who the hell cares?!?!?

okay, so first off, it SHOULD be noted that there is a certain irony to this piece that does NOT escape me. i write a web log that goes through my life; be it my real life day-to-day existence, observations, or just random opinions that fall out of my head. you people read it. early. often. that is SO cool. i mean hell, i NEVER read my own page, but plenty of you people do, and seem to enjoy it. for that i thank you.

and if any of you have on-line journals of your own, feel free to share…i know there’s at least one of you who’s personally TOLD me they have one, but won’t share the url. all in good time, i’m hoping…they can be therapeutic, i’ll grant you…and sometimes what’s said in the therapist’s office (even if it’s on-line only) needs to STAY in the therapist’s office. but sometimes it helps to share with those you’re closest to and who know you best and let them read your “blog”, too. (i HATE that term, by the way…always sounds to me like something our grand dads could have caught when they were overseas during the war…”hey, what’s that giant wart-looking thing on your grampa’s neck?” “oh, it’s just a scar left over from when he had a bad case of the blog when he slept with the wrong whore in guam. was the size of a grapefruit when he got shipped back…he almost died twice..once from the blog, and once when grandma found out how he got the lump!!!) but again, i digress…

one of the first on-line “communities” we all end up with is on line messaging services. be it yahoo, aol, icq, msn, or whatever, if you’ve been on-line for more than a year or two, chances are you can look at your “buddy” list and see a name or two that you couldn’t put a face or REAL name to if you tried. we all have that. or you don’t know who the person is, why they’re on your list, or can’t remember when the last (or only) time you wrote to them might be. i’m even guilty of that one.

you also have probably sees a screen name or two that makes you wonder about the person; in my job i see reams of screen names and email addresses every morning, and some of them are quite interesting (some examples, for real, are: “donkeyrapingshiteater77”, “deep_throat_69”, “assslut”, and “yourchicklovesmydick”) of course i leave out the “@whatever.com” part so you people can’t write them (okay, so that LAST one is one of mine, and it’s @yahoo.com for anybody who cares) but you get the idea. and you wonder who would come up with email addresses you can’t really give out without the person you’re giving it to getting an INSTANT impression that you might just be a registered sex offender.

but the people who REALLY get on my nerves are the ones who are so mindlessly self-indulgent that they feel we have to know where they are and what they’re doing at ANY given time via “away” messages. i don’t have “away” messages. if i’m not on-line, i’m simply NOT there. deal with it. if you’re that important to me, you have a number or two where you can reach me and don’t need to just do it on-line. if you don’t, just wait. i’ll be back on eventually. or shoot me an email; but i’m not gonna have forty-five away messages that chronicle my life for you. that’s stupid. who cares?

i’ve known two of these in my life…both blondes, both twenties, both from austin. one i used to hang out with quite regularly, but she also claimed to do “on-line-counseling” and was a “sponsor” for an aa or na person or two, who always reached her via yahoo messenger, so if she was gone, and they needed her, this supposedly helped them to know where she was and therefore not freak out (btw, michelle, if you ARE reading this, drop me a line to let me know you’re still among the breathing, okay? i’ve heard rumors to the contrary…) all of this on-line stuff was in addition to working 70 hour weeks…

the other one (who i keep on my list just for amusement purposes) has been unemployed the entire time i’ve “known” her (two years…but we’ve never met face-to-face, which i don’t see as a bad thing…don’t get me wrong, she seems to be cute…i’ve seen pics, including some pierced parts of her that can’t technically be shown in public) and has the most away messages i’ve ever seen. when i was writing on the whore over the weekend i saw them change from…

“in the shower…”
to
“getting ready…”
to
“out for the night…”

then i went out, and by the time i got back in, logged on to check mail (and whore comments; i DO read all of those, ya know) and saw she had changed it to,

“sleeping…don’t IM and wake me up, k?”

don’t wanna be woken up? turn off your FUCKING computer. honestly. i share a good portion of my life with the people good enough to read this page. but i don’t let you know where i am 24/7 on here. i have a cell phone. it’s with me almost all the time (except for when i’m in the house, but then i have a home phone) if you have those numbers, i’m cool with you reaching me; and even then most of you only have about a 70/30 chance….if i’m in an anti-social mood, your chances are even less. but to chronicle my every move with away messages? THOSE people need to get outside more often. WAY more often.

2024 update – and then came social media…