I went in to get my every-four-weeks haircut yesterday. I have a rather-delightful young woman who does a great job for me every time (and for what she charges, it’s only fair). Of course, during the haircut, it’s not really typical to “just sit there.” Talking to each other is normal and expected.

This time, I started out the conversation by asking whether or not she’d watched the vice-presidential debate. And I offered up some of my own strongly-worded observations about the entire Palin debacle. Additionally, I included a description of the interactive manner in which I’d participated in the event (“Hack the Debate”), remarking that one of my comments (“tweets”) had appeared onscreen (on the Current television network).

During our chat, I discovered that she’s one of those rare “undecided” voters we keep hearing about. (Which was amazing news to me. I didn’t even know I knew anyone like that.)

It was only when we were just about finished up with the haircut that she asked me about work…to which, I sighed. And said that things were about the same.

She then made a remark that I found quite curious: namely her observation and question that “work really consumes you, doesn’t it?”

I found that so strange! I had just spent over a half-hour talking about national politics, my health issues and progress, the weather, and so on…never once mentioning work. And she still came up with the opinion that work consumes me.

I have no idea how I had transmitted that message. For over a year now, I have talked with her at length about my relationships, photography, blogging, health ups and downs, chronic pain, travel, cell-phone users, the state of Oregon, my impressions of Marin County and its bicyclists…well, you get the picture. I even remember one appointment when she asked about work and I suggested we talk about something else.

That she would identify me as someone “consumed” with work entirely baffles me. And I told her so. I countered with the belief that my job is one with a high-difficulty level, but that I aimed to have a balanced life – engaging in many interests outside of work. For example, I had just finished describing for her the routines I engage in every day to focus on my physical health.

This has set me to wondering about, again: what I say, how I say it, and how it’s received.

Communication. It’s such a mysterious process. Truly it is.

Would you like to watch a presidential (or vice-presidential) debate while simultaneously reading what people all over the world are, in the moment, writing about that very debate?

(I’m talking about something entirely different than the graphs provided by CNN  to instantaneously illustrate the reactions of various voting groups…)

Here’s the deal: on the Current cable television network last Friday they tried an entirely new approach to debate-viewing, called “Hack the Debate.” While Obama and McCain went at it, in almost real-time, on the bottom of the screen, the network displayed Twitter posts (discussed in my “Digital Intimacy”  essay of September 15) from folks who were tweeting about the debate. It was a pretty interesting process. A tweet would appear onscreen from someone, somewhere, and then slowly dissolve away while a new one appeared.

I have to admit that, although I found it fascinating, it was also a tad confusing. It was like having subtitles during a movie containing the director’s comments on the significance of the scene. I had a bit of a challenge listening to what Obama and McCain were saying, and how they were saying it, and at the same time reading what everyone else was thinking about what was going on. It was a LOT to pay attention to.

Especially because I was writing comments as well. Yes, I had my laptop in front of me and I was composing my own observations. (As far as I can tell, though, nothing of mine was on the air.) AND, I was monitoring Twitter’s own streaming coverage, with comments very quickly whizzing by at http://election.twitter.com/.

If you want to try a whole new debate-watching experience, catch Biden and Palin (if she’s still the nominee, that is) this week on Current (Comcast channel 107 in Marin). Better yet, get a Twitter account and join in on the fun!

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around what is happening here in this country with regard to the economy. Does anybody out there really get it?

Nobody I know does. And even the “experts” are struggling with their sense-making.

Maybe, if anyone saw this disaster coming, then, perhaps, we might have done a better job of heading it off? Of course, then, well, let me think: Bush is still running the country. So I guess there’s no one really minding the store.

I heard on both NPR and MSNBC this week that we came just this close to plunging into The Great Depression II. And, that we’re not out of this yet…despite the massive $700 billion federal bailout, we’re still looking for more businesses to fail, many more workers to lose their jobs.

I have to admit to being scared. In the post-911 era, it took three years for me to lose the last “permanent” job I had. I’ve struggled with my life, in one way or another, ever since. Then, earlier this year, I lost a double-digit percentage of my AIG-invested retirement funds before I made the move to a more conservative investment strategy. The new approach isn’t really earning me money anymore, but the bleeding, thank god, for the time-being, has been stopped.

What happens to me? ….what happens to us? …if we’re not able to work our way out of this crisis.

There’s a lot to think about here…

I signed up for a Facebook account in July. At the time, I had no idea that I was playing with fire…that I might be embarking upon some kind of transformative path in my life…that this was a journey that would provide me, in very short order, with great highs and ultimate lows.

But I was (doing all those things). And here’s a little bit of the story.

Although I have had for some years a very broad and active online presence (evidence: this blog, my old blog, a personal website, a LinkedIn page, a Match.com profile, and a Flickr photo-sharing site), I had, however naively, neglected an entire universe (millions and millions) of people out there active in social-networking sites (namely MySpace and Facebook). In fact, if I thought about such internet destinations at all, I asked myself: What’s the attraction? What’s the point?

But late last June I did another Google search that led me, yet again, to someone’s Facebook page…which, of course, was unavailable to me since I was, first: not a Facebook member, and second: not that person’s Facebook “friend.”

This was not the first time this had happened. I sighed. Dead end.

However, this time, for whatever reason, I thought about it some more and within a few days, I signed up for a Facebook account. That was the ridiculously easy part. Now what? I thought…am I really going to start a “page?” If I enter some information, what will this mean? Who will I share it with? Am I going to seek Facebook friends? Do I even know one single person here with whom to be friends? And: what, ultimately, does it mean to be a Facebook friend, anyway?

In essence, I was asking: Why am I here?

The eternal, existential, question.

Well, little did I know that I was entering, what Clive Thompson (in the September 7 New York Times Magazine) calls, the “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy.” In this thoroughly absorbing article, Thompson discusses the attraction of social networking and how the “omnipresent knowledge” of what others are doing is “intriguing and addictive.”

And, indeed, while he tries to explain all of this, Thompson and the individuals he interviews all seem to acknowledge that the phenomena of “ambient awareness” and “digital intimacy” are very difficult to communicate: that you have to actually participate to understand how this all works. His discussion starts out with a story about Facebook, but much of the article is devoted to a description of the so-called microblogging tool available at Twitter.com, which gives individuals the opportunity to broadcast to the world short updates about their lives (in answer to the question: “what are you doing”), in 140 characters or less. The bottom line, for many people (and certainly it’s turned out that way for me), is that the quality of ambient awareness of others created by Facebook and Twitter is a way for a person to “feel less alone.”

So, yes, I have come, slowly, during the last couple of months or so, to feel less alone in the world. This has been a very positive development in my life. And, perhaps, as I said in the first paragraph: transformative. For while my physical being continues to be on a healing path, my emotional self seems to be in a similar recovery…partly attributable, I believe, to more social connection.

The dominant relationship that has been enhanced is with one, dear-to-me person I used to work with in Portland. The emails, instant-messaging, and the “mobile” aspects of Facebook (when I’m away from my computer, I get a text message when she updates her page or sends me an email), have brought us much closer together. She visited me here in person last week.

Of course, nothing good goes unpunished. I had my first real Facebook dilemma last week as well.

Facebook had become the one place in the universe that seemed to be left for me to maintain my relationships with “C”’s (adult) kids. All three of them, two of their spouses, and one significant other, had all befriended me on Facebook. To the extent that any of them logged in and updated their page(s), I was able to keep up with their lives. C did not have a Facebook account.

Until last week, that is. Last Wednesday morning I opened up my page to discover, on my news feed, that “daughter-in-law and C” were now friends.

I was stunned. Aghast. Angry and upset. What is SHE doing here?, I asked. This is MY place!, I exclaimed. (To myself.)

Upon poking around, I found that I had access to C’s page and she to mine (because of the manner in which I had configured my privacy settings). This would not do! Neither would being in the same social online network with her. That very day, I wrote a painful (for me) note to all six kids, indicating that since C was now on Facebook, I was going to have to leave. I sent off the emails and then deleted them from my list of friends.

For me: great angst. Great. Angst.

But, really, the only way.

Facebook: it’s just like real life.

Only not.

(If you need help finding me on Facebook or Twitter, just ask…)

Soundtrack Suggestion

I feel the sorrow,
Oh I feel dreams,
Everything is clear in my heart,
Everything is clear in our world,
I feel the life,
Oh I feel love.

(“Oh My Love” – John Lennon)