They came here a couple of weeks ago, planted themselves in the family room, and have been controlling the boys’ schedule and that flipping television ever since.
I have tried to be a kind and gracious hostess. I indulge them their habits and compulsions and I put up with their childlike behavior. I pay as much attention to them as possible, but it hasn’t been easy.
I understand the boys love their guests, and won’t see them for a while after they leave, so I try to be patient and just enjoy their visit. No doubt, these guys are a lot of fun to have around, but they’re also a bit immature. And while they could certainly become great role models, they have done nothing to encourage the boys to keep up with their chores and responsibilities while they take up space, so it is always me, the rotten sport, who is continually, repeatedly dragging the boys away - to set the table, finish that math homework, take their dirty plates to the kitchen, practice the piano, pick up their dirty clothes from the bathroom floor, brush their teeth, pack up their bags, and the list goes on - no matter who’s visiting our home.
Everyone here is having a blast. But Julian can’t ever bear to bid them ‘goodnight,’ even as we drag him off to bed mid-stream, and Max, who never really much cared before, has suddenly discovered his new best friends, and has lately blown off his 'suggested' nightly reading. Meanwhile, my husband David has bonded completely with these guys, and has often been up with them into the wee hours. I do eventually get to sit down and relax with them myself towards the end of the evening, but I can hardly keep my eyes open and am ready to crash not long after that.
Last night we had a break. Our guests took off for a couple of days, leaving us to our own devices. I have no idea where they went. It was great - the boys were able to focus on their homework, their chores, their lessons and have some chill time. I finally got to do a little channel surfing, catching some bits and pieces of this and that. It didn't even matter what - it was the freedom to click which I desired more than anything.
Our guests really haven’t contributed much in the way of wine, dessert, flowers or even light picking-up around the house. But I have to admit, these guys have filled this home with excitement, inspiration, hope, and the simple pleasure of having something to look forward to. And the kids have been clear that, if they finish their homework, they can definitely hang out in the evening. And if, in the off chance our guests behave like losers, they immediately make it up to us soon after.
This is not far from over. I think I can do this, because I really am fond of these guys. I’ll just ease up on my expectations, get on with the day-to-day, and try to spend a little more time enjoying these guests, because they’re almost out of here. The good news is that the Yankees have won the pennant. So as soon as they've won the World Series and run Philadelphia out of town, I’m going to politely ask the Boys of Summer to take a hike and not show their smug, handsome faces around here again until they are done with Spring Training.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
SHATTERED COOKWARE, SHATTERED DREAMS
It’s a cruel joke that nature plays on us. We get impeccably glorious, sparkling fall weather right after Labor Day. The moment the Jewish holidays roll around, whether it’s in mid-September or early October, Indian summer inevitably horns in on our autumn territory, reclaiming sole rights to the sun’s intense rays, and the mercury is back up to 92. At this time of the year, I am most often in the kitchen. The oven is at 375° at least, roasting, baking, broiling – brisket, noodle kugel, whatever – which is quite a shock to the system after spending a beastly hot summer avoiding culinary pursuits at all costs.
But somehow, it’s all worth it. The excitement of these holidays combined with the new school year brings about feelings of promise and opportunity, and renewed expectations that will surely be met this time…
The perfect dinner for nine was only minutes away. The Brussels Sprouts were roasted to perfection, the Yukon Gold potatoes in the oven were almost fork ready, and the marinated skirt steak, in a Pyrex pan, was charred enough on the outside (and pink enough inside) when I took it out of the broiler and set it on the range. I have no idea how, exactly, but the pan began to slide off the burner. Startled, I gave it a hasty little push back on. Then I heard the crack of a solid, clean break. As though sitting along perforated lines, the sides of the pan had simply broken off, while the flawlessly cooked, marinated skirt steak hung hopelessly limp over the pan's broken edge. The sprouts had been waiting on the counter nearby, and I couldn’t take a chance, so I dumped them. The hunger we were about to endure - the glass, the mess, our dinner, and the clock ticking Kol Nidre away. I sank along the doorway onto the kitchen floor, landing in defeat and resignation. This was to be the last glorious meal before sundown brought on Yom Kippur.
It wasn’t as though we wouldn’t be eating for a week. It was only to be a fast for 24 hours, about one-third of which would be spent sleeping, anyway. If one was planning on cheating with a cup of coffee in the morning to stave off the possibility of a headache, one might possibly feel OK about it.
The Chili con Carne I prepared and served three days earlier had become our pre-atonement dinner. Meanwhile, the Yukon Golds, still in the oven during the incident, had come out bronzed, tender and unscathed. And it was the potatoes, now out of sorts in the unlikely company of chili, cheddar cheese and sour cream (alone, the total opposite of Kosher!), which reminded me of what else these sacred holidays are all about: Pyrex in the broiler is not a good thing.
So in the spirit of all the domestic snafus we experience, whether we are self-taught, celebrity chef-inspired or Food Network-educated, keep on shopping, cooking and imagining your ultimate hosting scenarios to be the best possible experience for you and your guests, no matter what can go right - or wrong.
But somehow, it’s all worth it. The excitement of these holidays combined with the new school year brings about feelings of promise and opportunity, and renewed expectations that will surely be met this time…
The perfect dinner for nine was only minutes away. The Brussels Sprouts were roasted to perfection, the Yukon Gold potatoes in the oven were almost fork ready, and the marinated skirt steak, in a Pyrex pan, was charred enough on the outside (and pink enough inside) when I took it out of the broiler and set it on the range. I have no idea how, exactly, but the pan began to slide off the burner. Startled, I gave it a hasty little push back on. Then I heard the crack of a solid, clean break. As though sitting along perforated lines, the sides of the pan had simply broken off, while the flawlessly cooked, marinated skirt steak hung hopelessly limp over the pan's broken edge. The sprouts had been waiting on the counter nearby, and I couldn’t take a chance, so I dumped them. The hunger we were about to endure - the glass, the mess, our dinner, and the clock ticking Kol Nidre away. I sank along the doorway onto the kitchen floor, landing in defeat and resignation. This was to be the last glorious meal before sundown brought on Yom Kippur.
It wasn’t as though we wouldn’t be eating for a week. It was only to be a fast for 24 hours, about one-third of which would be spent sleeping, anyway. If one was planning on cheating with a cup of coffee in the morning to stave off the possibility of a headache, one might possibly feel OK about it.
The Chili con Carne I prepared and served three days earlier had become our pre-atonement dinner. Meanwhile, the Yukon Golds, still in the oven during the incident, had come out bronzed, tender and unscathed. And it was the potatoes, now out of sorts in the unlikely company of chili, cheddar cheese and sour cream (alone, the total opposite of Kosher!), which reminded me of what else these sacred holidays are all about: Pyrex in the broiler is not a good thing.
So in the spirit of all the domestic snafus we experience, whether we are self-taught, celebrity chef-inspired or Food Network-educated, keep on shopping, cooking and imagining your ultimate hosting scenarios to be the best possible experience for you and your guests, no matter what can go right - or wrong.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
GROWING UP WITH HAIR
Last night, about forty years after it first captured my heart from behind a basement door, “Hair” won the Tony award for Best Musical Revival. And as I sat in my living room, watching the awards on television with my husband and two sons about forty years later, I savored the moment that all these years of singing the score, word by word, had built up to. Years, decades of anticipating the revival of a musical that had remained the best show I had almost never seen.
Growing up in Long Island, my parents often carted us in to the city to see Broadway shows. If we didn’t already have tickets in hand, we would stand in line at the TKTS booth in Times Square for up to three hours before the curtain to score what was available on ‘the boards.’ My first musical was “Pippin” (we missed Ben Vereen and John Rubenstein). Then came “The Magic Show,” (with Doug Henning - an understudy would’ve been ridiculous, really) and “Shenandoah.” Those that followed came fast and furious: “A Chorus Line,” “Annie,” “Evita (missed Patti Lupone),” “They’re Playing Our Song (Diana Canova and Ted Wass),” "On the 20th Century" (Imogene Coca and introduction to the incredible Kevin Kline) "Pirates of Penzance” (Treat Williams, missed Kline, Robbie Benson, missed Linda Ronstadt),” “Sweeney Todd” (Len Cariou but missed Angela Lansbury - although Dorothy Loudon was brilliant) and a slew of others I can’t remember. We also covered plenty of plays: “Tribute” (Jack Lemon, Robbie Benson), “Fifth of July” (Christopher Reeve, who looked fetching as a friend snapped a photo of us outside the backstage door), “Crimes of the Heart,” to name a few. But it was "Hair," which I had never seen, which called out to me from beyond its Broadway run, year after year after year.
Unfortunately, those visits to the city didn’t begin until five years after “Hair” opened in the spring of 1968 at the Biltmore. Not long after its debut, my parents returned home from the theater late on a Saturday night. Following that evening, they played the Broadway cast album of “Hair,” over and over again. For us kids, at least the older ones in our tribe (11, 10, and 8), it was the dawning of the age of hair, literally. Hair and bell bottoms, flower power, and peace signs. Make love, not war, whatever that meant. Let the sun shine in. But whenever my parents put on the album, and the third song came on (“Sodomy”), we were suddenly, abruptly sent downstairs to the basement to play. As I listened from behind the closed door, listening for words like “shit” or even “fuck,” I heard nothing offensive, nothing at all. I couldn't figure out where those inappropriate words were. Sodomy? No...Fellatio? So far, so good. OK, next? Nothing. So, as the lyrics inquire, “why do these words sound so nasty?” I should have just asked. Where the hell was fuck?
It was an early morning in July, 2008. The alarm went off at 6:30a.m., and I quietly dragged my weary body out of bed. I threw on some clothes, packed a small bag with a muffin and a small thermos of coffee, grabbed a folding beach chair, and set out for Central Park. "Hair," the second Public Theater production to be presented in the Park for the summer, for free, was on.
A friend had already secured a place in line for the ticket hand-outs before I arrived (two tickets per person for that evening's performance), but it was all for naught. The rules of queuing up for Shakespeare in the Park were, are, iron clad. You cannot hold a place in line for anyone. You can’t take turns being on shift. Unless you’re making a trip to the bathroom, and you'd do best to inform those people around you when you do, you cannot leave your spot. Not for a Starbucks, not for a game of Frisbee, not for nothing. Once I arrived, we had to give up my friend's spot in exchange for the last one on line. These are the cold, hard rules, and mostly everyone takes it very seriously. When you go through the pain of dragging yourself out of bed while it's still dark to wait for hours in line until the box office opens, it's only fair that everyone else suffers along with you. So throughout the wait, Papp Public Theater personnel will heartily ‘remind’ you through a megaphone the rules of the game.
The line snakes around the Great Lawn along the western edge, bending east. You sit in your beach chair alongside your friend with your newspaper, thermos and picnic breakfast. Or even better, you can order from Andy’s deli – they take your info and deliver inside of 20 minutes (I’m Diana, around the first bend about 100 feet from the restrooms, and under the White Birch, next to the Rock of Hope – the point in line at which you’re almost guaranteed a ticket.) The delivery guy bikes along the line until he finds you, calling out your name. It's almost like a day at the beach. Better.
To get to the point, I won’t review the performance. But suffice it to say, "Hair" was, and now, as the Best Musical revival on Broadway, is everything I’d been hoping for since I was an 8-year-old girl (there was a revival in the late 70s, but it came and went too soon after the original).
"Hair" shines with a luster as flawless and evident today as I'd been imagining it did all those years ago. This production was so rich, in fact, so beautifully exhilarating, that I waited in line from the early morning hours all over again two weeks later, to share the final performance with my older son. And as that final queue - forgive me - that receding Hair-line inched its way toward the box office for the last time at approximately 1pm on that gorgeous, sparkling, lazy summer afternoon, I felt comfort and joy knowing that my son would see some brief nudity, hear completely inappropriate language, and experience the theater as he may never again experience it in his lifetime.
Growing up in Long Island, my parents often carted us in to the city to see Broadway shows. If we didn’t already have tickets in hand, we would stand in line at the TKTS booth in Times Square for up to three hours before the curtain to score what was available on ‘the boards.’ My first musical was “Pippin” (we missed Ben Vereen and John Rubenstein). Then came “The Magic Show,” (with Doug Henning - an understudy would’ve been ridiculous, really) and “Shenandoah.” Those that followed came fast and furious: “A Chorus Line,” “Annie,” “Evita (missed Patti Lupone),” “They’re Playing Our Song (Diana Canova and Ted Wass),” "On the 20th Century" (Imogene Coca and introduction to the incredible Kevin Kline) "Pirates of Penzance” (Treat Williams, missed Kline, Robbie Benson, missed Linda Ronstadt),” “Sweeney Todd” (Len Cariou but missed Angela Lansbury - although Dorothy Loudon was brilliant) and a slew of others I can’t remember. We also covered plenty of plays: “Tribute” (Jack Lemon, Robbie Benson), “Fifth of July” (Christopher Reeve, who looked fetching as a friend snapped a photo of us outside the backstage door), “Crimes of the Heart,” to name a few. But it was "Hair," which I had never seen, which called out to me from beyond its Broadway run, year after year after year.
Unfortunately, those visits to the city didn’t begin until five years after “Hair” opened in the spring of 1968 at the Biltmore. Not long after its debut, my parents returned home from the theater late on a Saturday night. Following that evening, they played the Broadway cast album of “Hair,” over and over again. For us kids, at least the older ones in our tribe (11, 10, and 8), it was the dawning of the age of hair, literally. Hair and bell bottoms, flower power, and peace signs. Make love, not war, whatever that meant. Let the sun shine in. But whenever my parents put on the album, and the third song came on (“Sodomy”), we were suddenly, abruptly sent downstairs to the basement to play. As I listened from behind the closed door, listening for words like “shit” or even “fuck,” I heard nothing offensive, nothing at all. I couldn't figure out where those inappropriate words were. Sodomy? No...Fellatio? So far, so good. OK, next? Nothing. So, as the lyrics inquire, “why do these words sound so nasty?” I should have just asked. Where the hell was fuck?
It was an early morning in July, 2008. The alarm went off at 6:30a.m., and I quietly dragged my weary body out of bed. I threw on some clothes, packed a small bag with a muffin and a small thermos of coffee, grabbed a folding beach chair, and set out for Central Park. "Hair," the second Public Theater production to be presented in the Park for the summer, for free, was on.
A friend had already secured a place in line for the ticket hand-outs before I arrived (two tickets per person for that evening's performance), but it was all for naught. The rules of queuing up for Shakespeare in the Park were, are, iron clad. You cannot hold a place in line for anyone. You can’t take turns being on shift. Unless you’re making a trip to the bathroom, and you'd do best to inform those people around you when you do, you cannot leave your spot. Not for a Starbucks, not for a game of Frisbee, not for nothing. Once I arrived, we had to give up my friend's spot in exchange for the last one on line. These are the cold, hard rules, and mostly everyone takes it very seriously. When you go through the pain of dragging yourself out of bed while it's still dark to wait for hours in line until the box office opens, it's only fair that everyone else suffers along with you. So throughout the wait, Papp Public Theater personnel will heartily ‘remind’ you through a megaphone the rules of the game.
The line snakes around the Great Lawn along the western edge, bending east. You sit in your beach chair alongside your friend with your newspaper, thermos and picnic breakfast. Or even better, you can order from Andy’s deli – they take your info and deliver inside of 20 minutes (I’m Diana, around the first bend about 100 feet from the restrooms, and under the White Birch, next to the Rock of Hope – the point in line at which you’re almost guaranteed a ticket.) The delivery guy bikes along the line until he finds you, calling out your name. It's almost like a day at the beach. Better.
To get to the point, I won’t review the performance. But suffice it to say, "Hair" was, and now, as the Best Musical revival on Broadway, is everything I’d been hoping for since I was an 8-year-old girl (there was a revival in the late 70s, but it came and went too soon after the original).
"Hair" shines with a luster as flawless and evident today as I'd been imagining it did all those years ago. This production was so rich, in fact, so beautifully exhilarating, that I waited in line from the early morning hours all over again two weeks later, to share the final performance with my older son. And as that final queue - forgive me - that receding Hair-line inched its way toward the box office for the last time at approximately 1pm on that gorgeous, sparkling, lazy summer afternoon, I felt comfort and joy knowing that my son would see some brief nudity, hear completely inappropriate language, and experience the theater as he may never again experience it in his lifetime.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
SPRING BREAKDOWN
What is it about home décor store catalogs that can ultimately make us feel so inadequate and short-fused?
Scene: Casually well-dressed children, blissfully clicking away at their video game controls, surrounded by perfectly organized, gingham-lined baskets of kiddie paraphernalia. The dazzling, striped carpet might have just been vacuumed, and refreshments in matching cups and plates sit on a teak tray set on a spill-proof, twill-covered, monogrammed ottoman. The indulgent mother, coiffed yet casual, peeks in from behind a partially opened pocket door from the hi-tech kitchen to the den, grinning with pride and satisfaction as her children and their guests enjoy the best of all possible play-dates, in the coolest home on the block.
Through the sliding glass doors to the sunny backyard and the green and grassy, sprawling beyond, you can make out a pastel Easter-egg kit which rests on the junior-sized patio table. You then turn the page to towels (plush Turkish) and linens (400-thread count).
Life: My husband David, who started his own consulting firm a couple of years ago, is permanently fixed to his work station in our bedroom, while I, a real estate broker, am in the middle of a contractual negotiation which takes a daunting new detour almost every hour on the hour. Our two sons, Max and Julian, ages 13 and 9, respectively, have become freedom fighters for the National Get-Me-Out-of School-Already Coalition, whose activity is typically at its peak from mid-April to mid-May. We are all home for Spring Break, and it is not a pretty picture.
There is not a single Easter egg to be found in this house. The other item not in this house over the Spring Break is bread. Neither a stick, nor a crumb, not even a speck: it’s Passover, so we’re sticking to our yeast-free guns. And it can't get much springier around here than that.
Scene: Casually well-dressed children, blissfully clicking away at their video game controls, surrounded by perfectly organized, gingham-lined baskets of kiddie paraphernalia. The dazzling, striped carpet might have just been vacuumed, and refreshments in matching cups and plates sit on a teak tray set on a spill-proof, twill-covered, monogrammed ottoman. The indulgent mother, coiffed yet casual, peeks in from behind a partially opened pocket door from the hi-tech kitchen to the den, grinning with pride and satisfaction as her children and their guests enjoy the best of all possible play-dates, in the coolest home on the block.
Through the sliding glass doors to the sunny backyard and the green and grassy, sprawling beyond, you can make out a pastel Easter-egg kit which rests on the junior-sized patio table. You then turn the page to towels (plush Turkish) and linens (400-thread count).
Life: My husband David, who started his own consulting firm a couple of years ago, is permanently fixed to his work station in our bedroom, while I, a real estate broker, am in the middle of a contractual negotiation which takes a daunting new detour almost every hour on the hour. Our two sons, Max and Julian, ages 13 and 9, respectively, have become freedom fighters for the National Get-Me-Out-of School-Already Coalition, whose activity is typically at its peak from mid-April to mid-May. We are all home for Spring Break, and it is not a pretty picture.
There is not a single Easter egg to be found in this house. The other item not in this house over the Spring Break is bread. Neither a stick, nor a crumb, not even a speck: it’s Passover, so we’re sticking to our yeast-free guns. And it can't get much springier around here than that.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
PAPARAZZI FOR THE COMMON MAN
"It makes me uncomfortable that you are a friend of my husband’s on Facebook," she wrote, continuing to say that while she understood my son was a former music student of his, she did not understand the nature of our 'relationship.'
This was the message Facebook sent to my email account, directly from the account of Max’s old piano teacher. But the message had been written and signed by his wife who had taken it upon herself to log in. Surely, had she even had her own Facebook page, she would have known that most of these 'friends' are simply part of a collection we may feel we’d just like to have, like clothes we buy on sale but never get around to wearing. Certainly, I wasn’t the only female 'friend' on his page. I had to be one of many innocent victims of this man - a husband, a father - who seemed only to have been exploring the latest cyber-tech trend. I’d imagined the wife glaring quizzically at her husband's back for months as he hammered away at his keyboard, until finally one day, she marches over to his chair, growling "move over!" and taking control.
My first, devious inclination was to simply admit, "Busted!" That any suspicions she had were correct - we indeed had been having an affair - and leave her with that. My second thought was to give her some relief, while bailing out her poor, 'snagged' husband, by disclosing the true and boring details of our 'relationship.' But this is the internet, I thought, and my words will exist in perpetuity (or so I'd like to think...). I was therefore not interested in sharing the details of my life with her - and the world, no matter how lackluster they were. And besides, I thought, why should I give anything to this woman who infiltrated my personal cyber-world, anyway? I was left entertained by the remote prospect of a tech-savvy sugar farmer in Madagascar or a bar-keep at the Munich Hofbrauhaus wondering what the true story actually was. “I have no particular relationship with your husband on or off Facebook,” was my laconic response.
Facebook. Here's the thing: You either love it or you hate it. You have all the time in the world for it or none at all. Not familiar with the inner workings of Facebook at first, my initial reaction was, if my friends wanted to communicate with me, why not just pick up the phone, or shoot me an email? For me, Facebook was incredibly annoying. Why would I want to take the time to navigate my way through this labyrinth, only to discover that someone is merely having a cup of coffee, turning up the thermostat, or just coming back from alternate sides parking?”
As old friends, acquaintances, and the occasional stranger begin to pop up in your on-line life to ask for your 'friendship,' many of whom navigated the same office building or school hallways that you did, you may find yourself hesitating before clicking 'confirm.' "We never connected all those years ago, why should we now?" And if everyone is indiscriminately gathering up these friends as they would candy blasting out of a busted piñata, why bother clicking 'confirm’ if you'd be just another piece of Double Bubble scattered among the coveted bite-sized Snickers?
Plenty of 'friends' that I've confirmed have not been in touch with me since The Click, and vice-versa. So if, upon new friend requests, you click 'ignore' or just don't respond, would anyone even notice? If you de-friend or ‘delete’ (imagine…such a word now being applied to a human being) someone who already has 384 friends, how would he or she even notice you were gone?
But there are those few special people from long ago with whom you do connect. Those with whom you shared friends, enjoyed the occasional night out or a sleep-over, cruised adventurous roads with, and those you just liked - but somehow, hardly knew. So you make a plan to meet for dinner, hoping there will be something to talk about, something both of you will discover about one another after having been in the virtual dark for the last 30 years.
As it turns out, I have had several such meetings recently, all within a relatively short period of time. There was lunch with one ‘friend’; a re-connection and correspondence with another I hope never to disconnect from again; and a fun night out with a yet another friend who I learned was even more charming and interesting than I remember her being.
These are the people you really only knew before they emerged as their complete selves. We were all incomplete, partially baked, not fully formed. And although many of us are still forming at this relatively late stage in the game, it can be enlightening to see how people turn out - that is, if you have the time and can afford it.
My kids have seen me to the front door on many of these occasions. “Where are you going,” they would ask me. “Dinner with another new friend?”
That’s right, boys. We’re squandering your college savings on wining and dining with old friends we’ve found on Facebook - many with whom we never would have dined back then unless we had known them much better.
But there are plenty of occasions when Facebook can suddenly cause you to question your own status in the lives of those you know well. A close friend with whom I spoke several times a week for years hadn’t called in a couple of weeks, and all but disappeared from my life. Having usually been the one to initiate calls, I’d had enough, feeling ignored. I backed off to let her make the next move. After almost two weeks of silence, I decided it was time to see what she’d been up to on Facebook. Posted there on her ‘wall’ was one photo, among many others, of a mutual friend’s family, gathered around her dining room table with a bounty of food set before them.
“What the hell are they doing there,” I wondered, feeling slighted. “Why aren’t my kids sitting at that table? Why them, and not the Venturas?”
Not long after my sleuthing, my friend and I finally met for a couple of Bloody Marys on a cozy Sunday afternoon. I needed the drink to broach the subject. What was up? Had I done something to offend her? Where had she been all that time, and why hadn’t she called?
Her explanation was sound. There had been a misunderstanding on both our parts, and we cleared the air with laughter and a couple of tears.
“And one more thing,” I added. Both of us were now in good spirits and loosened up from our drinks. I was feeling bold. “I happened to check out your Facebook page and saw all the Smith kids gathered around your table. So, where were the Venturas that night, anyway?” I asked in mock-disappointment.
“Fucking Facebook!” she said, in fits of laughter with a tinge of disgust. It turned out there was a story behind that dinner, which she explained. It wasn’t at all the conspiracy to ‘delete’ my family that I’d imagined it was.
“Fucking Facebook…” I agreed. Stalkbook was more like it.
Facebook. It is the constant assessment of who you are and where you’ve been. It brings your past to the present, and there is no escape. It brings back a friend you once knew and leaves you satisfied you weren’t the only one with the memories. And at the very worst, it is a peep-hole into someone else’s dining room where a guest family other than your own shared a dinner of Chinese take-out.
Most of all, Facebook is the banal status updates that remove the mystery of the lives you left behind decades ago. ‘What ever happened to…’ is no longer the question. You will know if ‘Most Likely to Succeed’ ever made it big, you’ll see if ‘Most Hairy’ has gone bald, you’ll find out if ‘Best Looking’ gained 40 pounds and lost her mojo. But most of all, you will navigate your way past your bedtime, and everyone you’ve ever known will know it.
This was the message Facebook sent to my email account, directly from the account of Max’s old piano teacher. But the message had been written and signed by his wife who had taken it upon herself to log in. Surely, had she even had her own Facebook page, she would have known that most of these 'friends' are simply part of a collection we may feel we’d just like to have, like clothes we buy on sale but never get around to wearing. Certainly, I wasn’t the only female 'friend' on his page. I had to be one of many innocent victims of this man - a husband, a father - who seemed only to have been exploring the latest cyber-tech trend. I’d imagined the wife glaring quizzically at her husband's back for months as he hammered away at his keyboard, until finally one day, she marches over to his chair, growling "move over!" and taking control.
My first, devious inclination was to simply admit, "Busted!" That any suspicions she had were correct - we indeed had been having an affair - and leave her with that. My second thought was to give her some relief, while bailing out her poor, 'snagged' husband, by disclosing the true and boring details of our 'relationship.' But this is the internet, I thought, and my words will exist in perpetuity (or so I'd like to think...). I was therefore not interested in sharing the details of my life with her - and the world, no matter how lackluster they were. And besides, I thought, why should I give anything to this woman who infiltrated my personal cyber-world, anyway? I was left entertained by the remote prospect of a tech-savvy sugar farmer in Madagascar or a bar-keep at the Munich Hofbrauhaus wondering what the true story actually was. “I have no particular relationship with your husband on or off Facebook,” was my laconic response.
Facebook. Here's the thing: You either love it or you hate it. You have all the time in the world for it or none at all. Not familiar with the inner workings of Facebook at first, my initial reaction was, if my friends wanted to communicate with me, why not just pick up the phone, or shoot me an email? For me, Facebook was incredibly annoying. Why would I want to take the time to navigate my way through this labyrinth, only to discover that someone is merely having a cup of coffee, turning up the thermostat, or just coming back from alternate sides parking?”
As old friends, acquaintances, and the occasional stranger begin to pop up in your on-line life to ask for your 'friendship,' many of whom navigated the same office building or school hallways that you did, you may find yourself hesitating before clicking 'confirm.' "We never connected all those years ago, why should we now?" And if everyone is indiscriminately gathering up these friends as they would candy blasting out of a busted piñata, why bother clicking 'confirm’ if you'd be just another piece of Double Bubble scattered among the coveted bite-sized Snickers?
Plenty of 'friends' that I've confirmed have not been in touch with me since The Click, and vice-versa. So if, upon new friend requests, you click 'ignore' or just don't respond, would anyone even notice? If you de-friend or ‘delete’ (imagine…such a word now being applied to a human being) someone who already has 384 friends, how would he or she even notice you were gone?
But there are those few special people from long ago with whom you do connect. Those with whom you shared friends, enjoyed the occasional night out or a sleep-over, cruised adventurous roads with, and those you just liked - but somehow, hardly knew. So you make a plan to meet for dinner, hoping there will be something to talk about, something both of you will discover about one another after having been in the virtual dark for the last 30 years.
As it turns out, I have had several such meetings recently, all within a relatively short period of time. There was lunch with one ‘friend’; a re-connection and correspondence with another I hope never to disconnect from again; and a fun night out with a yet another friend who I learned was even more charming and interesting than I remember her being.
These are the people you really only knew before they emerged as their complete selves. We were all incomplete, partially baked, not fully formed. And although many of us are still forming at this relatively late stage in the game, it can be enlightening to see how people turn out - that is, if you have the time and can afford it.
My kids have seen me to the front door on many of these occasions. “Where are you going,” they would ask me. “Dinner with another new friend?”
That’s right, boys. We’re squandering your college savings on wining and dining with old friends we’ve found on Facebook - many with whom we never would have dined back then unless we had known them much better.
But there are plenty of occasions when Facebook can suddenly cause you to question your own status in the lives of those you know well. A close friend with whom I spoke several times a week for years hadn’t called in a couple of weeks, and all but disappeared from my life. Having usually been the one to initiate calls, I’d had enough, feeling ignored. I backed off to let her make the next move. After almost two weeks of silence, I decided it was time to see what she’d been up to on Facebook. Posted there on her ‘wall’ was one photo, among many others, of a mutual friend’s family, gathered around her dining room table with a bounty of food set before them.
“What the hell are they doing there,” I wondered, feeling slighted. “Why aren’t my kids sitting at that table? Why them, and not the Venturas?”
Not long after my sleuthing, my friend and I finally met for a couple of Bloody Marys on a cozy Sunday afternoon. I needed the drink to broach the subject. What was up? Had I done something to offend her? Where had she been all that time, and why hadn’t she called?
Her explanation was sound. There had been a misunderstanding on both our parts, and we cleared the air with laughter and a couple of tears.
“And one more thing,” I added. Both of us were now in good spirits and loosened up from our drinks. I was feeling bold. “I happened to check out your Facebook page and saw all the Smith kids gathered around your table. So, where were the Venturas that night, anyway?” I asked in mock-disappointment.
“Fucking Facebook!” she said, in fits of laughter with a tinge of disgust. It turned out there was a story behind that dinner, which she explained. It wasn’t at all the conspiracy to ‘delete’ my family that I’d imagined it was.
“Fucking Facebook…” I agreed. Stalkbook was more like it.
Facebook. It is the constant assessment of who you are and where you’ve been. It brings your past to the present, and there is no escape. It brings back a friend you once knew and leaves you satisfied you weren’t the only one with the memories. And at the very worst, it is a peep-hole into someone else’s dining room where a guest family other than your own shared a dinner of Chinese take-out.
Most of all, Facebook is the banal status updates that remove the mystery of the lives you left behind decades ago. ‘What ever happened to…’ is no longer the question. You will know if ‘Most Likely to Succeed’ ever made it big, you’ll see if ‘Most Hairy’ has gone bald, you’ll find out if ‘Best Looking’ gained 40 pounds and lost her mojo. But most of all, you will navigate your way past your bedtime, and everyone you’ve ever known will know it.
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