off with people because I just couldn’t handle how bad their spelling ability was. Eyebrows also factor in. Anyone who’s looking to score points with me and possibly invite me for dinner, take notes.  Ok, gettin’ a little ranty here. Now I have to be super on guard, any spelling mistakes and I’ll have a karmic bitchslap extraordinaire comin’. Bad grammar and run on sentences don’t count because they are part of my affluent effluent charm. Yes, both of those apply. My charm is vast and oozy.) I was almost completely opposed because I thought it was obvious that humanity would take this opportunity for global communication and sharing and make an insane mess of it.  I was determined that I would not succumb! I would not throw in with the masses and contribute to mediocrity! Luckily, I have a high enough opinion of myself to believe that I’m not capable of mediocre. I dig the happy medium, but that doesn’t suggest that I would compromise my sanity and happiness for what feels safe and normal. If anything, the opposite. I would risk my sanity to escape what feels normal. I take heart in the fact that I have no interest in what most other people are doing, as well as no interest in how they feel about what I’m doing. Those that I love, those that I seek out knowledge of on a daily basis, sometimes more, are for me, the reason why this accessibility is worthwhile.

Really, most people want to be noticed, accepted within whatever circles they feel comfortable, acknowledged. For some that means putting themselves out there in the hopes that if the closest to them don’t support what they’re doing, someone will discover, enjoy, identify with their efforts and perhaps even laud them for it. Most people seem to be caught in this dichotomy of wanting to be special and wanting to fit in. I don’t discount the fact that there are human traits that are universal, regardless of whether or not we are the only humans within this universe. But the idea that any one else on the planet understands me enough to justify them speaking for me, or judge me to be lacking in some way, or even discounting my input because there’s plenty of other brown eyed, (naturally, damnit!)red haired girls in their early 30’s who grew up in the western hemisphere who blog about their ramblances, that’s too crazy.  No one will ever be exactly like me. My atoms are my own for the time that they are mine. When I am done with them, I will decorporate and they will move on to become something else. But never anything exactly like me. I am special and I am not at exactly the same time. Like everyone else. How the hell did I get here? I went from a abuse of technology rant to a very simple principle about humanity which was the reason why Dr Manhattan decided to save us in the watchmen. Which is a great comic, but I like Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing best, probably because it was my first. You never forget your first. First place I ever saw John Constantine too, he’s a favorite. I’d love to have a one night stand with him, but no more because I’d likely end up killed by some mystical demon summoned in an esoteric ritual of some sort or another. Unintentionally of course, but you know, that’s how it goes when you lose your heart to a magician. Sometimes it’s literal. To be honest though, I think that of all of Alan Moore’s comics, the one I come closest to feeling a kinship to would be Promethea. That was the first time I can recall a trip down the rabbit hole being a coherent voyage, rather than complete nonsense with bits of order scattered about.

I don’t think I would like to have an affair with Alan Moore, however. Now Grant Morrison…. but c’mon. Who wouldn’t want to have an affair with a scottish vegan chaos magician who was abducted by aliens and writes bitchin awesome comics…

Ok, I’ve gone waaaaay off topic. This could very well be where the question Too much information? comes in. I shall save the (endless) ravings about awesome comics for another time.

I’ll stop here because I’m not totally sure where I’m going with this. But the main title is in fact ‘rambly meanderings of a firegypsy in search..’ Not the ‘coherent and conclusive observations of a settled miscreant expounding on the virtues of knowing the truth about everything in existence.’

And so I shall end with a smile and a link…