I am on a project with a first-time manager and she is flailing and it is so hard to not try to jump in. 1) She has to learn to do this herself. 2) It's not my job! But my oldest sibling instinct keeps kicking in. Something needs to be done? I can do it! Everyone loves me because of how helpful I am!

Something needs to be done? I can do it! Everyone loves me because of how helpful I am!

Oh god IT ME IT ME

Something needs to be done? I can do it! Everyone loves me because of how helpful I am!

Okay, I did indeed laugh out loud.

So, any fun plans for this weekend? Let me live vicariously through you, please!

Had my computer checked out today...forgot how blank everything is when you clean this history. Should be good for a while, though. I hope everyone feels better that needs to.

Timelies all!

Mr. S is here for the weekend. It’s very hot here.

I hope the weekend goes well for your family, Sheryl.

Went out to dinner with DH at a local restaurant that has outdoor seating. Relaxing. He is super stressed over the construction we have in progress. He has been here for over a month, way longer than usual, and sees no end in sight. I'm still at my sister's because the place isn't habitable for me yet. Sigh.

Sheryl, good luck with Mr S.

Hec, I hope you are able to get JZ hydrated. Tons of ~ma for both of you.

I liked this essay about the proper size of a social network:

[link]

Hmmmm, I have strong opinions about how people aren’t psychologically or physiologically supposed to maintain a trillion friends - it’s why I keep my FB so locked to only people I know in person *and* who actively participate in conversations. And even that can be a reach in terms of just how much passionate interest I can hold for the lives of so many people I’m fond of.

But I think that essayist missed the main point of Twitter. It’s not a “social” network. I mean, you can meet people there the way you meet someone in a coffee shop and strike up a conversation, sure. But the way most of the people I know there use it is as a way to comment or opine or live tweet a TV show or whatever - without really caring if someone responds (I have never gotten an adrenaline rush from someone liking or responding to my tweets - and I don’t particularly even like having back and forths there for more than one or two replies). I purposely rarely follow friends there. I use FB for friends.

I follow lots and lots of strangers, some of them since 2008, and many of us have “parasocial” relationships in that we enjoy each other’s quips and opinions, but we aren’t actually involved emotionally. And I LOVE that because dude I cannot take on more friendships than I already have - I am already always feeling like I’m not doing enough to keep the friendships I do have going - and I do blame social media for that - it artificially spreads us too thin.

But mainly, Twitter has been *the* way to see what’s happening in the (granted, mainly online) world. And THAT is what’s being truly lost as everyone scatters to the twelve new places that have popped up in the last year. That’s what EM has absolutely ruined, I think purposefully (but that’s another tangent…).

The thing it reminds me of is how everyone used to watch the same four networks, and thus had a shared experience and generally knew the same shows (or at least was aware of them), got the same references, etc. Before cable and streaming sent us into a multitude of scattered places, each skewing narrower and narrower until we all exist in our own tiny little worlds which are limited to people who have overlapping interests and generally sing the same tune.

Back when, as my friend dream likes to say “Twitter was good”, it was a shared experience in that you could generally see what was trending, what the memes were, follow the breaking news, and get the pop culture references. Twitter democratized (where else could you reply directly to incredibly famous people and sometimes get a reply?) and connected folks in a way I hadn’t seen in decades. BUT even more important- significantly more important- you could follow respected news outlets and get news as soon as it broke, and generally know what was going on in the world anytime you wanted to check (assuming you followed more than just USA twitter handles).

Most of this is before 2015 kind of ruined everything. Once TFG announced he was running for POTUS, the dark side of twitter was unleashed and it became more and more about doom-scrolling. And now, due to all the Musk fuckery, it’s ten percent what it once was, as it’s taken over by bots and Nazis and Musk fuckboys.

Twitter was my absolute favorite online space for 15 years. I’ve made some dear friends there, I’ve learned a TON by following smart and insightful and funny people. And I really miss it. Nothing else online is anywhere near what it was in its heyday (for me).

On the other hand, I have a lot more free time now that I’m not reading twitter first thing in the morning and last thing before sleep and all through the day. :P

(I didn’t intend to go on this long about that website but this is the first time I’ve spent the time to try to articulate just what I miss about it. And I’m annoyed by people like that essayist who dismissed the importance of the site - especially as a way for marginalized and forgotten people to finally get the attention they deserve in terms of so many things. But again, that’s another tangent.)

Yeah. All those "touch grass' people don't understand how hard it is to be social, and/or network when you can't(or at least, not easily) Vaccine Fairy might have saved my life, too, dubious gift as that seems sometimes, because vaxing was another place where the System that wants to control us so much was fucking useless and some thoughtful geeks helped us nab the vax slots. Can I get some more health-ma for Mom on Monday?(When I asked before, I didn't realize appointments were weeks out.) Honestly, you guys, as stoic as my mother is is how much I feel out of muddle-thruvium...if we have to handle too much else, I don't think I can. Sometimes I wish I could full-on lose my shit and wake up thinking I'm Rachel from Friends on her way to Bloomingdale's--this reality has never liked me anyway and I'm the worst overcomer ever, even if I'm not getting ready to be fifty-going-on-fifteen which I also hate, no matter how good it makes me at outreach with the yutes.(it does, but I'm never sure if I'm *empathetic* or *arrested*...yes, right?)