Procrastinators unite...tomorrow

Facebook has got to have the least helpful 'Help' facility in existence. Gone are the days you could buck them a brief email, get an automated reply and then be talked patiently through your problem by a nice chap or chapette...or did I dream that?

I love Facebook, my favourite waste of time it is, but it seems to have a growing hatred for me. I'm going to speak completely from my own tangled subjective point of view here but I reckon it lacks a certain etiquette-I see little general courtesy there. It's easy to forget a) how public it is and b) that these are real people, supposedly your friends who, like you are lurking behind screens and monitors and feeling just as paranoid and in need of validation as you are. It does breed paranoia. The more I use it the more isolated and cut off I somehow come to feel. How does that work? It's a bummer because I crave social interaction and lots of it. I love all the people in my life, and people I've known before and I hate loosing touch with people - but unfortunately I am crap at staying in touch despite how much I want to or mean to. I guess most of us are the same, aren't we? or am I wrongly buffing everyone with my metaphorical chamois?

All these methods of communication and us human beings - enigmas to ourselves that we are - still manage to make it more difficult than ever.

Sometimes I think that we all expect everyone else to make the effort, and we don't none of us take the initiative to try to meet anyone in the middle, so nobody connects with anyone; and the universal paranoia pandemic disembles too - someone reaches out to us and what do we do? We gasp and wring our hands and wonder what their (ulterior) motive might be. We hide, and in so doing we reject that outstretched hand. Talk yourself out of it by convincing yourself it's not really there to start with. Maybe it's the same psychology that makes us assume every car hooter being honked is directed at us or makes us nervous at the sight of a policecar in our rear view mirrors or crushes us with self conciousness whenever we are faced with airport security. Maybe it's feelings of inadequacy, conscience, guilt - I don't know. I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore...

I guess that's the appeal for me though - having that point of contact because I am genuinely interested in you and although I don't expess it very well and I often get distracted and I'm often very busy, I do care and I will check in on you from time to time because I would like you to be in my life - even if 'virtually' is all we can muster at this time. Is it that people like that don't believe that people like that really exist? Well, relax and enjoy the fact because it's true. Bakebook, Disgracebook - call it whatever - I love because (and I hope this doesn't sound cold) it centralises people. I don't mind being centralised myself, not if it keeps us all together in a seamless circle.

I'm obsessed aren't I?

A lot of people are getting frustrated with it at the moment and deleting themselves. That's fair enough - their choice. You'll probably think I'm mental, but see when somebody comes off my friends list I can't settle until I know who it was. Yep, and what's more I usually have the prodigal identified pretty quick. I also further accept this may be another manifestation of my ever escalating OCD problem and I should maybe discuss it with a professional. I know how nutty it sounds, I remember discussing it with my friend Erica a while ago and she reckoned I should just learn to chill out about it. This is exactly like the coffee mug incident (I have this bright yellow flourescant mug -you can't miss it- and it suddenly occured to me at 3 am one night that I hadn't seen it for a while and so to the kitchen I went to hoke out all the cupboards until I found it. See, this is why it's better I live alone, that and the snoring and the bursts of violent emotion I'm prone to when I'm trying to concentrate) .

You know what this is really all about? What's squatting on my happiness today? I've just got so many issues going on with 'the man' at the moment. I'm locked in mortal combat with 'Amalgamated Breadheads' in many of his infinite guises - NIE, former employers, Phoenix gas, management comittees, citizens advice - the list goes on. It seems that everywhere I turn there's another fight standing there waiting for me and I'm tired and I don't want to have to deal with it all any more.

...and I still haven't really brought you up to speed, I'm bad; and even though I'm lying on the sofa to write this I still feel like my feet are slipping over the ice from when I had to go out for a slide up and down Ormeau Road earlier. Miracle I didn't end up on my ear in that weather.

Apologies for what I'm sure is atrocious spelling and grammar tonight.