What’s this all about?

I have decided after much deliberation to kill my Facebook account. We have all thought about it at some point and some of us have even DONE it, to varying degrees of success. Whether it be the raged out “Fuck him/her/everyone!” method or the more common casualty to the constant privacy settings adjustments, we all have our reasons.

I have seriously considered this many times over the years, but what usually stops me are the people who I communicate with exclusively through facebook. I wondered “but what about what’s his nuts or who’s her tits that I used to hang out with?” and how many good times said individual and I had over the years. How would I carry on without my worktime chat buddies or my endless supply of friend minutia that is the news feed? But then…I thought about it again.

What about all those 3am drunken chat sessions, embarrassing posts, and ofcourse the friending fests that come only when one is surveying the human wreckage that is their social life. I probably wouldn’t miss those. I am not one to worry about what future employers think about what I put on facebook, as I work for myself. But as time goes along and the less interwebs savvy become hip to “that there facebook thing” I have gathered some family members, clients, and people I generally prefer to communicate with in controlled circumstances, not willy-nilly as the FB allows. This on top of the privacy lunacy (like there is such a thing as privacy on the internet!) never ending political flame wars I prefer not to see, and certainly the TMI moments we get just about everyday from people we are “friends” with. Nope. Fuck it. It’s too close for missles, I’m switching to guns.

So here is my plan: I have exactly 200 friends as of today (4/2/11) and I am going to unfriend one friend a day for the next 200 days. I will write a little post about said friend and post a screen grab of their profile page (obscuring any relevant stalker info for their “privacy”) and then ceremoniously shit can our FB relationship. I am not going to set up an order for who gets canned in what order other than that the last person on my friends list will be Drew, my faithful Hetero Life Partner and fellow evil-doer. Other than that it is up to my mood and discretion, which if you know me at all is a wobbly, wobby mire o’ muck to predict. I will be posting a link everyday to the next casualty (on the day after) on my newsfeed, so those who are getting unfriended can have the added benefit (or dismay) of reading what I think about them and maybe hit me up with some contact info if they want I should talk to them still.

As a beginning I will post a link to this blog entry to my facebook, so that those who might not wish to be subject to this can opt out (see FB I learned something from you, always Opt Out, never opt in!) that being said I may not actually have 200 friends by the time I start this, all the same 200 days is my deadline.

OK! I appreciate you reading and if you made it this far you maybe one of the last ones I let go. Comment if you please, I won’t expect it, but it is always an added bonus.

Cheers,

Curt “your soon-to-be-ex-FBfriend” Fitzpatrick

Slapshot fatlip

Dear Kristie,

Man it has been years. I keep meaning to get out to one of your fights or atleast touch base with you but I think I am suffering from acute social retardation. I know you are a freakishly busy lady as well so that doesn’t help. I am sure it will happen at some point, just a matter of when.

I can’t remember exactly when I first met you, but I am willing to bet it was shooting hockey pucks on the street. The first thing I though was “is that a girl out there shooting?!” the second thought was “holy shit, that broad can skate!”. I was always a fairly terrible skater and puck handler, like Frankenstein on wheels. But I remember playing around with you pretty much forced me to be better. I also recall living vicariously through your hockey play exploits as there was no way I could play given my lack of experience in the game. I remember us working on your wrist and slap shot, not to mention shooting hoops, chopping wood, tossing a baseball around, pretty much any kind of sport like activity. It was a pretty good time from what I can recall.

I think I pretty much lost track of you in highschool. We moved, and then I started to go to central a lot. Then I graduated and ran from Parchment like it was on fire. BUT, I did follow you from afar. Even though the internet was just really getting wide acceptance I remember one of my first searches in google (after I gave up on altavista) was for “Kristie Tafil + Hockey”. I think you were playing in Minnesota, and I remember being surprise that you weren’t playing for the men’s team. The way you used to make those kids fall over at the Annex made me fairly certain there was no way you weren’t going to do the same to them at the higher levels. But well, sexism being what it is, I kinda knew that it was unlikely. Frankly, I think it was kind of unfair to the other ladies you were playing with. If you could push a guy my size on his ass that easily, one shutters to think what would happen to a 5’ 120lb lady. I talked a lot about hockey and sports because I cannot think of them without you being part of that thought.

I know it probably all sounds corny, but after talking to you recently I had a pretty big sense of pride in you. After all the shit you have been through, and all the millions of hurdles in your way, you have become quite an admirable person, though I think I never doubted that would happen. It seemed very fitting to me that you now work for KPS, and I remember when I was heading through parchment one day, and I was certain I saw you in a squad car, my first though was that it probably wasn’t you. But then, I though OFCOURSE it was you!

We have chatted a little on here, but I assume unlike me, your live is busy doing more meaningful things than hanging out on fb. In either case I am going to send you my email address, and badger you for yours. One way or another we will get together and play the remember when game, and you can fill me in on all the cool shit you have done over the years.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

MiniMonkey HO!

Hey Zach,

My ol’ minimonkey assistant. You are probably the youngest friend I have on here, and a guy that is rather savvy on the interwebs, so that means a few things. One: even when I unfriend you if you wanted to track me down I could not escape even if I were so inclined. Two: You are constantly meeting oodles of people so one friend off your facebook profile will have very little effect. And finally 3: I met you earlier on in your life, so I may have done just enough damage to your brain to give you a hankering for it for the rest of your days.

You being young also makes it difficult to tell how smart you are. I mean you pick things up like you have been doing it for years, and you talk and carry yourself in much the same manner as friends of mine who are twice your age. At this point I just assume that is how they are making kids, well one half of them anyways. That is the other thing, so many kids I meet lately are morons. I mean the level of brazen stupidity amongst the kids I encounter makes me want to move into the woods and build a bunker to avoid the inevitable apocalypse that will happen when one of them gets elected to higher office. On the bright side it makes you look like Einstien/Dalai Lama. Which may be accurate, I guess we will just have to see.

I know you are like in the jungles of Thailand right now, doing your thing so you may not get this, but I will probably see you on gchat and give you the link anywho. I am already following your blog and keeping up with stuff there, and obviously you are ever-present in my gchat, so yeah. You get the boot, but well you know where I be.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

It's a Jersey thing

Dear Ann Marie,

You and Matt are gittin’ hitched! Now I have to admit when I first heard about this my reaction was “aren’t they already?” this is not because I haven’t been paying attention, but more that I just assumed marriage had happened while you guys were sleeping or something, like by osmosis or some such.

When I first met you I was uber apprehensive. Matt means a whole hell of a lot to me, and I have a tendency to be disliked universally by my friends girlfriends. I guess it is mostly due to me being an asshat, so I just had to kind of cross my fingers and hope.

I will say first off that it wasn’t a true test of my abilities as your accent immediately disarmed me. It’s funny when they do Jersey accents on tv they are grating and annoying for the most part. But yours was just pure charm. I know that is a rather shallow thing for me to say, but I am willing to admit I have a weakness for accents, and I assume most people do.

That being set aside, the way you reflected in Matt. I have known the guy for a spell, and with the time he had been gone I had kind of crystallized his memory in my head, so when I saw him again with you there was a noticeable tint to his personality. I was already pretty sold on Matt, but the softening in his character wears well on him.

You are incredibly funny, and also in possession of a great character…not to say you are a character, but I am fairly sure you played off some of that character for the little spell I got to hang around you. You and I never connected on here really, but since you are getting all hitched to my buddy, you are irreparably linked to me for the foreseeable so, unfriending is no biggie. All that said, I loath me some weddings, but I am going to try my damnedest to get out there to see you guys get it done. Even if I do miss the chance I will definitely be visiting you all sometime in the near future, I need to try me some more NY soonish, after all, you guys are there, and there is pizza everywhere.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Swashbuckled

Dear Sarah,

I am pretty sure you are the only member of the Lee’s Honor College to speak to me, ever. Not that the rest of my friends are stupid, far from it, but one would expect a person of you education to have better sense when it comes to choosing who you talk to. I have to admit being in class together was a pretty big bright spot for me. It was kind of like talking to someone from another country. I know that sounds weird, but your personality, diligence, intelligence and candor coupled with your freakish interest in honest-to-goodness nerdy stuff blew my mind.

Girls claiming to be nerdy has become so pervasive that memes have sprouted up mocking the trend. But you my dear, you are a nerd in the best possible sense. You are smart and dedicated to your studies and potential career. Your interests include; dressing up in fancy garments, helping out illin’ varmints, and climbing faux summits. You like sci-fi, you wear functional clothing, you laugh and smile with abandon. These things to me put you in the highest order of nerd, which is a distinction worth respect.

I was pretty damn nerdy myself growing up, sadly I have become far too traditional these days to still lay claim to the title. But its meeting people like you that give me wonderful flashes of what it was like, and make the posers with their ironic shirts, huge glasses, skinny jeans and sissy hair seem all that more ridiculous. I will greatly miss following your news feed as I have enjoyed many of the items you have posted, but hopefully we can find another way for me to steal some of your awesomeness.

In anycase I assume someday your maker movement personality will take over and you will be building and curating some massive collection of the worlds coolest shit. This is obviously not to mention the skills you possess as an artist, which as always are rather stunning.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Rawrrawr...er hem.

Dear Sarah,

Whup Dude! SO, way back in the school days, I remember distinctly seeing your drawing of a spider, and one of a Marlboro pack. They were dark, and aggressive, and pretty awesome. Much like your cohorts of the Coven, you are fairly impossible to nail down for any significant amount of time. You out in public life seems such a strange contrast from what I remember in school. You almost always seemed about half asleep, and barely present. Now knowing a little about your social life, it all becomes clear. But back then I just assumed you were the typical, apathetic, gloomy art student. Your work seemed to back this up, at least the gloomy part.

You have this kind of dynamic energy to you. Obviously these are just my impressions, which are admittedly limited, but here we go. I think first of all most of the magnetism your personality displays has something to do with that aggression in your art work. When you talk and interact you are fast and sleek, quick with laughter, but it always has a kind of hidden meaning to it. One never quite knows if you are laughing with them or at them. That kind of uncertainty tends to draw me in. I like a challenge in conversation, and more often than not you seem more than fit for the task of verbal combat.

I have probably spend more time seeing you float around a room than actually talking to you. You tend to sprinkle the room with conversation, like a permanent hostess to a party that is everywhere. I know I will be around this again and again, but it never really stops being entertaining, if not occasionally frightening.

Our Facebook interactions have been fairly tame as can be expected in contrast to the IRL talking. I like seeing what the coven is up to and as you are the last on my list of the group I will no longer be privy to all your various escapades. I guess this means I will have to go out more to witness them in the first person, and I am pretty ok with that. I fully expect the entire Coven to show up at the Unfriending Party in October, since given the rather pedestrian nature of most of my friends we will need a little spice to the mix.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Flutterby

Dear Caitlin,

While immediately I am not too worried about removing you from my Facebook because I see you fairly frequently, I know it is probably only a matter of time before you quit this town and disappear. This gives me pause, but all the same, everyone has a time, and yours is today.

I first saw you when you used to come in to the café in the am. I am now assuming this was before class. I never spoke to you because you always seems so immersed in your work. I thought at the time that you were just really diligent in your studies, but as you have now informed me most of the time it was cramming, which endeared you to me a little more.

I didn’t speak to you until I saw you with Sarah, so I had an excuse to be cavalier about meeting someone new. If I remember correctly its was a brief encounter, but the tone was set, and now I was free to nod at you to my heart’s content whenever I saw you around.

You are a hard one to sum up. Everytime I have come into contact with you, you seem like you have somewhere to be, as if you are constantly in high demand elsewhere. Conversely, you always seem eager to converse, and when I am talking to you, you seem 100% engaged in the conversation. For a guy like me it’s a flummoxing experience. I am the type of guy who gets all butt-hurt when someone answers their phone while I am talking to them. As antiquated as that feeling might be these days, I can’t really help myself. The overall effect of this is that I never quite know what to do with my hands when I am talking to you. I fidget, and talk in spurts of babble, and oneliners as the next moment you may have to rush off somewhere else. What this ends up meaning is, when we see one another it is just a download of random information and pleasantries, then it is off to something else.

The impression I get from you is that you are a fiercely caring, and warm person. You clearly put others before yourself time and time again, and your world view is of the “most people are inherently good” vein. When I have managed to corner you for a more dedicated conversation, the feeling I get is that I am the only person in the world, and that you are honestly interested in what I am saying, and what that means. It is sort of intoxicating as conversation goes, kind of makes it tough to walk away from when all is said and done. I have stretched out conversations with you that I should have let die, because you had somewhere else to be, it’s embarrassing for me to be that interested in talking, but I am ok with it.

In either case it has been interesting, and I am sure that I will continue to see you about town for the time being, now I just have to make an effort to actually talk to you in a manner that is more conducive to my method of communicating. Perhaps flash cards?

Our facebook interaction has been more or less the typical “hey whattayadoin” half drunken nonsense I have come to expect from myself, so I assume we can both live without that. I have other means of contacting you, so the loss is not too traumatic.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Crawfish still scare me.

Dear Rachael,

I debated whether or not I should write this as it seems that everyone down there in NOLA has no idea what this whole thing is. But instead I will try to first summarize the idea, then proceed with the unfriending. I have given up on facebook, and I am getting rid of my account. I wanted a way to do so that would encourage friends on my list to find alternative ways to keep in contact, or if nothing show them that I wasn’t unfriending them for anything they did, or hard feelings or what not. Its just a thing, its silly in a lot of ways, but as sincere as I could make it.

That being said, I have the benefit of having Timothy as a connection between you and I. So long as Timothy and I are buddies, so shall we be (I am willing to wager that isn’t terribly comforting, but well, I do what I can:).

When I first heard Timothy was married I kind of took a step back. Not to say I never thought him as the marrying type, it is just that it was kind of an indicator / wake up call for how long it had been since I had spoken to him. In that time he had managed not only to meet a lady he loved, but one that he loved so much as to make it official. No matter who it is, that is a big step in one’s life so I knew I had to meet you.

I assume before we met Timothy did his best to prepare you for what I am like. It is always a crap shoot with me whether or not I will be liked. I have a personality that tends to rub some people the wrong way, and a lot of those traits are amplified when I am around Timothy because I feel more comfortable with myself. First and foremost I have to say you are leaps and bounds the nicest person I have met south of the Mason-Dixon line. I have heard so much about southern hospitality, but more often than not it was a sarcastic reference to the backwards nature of exchanges between Yankees and southerners.

The first visit I came down there I was a fucking bitchy, whiney mess. You by all means should have just told me to go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut, but instead you did your best to make sure I was comfortable. Dispite what I assume must have been a trying experience of having some dude all moaning and miserable on your couch for a few days, you made it look effortless.

You have provided me with countless laughs, and ofcourse beverages. You helped me branch out a little in the exploration of the French Quarter (well as far as I could handle anyways) and you were a phenomenal representative for your home. I do hope to make it down there again (perhaps when the heat won’t peel the flesh from my bones) and maybe do a better job of being a visitor. While for the most part I haven’t seen many things on your news feed that are relatable to me, your postings about people you care about in trouble speaks volumes to how much you care for those close to you. I hope that someday I will be able to be part of that circle, even if it is from a distance.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Comms Superiority

Dear Sean,

I wonder if you have taken over the Comms. world yet? The first thing I noticed about you when I started working for STAND was that you were universally liked by everyone. Being myself a somewhat polarizing character I always find this phenomena rather amazing. Most people tend to either really like me, or really dislike me. Though over the years I think I have become more of a “meh” on the feelings scale to most folks since I have toned down my antics. Once I did finally meet you in person I got it though. You are diligent in your work, crass when the situation warrants it, and above all a person that focuses on the needs of others over your own.

While I tend to see people with those traits as having dubious motivations for their behavior, you came off as completely genuine. I did not work with you nearly as much as I did the ladies, but while working with them you were one of the only areas where consensus was as much a given as a period at the end of a sentence. We would argue our way through materials, plans, and opinions, but when all that was finished it was off to Sean, like putting a baby to sleep.

I do miss the good ol’ days of STAND as I have said countless times, but it could be a nightmare somedays, and thankfully you were around to make at least one thing simpler. I have not seen much on your facebook which didn’t pertain to one cause or another and I think that again speaks to your concern for others. Most of us have a news feed clogged with copious amounts of self-centered “me me me” posts and the myriad of ham-fisted attempts at validation for our actions. I am sure you aren’t a superhuman, but you certainly make a good case for Facebook being used appropriately.

I don’t think I have chatted with you on facebook since STAND but, I always have you in my gchat list for whenever I need help with something. Really, if it wasn’t for the slew of you STANDanistas populating my google account, who would I turn too? Either way, I will continue to follow your career, and hopefully someday work with you again someday to give some merit to the little pictures I make for a living.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Yup, whatever dude.

Hey Chunky!

You are by far the most consistently NO BULLSHIT human being I have ever come across. You do not mince words, and are funny as fuck when you want to be. I remember first meeting you when I was working with Dave doing landscaping and catch all construction stuff. He said “Tomorrow you are gonna be working with this guy Chunky that works with us from time to time, just a heads up.” I remember hearing the nickname and picturing in my head some Neanderthal hayseed with a tendency towards violence and sister fucking. So you can understand my surprise when I met you in person. Working with you was pretty awesome. Most guys who work with their hands fall into three categories; Hardass,Slacker, and Grunt. The Hardass is the type of guy who always is always sweating and more often than not pissed off. He will bitch consistently about the efforts of others and frequently is the one who ends up walking off the job due to the “lack of professionalism” of the other members of the crew. The Slacker also bitches about the efforts of others but usually in the “slow down dude, we are getting paid by the hour”. Where the Hardass lives by the motto “do it my way as it is the right way” the slacker constantly experiments with the tried and true methods to try to find the way to do something that is the absolute minimum effort. This often results in more time spent experimenting than actually working. The Hardass spends so much time making sure everything is done his way that he often ends up being a middle management figure, as opposed to being a productive worker. The Grunt is for the most part in the middle and does a bulk of the work. I think you fall into this latter category. You will let the Slacker and the Hardass run their mouths all they want, but at the end of the day you know how to get your shit finished, and their horseshit is basically background noise, like the ever-present 80’s / 90’s rock music. You do this in part I believe because you know full well that this fucking job ain’t your life. It’s a job, when you are done with the days work there is beer and relaxing to be had, so who gives a shit about bitching and splitting hairs. Not to say you never bitched. We all do our fair share of bitching. But from what I noticed the only time you bitched is when one of the other two types started fucking with your workflow. I kind of picture the phrase “Take your bullshit somewhere else, I am trying to work here” coming out of you frequently.

Aside from that you and I have had quite a few good counter chats, and every time I see you I feel like talking to you, which might not sound like much, but trust me it’s kind of a big deal in my world. Our Facebook relations have been more or less nonexistent, which is as it should be. I prefer catching up to you in person, and facebook seems kind of laughable in comparison. All that said, I will certainly see you around town, and hopefully smoke and coffee some more in the years to come.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Logically...

Hey Jason,

You know somehow I thought I would have seen you again by now. Either I would have come out there or you would have visited here (which you may have). For some reason I have not had the chance. I have been watching a lot of startrek lately on Netflix. I know you must be wondering what that has to do with anything, well here goes. I have always struggled to classify what it is about your personality that made me like talking to you so much. And I think startrek has helped me here. In the startrek world there always seems to be atleast one or two ballast characters. Be it holographic doctors, or Vulcan navigation officers, androids, or what have you these characters are a the happy median balance of the crew. They are always cordial, thoughtful, and precise in their speaking. While they tend on the whole to be rather unemotional, it is not because they lack them, it is more that they play their emotions close to their vest. When other folks are on other ends of the spectrum you were always a great, reliable beacon of calm. I have pushed your buttons a few times to see if you would react, and a couple of times you did, but I counted it a success when your temper rose slightly above tepid, so it was a small victory.

In either case, all Trekkie nonsense aside, I do very much miss that. You were an extreme rarity at the café, a great sounding board, and a cool head. While a majority of the people there (myself included) were more or less shit tossing primates. I will obviously make my way to the big city someday; I just hope I can do it before you and Emily forget who the hell I am.

I don’t think we have chatted on facebook, and I am fairly sure you never use it, or do so infrequently, so no biggie in losing that. I will be catching up with you on the flipside.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Nice Fabric Choices

Dear Allison,

You are the one reason I wish I would have worked more on my Kowerk project. It would have been wonderful to see what you could have done with the space. The ideas you had, and the amount of effort you put into your ideas actually made me rethink if I was professional enough to move forward on the project, which I assure you is a good thing.

When I first met you in class you were a fairly unassuming character. You were stationed at a table of ladies that more or less embodied all I dislike in college, but you stuck out by not sticking out. I remember your mask project in that class was something else. That class aside, seeing you in the hallway of one of my other classes in Kohrman was a highlight of my day. I was always kind of panicked about it. I felt like maybe I was breaching some form of college protocol; just because I talked to you in one class does not mean I am permitted to engage you in a hallway setting. In any case you were nice to me, though I suspected for a majority of the time you did not know my name.

That is kind of how college goes anyways, we need not know each other’s name, “guy from 2d” or “chic from arthistory” suffice in most cases. It is kind of weird to me seeing you on fb and in person, versus what I saw in school. In school you always seemed so polished and proper. For lack of a better term rather preppy. But in person you are a rather organic type of person, quick with a smile and kind. The kind of person you would want to see if you were having a bad day, or maybe hurt yourself somehow. I think this is one of the cases where Facebook was a benefit to me. Were it not for facebook I am fairly sure I would have known very little else about you, or would have never contacted you again outside of school.

Colorado seems like a state made for you. I remember talking to you about places you would like to be, and that place really does have you covered. It’s weird, of all the folks I have known that have gone out there, you seem like the person who could be from there. Open spaces, mountains, nature, beauty…yup that’s you alright.

In anycase, while I will not be seeing you around anymore, I will most definitely be shooting you the occasional email just to see what’s doin. I venture I will want to visit Colorado one day, and if I do I will put you on notice as one of the legs of my tour. I will certainly miss your news feed updates, but I assume at somepoint you will have a website, so I guess I will just have to wait.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Show-Nuff

Dear Rich,

You know you and I never spent much time together. We never really made plans to go anywhere and do anything. But I know this I always had a good time talking to you and there never was a time where that happened that I did not laugh. You always have a smile on your face, and even if you were having a pisser of a day, you talked about it in way that made me crack up.

You kind of remind me of someone I should be related too. I mean the red hair, the pale complexion that always seemed to be tinted red with some form of exertion or another (I think to think it was the effort of suppressing the urge to strangle morons, which is something I can relate too). You are a good drinker, and make for some of the best passing remarks one could hope for.

All this and not to mention the depths of your geek-minutia knowledge. If ever I felt old, or weird, or just plain out of place for some random 80s reference, there you were to not only laugh at the joke, but probably one up me on my weirdness. An example:

Counterperson: “…these kids were like somekind of weird cult that worships 4loko.”

Me: “Sort of like the Berenstain Bears of the ghetto.”

Rich: “Nah I saw em, they are more like the Monchichis.”

This would be followed by blank stares from everyone at the counter, punctuated by you and I laughing and probably a couple of “jesus” comments thrown in. Its not easy getting older, and its even harder to feel like you are socially relevant to anyone under the age of 30, but luckily for us there are a few of us out there that can still talk like we are 14 sitting around a table of maps and dice drinking mellow-yellow.

I don’t know how much I will be seeing you around since I don’t tend to get out much, but I think the next time I see you I am going to make you sit down and play the “How big a nerd are you” game with me for a spell.

We have never used facebook, but it has been a blessing seeing your news feed that is often filled with the type of humor that seems tailor made for me. I will certainly miss this, and will have to comb through it all before the unfriending and cull all of your website sources. It won’t be much of a substitute, but hopefully there will be more in person interaction to back it up.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Leadership...it happens

Dear Scott,

Man it has been for ever since I contacted you. Way back when I started with STAND it was always a mixed bag of projects and deadlines. On occasion we would have those late night, quasi-booze fueled conversations about life, and by life I mostly mean girls and work (which at STAND those things were often one and the same).

I remember when I first met you in person my first though was that you were far too tall to be so young. Being the fossil I was at STAND, it seemed like everyone was atleast a decade younger than me. I mean I had Hampybags to keep me company, but he couldn’t hold my hand all the time. You were great because you carried yourself more like a full-fledged grown up than I ever have. You also had that wonderful talent where when you said something it sounding like it came from years of experience (even if it was self-admittedly bullshit). And well, there was the tall thing, and having a 5 o’clock shadow at noon.

My strongest memory of you or I has to be the “Night STAND almost ended” as it came to be known. It was you. There were three or four of us walking back to the apartment after some meeting, and it was ridiculously hot, it got up to like 100 degrees that day. It was so hot in fact that were we all kind of in auto-pilot mode, wandering through the streets of DC, which if ever there was a town where you needed to be on your toes, it’s DC. Anyhow, we were all chatting and bitching about some form of STAND drama or another, just kinda zoning out. In my head what happened went like this. You were walking infront of me with Maggie and you guys were kind of droning on about something or other and I was kind of just watching the back of your heads. We came up to an intersection, it was one of those DC intersections, a cluster fuck of like 8 streets converging on this crosswalk gauntlet. We had crossed one street and were waiting for the walk sign to change over. Just standing there, sweating, and staring and the little red hand waiting for the little walky dude to pop up. When the sign said walk, we all started walking into the street. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of lights, and my hand instinctively went up in front of me. Then with a WHOOSH! this SUV roared past our faces, about two inches from our noses. We all just stood there for a second. Stunned. We started to cross again, and about 5 steps on the other side of the street, we all kind of stopped independently from one another. I remember one of us saying something like “holy…SHIT!” and then the lights came back on in our heads and we all realized just how close we all came to dying. I looked down and my hands were shaking like crazy, and I felt kind of a rush of panic. That SUV had to have been going atleast 40 miles an hour. If we had taken one more step, that would have been it. Road pizza out of all of us. Jesus. Then someone said, “I know this sounds bad, but could you imagine what would have happened to STAND if all three of us got whacked?” That’s when the laughing started. The kind of laughing one does when the only other expression available to express what you are feeling is to shit your pants, and fall to the ground. While I am unsure if it would have indeed been the “End of STAND” it would most certainly have been the end of STAND for all of us, and would have put a severe damper on the rest of the retreat festivities moving forward.

I recount this long story, which you really had to be there to get the feeling for it, simply to illustrate a point. The leadership, and atmosphere that you had created (for me specifically anyways) kind of made me think of STAND first and foremost, and I am fairly sure most of us on the MC back then felt that way. Foregoing sleep, school work, our occupations, we were driven to make sure the organization, and its larger purpose succeeded. I think a lot of that was due to you. I always felt like if I did my job properly, and diligently, it would give you ammunition when you were representing us to the world of people out there that could help us achieve our goals.

I don’t really know how much of this is nostalgia, and how much is fact. But I still feel convinced that someday I will be voting for you, and have more hope in the action that I have in a majority of my life.

In anycase, you have my email, and obviously a backlog of a bazillion gchats and mail chains if every you need something, or just want to play the remember when game. Our Facebook relationship was really just a standard thing and we never really did much with it. But I guess on the bright side of things, I had an excuse to write this.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Click, whrrrrrrr, click.

Hey Natasha,

Every once in a while I come across some kid that has talent. My first reaction to this is jealousy, usually closely followed by some form of admiration. When I first saw the work you do, I was fairly certain I was dealing with a college grad. Since I was pointed in your direction from a fellow STAND member it seemed to fit pretty well.

Once I found out you were actually in HS, I was pretty shocked. I mean most kids in highschool can barely tie their shoes correctly, let alone put professional level work together. The first thing that popped into my mind was “Man, I have got to help this girl get her stuff out there.” Though to be honest judging from the level of skill in what you were doing, you really would not need my help to get noticed, it was only a matter of time.

In any case I have followed along with the work you have been doing (along with the drawings and other non-photography based stuff) and am comforted to know you are on a path to make a pretty good impact on the art world. I am lucky enough to have had you like the little logo I did for you, and in all honesty that logo ranks among my favorites out of the hundreds that I have done over the years.

I know you will go on to do good stuff, and I will be keeping an eye on your website for updates on your career. It has been a pleasure seeing the development of your talents, I wish you the best in making a living at it.

Having you on my Facebook friends list has by and large been a selfish thing. I just like looking at artsy stuff, so it has been more or less one sided. I should have prolly stopped sooner as I now have your website for that. In any case, as I said, I know you will do well going forward, so I won’t (and I assume you won’t either) lose any sleep over it.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Team Collegetown

Dear Andrea,

I think when I first started talking to you it all seemed possible. You were far away and all, and I definitely was drawn to you. Talking on the gchat, and email, and phone and all made me feel all warm and fuzzy. But I think the main thing that was going on in my head was I knew that if I were to have a chance with you I would have to be a far better man, or at least be willing to try.

It’s not that I thought that you thought I wasn’t good enough, it was that the more I knew about you the more my brain told me “the person I am now is not up to snuff for this”. This isn’t as tragically self-deprecating as it may sound. I am pretty ok with who I am, and think I have few things to offer. I think this speaks to how highly I hold you as a person instead.

You are one hell of a lady, and just ridiculously intelligent and beautiful. It always kind of felt like a juggling act when talking to you. I just kept thinking that at any moment there would be some obvious fuck up on my end and you would see the difference in elevation. This is all sounding pretty juvenile and high-schooly, so I am going to put that part of it to bed.

I would really like to see you in action at your chosen field. Being that the health care system, and more specifically the preventative medicine / grass roots care push is encountering so much resistance. You being a bright and obviously kind hearted person, you atleast have the right tools to make a dent in the mess.

I obviously have other means of contacting you if ever that feels like a good idea to you again, so this whole lack of fb won’t mean much (you don’t update much anyways). I greatly enjoyed our talks, and maybe at somepoint we can give it another go.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

OMG is it Caturday already!!!!

Dear Keely,

So this is nothing terribly new here, but it is sorta. I have never spoken to you directly I think. I have certainly spoken to people who you were speaking to as well, but I am fairly confident that there was no overlap. That part isn’t new for the ol’ facebook, but what is new is that I have seen you in person countless times over many years. Yet, I have said nothing, or as close to nothing as I possibly could.

That being said here is kind of what you are to me (much of which has been validated in a few ways since we have become facebook friends and I have watched your news feed). You are kind of an idea / ideal. There is this thing I do (I really hope I am not the only one) where I watch someone from a far and start building this wholly internal storyline for them. Watching may not be an accurate term as it is more of an awareness of as opposed to a witness too. For years when you were with David and I saw you guys in the café it sort of blew my mind. It was one of those things you sometimes come across when wandering in the woods. You come across a group of animals by accident, freeze in your tracks, and kind of just marvel at seeing something in person that you had either only heard about, or see on The TV.

You guys were pretty effortlessly a couple for quite sometime, and I felt like things being how they are these days, it was something rather rare, singular even maybe. Now as I have said, this whole thing may have been conjured up in my idle, whirrlymagig mess of a brain, but I know no different really so that is what I saw.

I was never a huge fan of David, and I say this with a large amount of shame for that fact. He is by all accounts a pretty great guy (I mean literally no one ever said anything bad about him) but for some reason I just had a bone up my ass for him. He did date one of my exes, but really at that point it was a non-issue, and I think I may have dated one of his, but again, pretty sure it was a non-issue. But when I saw you two together, time and time again, I grew soft on the guy. I am still not buddy buddy with him, because lets be honest who the hell am I buddy-buddy with these days? But I do appreciate him more.

I know this is an awful lot of writing about your ex, but well in my head it is necessary back story for what comes next. Since you and Micheal have been together, it has been another one of those fairytale things, except this time I am actually privy (in a small facebook manner) to what is going on there in your life. I see the way you two interact, not only with eachother, but with other people. I watch that lightning-crackle back and forth that is common only between people who have a sincere and binding connection to one another. The new fantasy in my head in regards to you is the High-powered mutant cool/nerd kid you are about to make. One marvels at the sheer scope of nerd-dom this child will be exposed to, as if perhaps the birth is going to occur at a Comicon during the someodd anniversary of Star Wars right after they announce Firefly is going to be renewed and its special guest star will be the Mythbusters…yeah, like that, but more.

In any case I will sincerely miss watching the progression of this, but I really have no right to keep putting off the Unfriending. I am getting down to the half-way point, and probably should start to write more about people I have a history with, instead of people I have a fascination with.

In any case, I hope all goes well with the kid, and I swear if I see you guys out and about I will make an effort to actually make contact. That being said…

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Three generations...is that right?

Dear Jessica,

I was actually a pretty big fan of your mom. Even though I was not in her class (so far as I can remember) she was always nice to me on my frequent visits to the office. There were very few teachers that were nice to me, and this had a rather huge effect on me.Funny thing was I don’t think it was until much later that my defective brain put two and two together and saw that you were her kid. I mean you guys looked so much alike, and the last name, but somehow it just never clicked in my head. In either case our involvement with one another seemed mixed in my memory.

I don’t recall you being mean to me or vice versa, but I seem to think there was some form of mutual poking and teasing one another. I am sure whatever it was I had it coming (and I would be willing to bet you did as well).

Is it weird being a mom? Its kind of weird for me to think of you as one. Mostly because if it weren’t for your facebook, in my head you are still like 12 years old. The image I see of you when I think of you is that of either elementary or middle school. I see pictures of your kids on there and I know it is normal for kids to look like their parents (duh) but it is kind of uncanny seeing the resemblance. Much like how the way you look reminds me of your mom. Funny how we never really spent time around each other. I guess that is the thing with school, we grew up together more or less, but social circles being what they are, I guess that is just not how things work.

All my contact info it out there should you wanna have another night at harveys like a while back. It was fun to be out with folks I knew from way back when. I know you have a new baby that is probably eating up your time like crazy, but at somepoint I imagine you will need a break. When this somepoint happens let me know, we could try and assemble some of the other old folks together and have a couple hours of “grown-up” time playing the remember when game. While I am perpetually a single guy, without any kids, I can do my best to atleast be marginally entertaining.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Graffiti and stuff

Dear Deej,

Since you and I have started to work on getting a business card going for you I think now is as good a time as ever to close out our Facebook friendship. We are communicating through email now, and so I feel it will establish a more clean line of communication over the hacken-eyed mess that is facebook chat.

Back when you were at central I could never really put a finger on what your personality was like. I think one of the first things I felt was irritation. You reminded me of myself at that age, and being the self-loathing sort I was not terribly fond. I saw that you came from a similar upbringing, has similar talents, but also the inability to process emotions much as I did when I was in school. Brown told me that you reminded her of me and after that I couldn’t help but see it.

I think with you and I being in that class was an eye opener. Back before I was part of teaching that class, I was a student. I basically ended up there because my home school (parchment) had deemed me “not college bound” (this was actually printed on my student evaluation by the way. They sent me to the program because they wanted to get me out of their school for part of the day, and find someway of making me a productive citizen since I was not bound to be a college man. I got the feeling from early on that you were in a similar boat.

Not many people expected much from you, so you got placed somewhere out of the way, so that you might not bother the more upwardly mobile students. But, as a surprise to everyone, Brown took the worst of us and gave us a shot. I have followed your progress over the years, and fortunately for both of us you no longer resemble me at all. You have worked hard, and found a way to be a great guy that no one has anything bad to say about. I hope I had some small role in this, but as with many things, people become who they are through their own effort, not so much through someone else.

I will keep my eye on you as time goes by, as I wager you will be in town in much the same way I am. With all that said, I am after all in possession of all your contact info now, so I have no excuse not too keep the lines connected.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Classyglasses

Dear Kendra,

We never met did we? I think when I first came to contacting you I was busy running back and forth between Chicago and Kalamazoo, and basically decided that I have no business trying to be social. More likely however, it was more of a case that I failed to follow through on something and missed my chance at making a connection. I do that kind of thing rather frequently, procrastinate and then forget. I saw a message from you once sometime ago, but I put off responding until it became uncomfortable for me to write. I figured I kind of blew it outright and I shouldn’t belabor the point by trying to repair any mistakes I had made already.

One of our mutual friends gave you a rather ringing endorsement, and he just happens to be one of the few “no bullshit” people I would trust to for this kind of thing. I probably should have took it upon myself to make an effort, but as this blog is a running testament too, I am not very good at it.

In anycase, we have methods of contacting one another, and hopefully at some point I will consider myself in a good enough place to make the attempt again. I am fairly sure since my slow but inevitable withdrawal from the social circuit has made what little stock value I may have decline, but maybe with this whole backing away from facebook thing, I will be forced to put myself out there IRL more and try to become a real person instead of just a collection of links and quasi-pithy remarks.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Messy means its working

Dear Liz,

It has been a bit hasn’t it? I always kind of thought you would end up being a painter. I guess that is due in part to me thinking that everyone that goes to art school should be a painter if they have the chops for it. However as it turns out you have a talent for the dimensional.

I have followed along on your news feed with various incarnations of your sculpture and have seen them grow in concept as well as execution. I can’t help but wonder what they will look like when you have opportunity to devote all of your time to them, and not have the silly perfunctory school work to hold you back.

When we first met, you seemed just my type of school person. You had talent, and interest, but the school itself was basically an after thought. The “just take what I can and get out of here” approach to school. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I would have just stuck to it. I mean I am fairly comfortable with what I have chosen, but its seeing how your work has developed thanks to school and its environment that sometimes gives me pause. I wonder if some extra schoolin’ might have helped me as much. In any case I haven’t seen you in forever, and we don’t really associate on the Facebook anymore, so this has a kind of finality too it. But well, I am sure that it will be neigh on impossible to think that I won’t be seeing you again around town. If nothing else I am sure my various associates in the art world will be giving me updates when you start producing what I can only assume will be a mass of quality work.

It was a fun run, and I am hopeful that as time goes on we will bump into one another again.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Jewelry...and I am ok with that.

Hey Devin,

Being pretty much the only dude at Western that I didn’t want to beat the shit out of is a pretty high honor in my book. While there were a few teachers I like who were dudes, most the male students felt the need to have pissing contests with me on a daily basis. I know, I know, yeah I am an old dude wandering around a bunch of young bucks, but jesus, somedays I just had to smoke all day in the middle of the field to get some peace. Then there was you.

Laid back. I know this is a term to describe a lot of people, and often it is used as an underhanded way to say someone was harmless in that damp towel sort of way. But not with you. While I never directly saw you do anything bad, I could certainly sense that (much like myself) given the right motivation you would not hesitate drop gloves and say some cold shit. We had some good ol’ times in drawing class and out on the stoop at WMU. Though the daily run ins in the hallways were more indicative of our functioning associations. Quick 2 minute updates on the university shitstorms, various admissions about hating/failing a class, smoking, then right back into the fray.

It might not have seemed like much, but coming from a guy that spent the 2 previous years of school smoking by himself pretending he didn’t see the other smokers, it was a god send. I saw you recently which means you are still in town someplace, which means I will get to run into you again.

We have never really done the FB thing, so this all is really a formality, but well I kept you on here for a reason, which I stated above.

Shoot me an email next time you are rollin out somewhere, we can meet up and rehash silly shit from days gone by. If nothing else we can stand out side of a bar and chain smoke and pace like the good ol’ days.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Boom.

Dear Kristen,

Oh how I wish I could have bought you lunch that one time, it would have been super cool to do that being like a bazillion miles away, and maybe could have made me see like a much cooler dude than I am.

I very much enjoyed talking to you, and I know I have become a sucking online friend as of late, but well if it is any consolation I am a sucky IRL friend too from what I have been told. There are so many things about you that seem incongruent with what I loosely call “my view of the world”. You gots tattoos, pitbull(s), are vegan, like rollerderby, and have a fetish for bikes. Now normally, you through those things in a blender and try to serve it to me I assume its 100% shit-sandwich time. But inexplicably those things all sincerely represent facets of who you are, without pretense. I am SO fucking sick of hipsters, AND of people cracking on hipsters, and in general just the whole “lets just beat this hipster horse into the ground” thing it makes me vomit blood. But never the less, the media and interwebs has succeeded in making me hyper-aware of all the calling cards of the hipster sub-set. You my dear have some of those stripes, but you are an animal of a different color all together.

When we had our little afternoon chin wags whilst workin’ I actually felt like I had an office buddy. Someone to gossip with, and pull pranks with, and just in general be forces for good against the workaday hordes surrounding us. Reading you news feed has been great, but really it pales in comparison to gchatting about stupid shit in our day to day lives.

That being said, its not easy to unfriend you from here, but I have an alternative so I can’t really get all bitchy about it. It’s just that now, one or both of us have to actually make a small effort to keep up with whats what in eachothers lives. Which I actually will try to try to do!

Ok, enough blabbering I will bug you later obviously, long live the Killer Wheels!

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Miss Directions

Dear Karie,

Maybe it had something to do with you having a surname that reminds me of my favorite lever action rifle. Maybe it was those faces you make that defy explanation. Or maybe it was just plain old “cute girl” I wanted to FB stalk. In either case you were one of my first completely online friends.

We tried to meet up once as you may recall and thanks to some shoddy directions, and even shoddier clarification of those directions from me, it never happened. In some ways I am kind of glad for that, because if we had met who knows if we would still be talking now.

You in my opinion really do put yourself out there on the FB. A lot of people really go to extreme lengths to monitor what they say online for fear of having people give them shit about it. To my knowledge you post directly from the heart about your life. Thanks to this, I sometimes have the feeling I have been around you for years in a far more personal manner than a lot of folks who sit next to me day-to-day.

I have followed with interest your employment woes and triumphs, your semi-personal rants, and as always your ups and downs in the dating arena. One of the best things about this lately is that you seem to be elated with your current fella, and he seems like a wonderful guy, which obviously you deserve if not only because you are a wonderful person, but because it about fucking time.

I have quite a few friends on FB that are far away, or otherwise unreachable, and sometimes it bothers me how much I would like to see them. If I could just get past my obvious social ineptitude I could probably make those issues go away, but I guess I have just been taking baby steps towards that.

In either case I know we have a few methods to keep in contact already, and if for some reason you don’t know what those contacts are, let me know and I will send them to you immediately. Although I may not be privy to your day to day activities after the unfriending, maybe (one hopes) it will make me get off my ass and come see you in your own town like a real life grown up would do.

I won’t belabor the point, obviously I have a soft spot for you in the old ticker, so just maybe keep me in mind every now and again and that would be awesome.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

SUPERMEGA UPDATE POST

Two Months in:

I have a few more slots to fill in due to some opt outs and some people I dropped for personal reasons. That being said I maybe posting a few more of these “where we are” posts as we filter through the final half of the list. It has been 2 months since I started this and here are the numbers:

4 opt outs:

I seriously thought there would be more, but then it occurred to me that some of my “friends” might not like my slew of cat based posts, or generally inane rantings and may have my me hidden on their news feed. That being said there were I think 5 folks I took out who were I think clueless about this but would have opted out due to them either being a former client or someone who does not know me terribly well and may not want me babbling on about them.

74 people unfriended:

There was a couple of bits of nastiness that was luckily not terribly public (more on that later) other than that people have been supportive, encouraging, and in some cases there have been some heartfelt pleadings (also more on this later).

5,100 pageviews:

To me it seems kind of strange anyone would actually read this, as I probably wouldn’t unless it was a post about me (surprise surprise). In the beginning it was definitely on a higher pace than it has been recently. I blame myself for this as my posting has become erratic and half-assed a lot of the time due to having a bad memory, no memory, or just the daily grind of posting and selecting. I am going to try to be more diligent as I move on to phase two. Having people comment or message me about the posts helps as it gives me some encouragement and sadly some form of validation. Again though, I am doing my best not to get overly attached to the number of people who read it as that number is almost guaranteed to go down as the list gets shorter. I started this exercise in ego for myself after all and I really should not care who if anyone reads it…but I do.

21 unanswered friend requests:

This has been especially surprising. I mean before I started doing this I would maybe get 1 friend request a month, and almost always from someone I knew well. While I am sure to the ladies out there this may be a tiny number (one only imagines what being a cute girl on fb is like) to a dude its a lot. Then again I am unsure, if any of you reading this feel like it, fill me in on what you think is a normal number. The real shocker came when a girl that I did not know, who is ridiculously attractive, and apparently too cool for school, friend requested me. At first I thought it was a fishing scam, as any self respecting male would, but then on a second glance it turns out she was after all a real person. While I would like to say we are now happily married and just put a down payment on our first bag of pizza rolls (what a great story that would be to write, albeit farfetched) I stuck to my guns and politely declined the friendship, for fear of the math it would involve. It humbles and embarrasses me to think of how hard it actually was.

In any case I have tried to explain to all requesters that by the nature of what I am doing I cannot accept any more friends, for the most part people have been good about it.

27,701 Words in this here Word file:

This number continues to terrify me. I am not even half way through and I already have 54 pages of crap. As mah buddy Drew would say “you need to get a goddamn job”. While I do, in fact, have a job, the sentiment is a valid one that haunts me every time I open this file.

Other things of note stats wise:

I got a small but welcome bump from a lady over at the Uniblog in exchange for some doodles which was nice. Also since Facebook is (I suspect) waging a war with Google, and making chrome run like shit with FB I have seen both safari and firefox move up the ranks past Chome as the number one browser to my site. This is just one more thing I would like to fuckstart FB’s head for. I WILL NOT be using browser other than Chrome, Facebook, make your UI as shitty as you want, I am a google man through and through even if I have to refresh my fucking profile a million times just to see if my post made it or not…

What Have I learned:

I have actually gotten quite a bit out of this. By the way if this isn’t a long enough post now, shits about to get biblical in length, so run while you can. While the people I have unfriended as of late have been fringe friends, and mostly e-friends, I have done my best to be diligent in capturing what I remember about them. There have certainly been some duds on my end writing wise, but well, I ain’t no scholar and ya’ll should know that.

I have tried to sprinkle some more hefty friends in there so that I am not just boring the shit out of everyone (including me) but Its getting towards crunch time and space is at a premium. I have also been trying to cut out folks I have been putting off due to not knowing what to write. In the beginning I could be all cavalier about putting people off for another day because I had so many posts in front of me. But now it’s like “shit who the fuck AM I going to unfriend” and those folks who aren’t 500 plus worders are getting booted. They are certainly, at this point considered friends, but they are friends which I have either had a limited amount of time with, or are so far removed that I don’t remember much about them and I.

That’s another observation I have had. That I have in some instances used friending someone as an endorsement of them, not because I am actually friends with them. Its kind of “liking” a page in my book. Yeah I know I don’t KNOW you, but I like what you are doin there, keep it up, here is my “friendship”. While this is fine and dandy when FB is just a collection of other people’s personal minutia, it takes on a different meaning when you are starting to add weight to said relationships but writing about them.

While I have certainly had some mushy moments writing these posts, it is what’s coming that is going to be the real test. It seems to me that this is going to be similar to those over produced photo montages at the end of some sappy drama where some dude kicks the bucket and so they show you a flash back of him as a kid playing in the park, or like pictures of puppys, or I don’t know Don Mattingly retiring…its tragic, saccharine, and really part of the reason I watch those types of movies all the time, alone, surrounded by pizza rolls and my pillow that I have had since birth.

There is more that I have gathered so far but I am going to save some of it for a later post (as god knows this is already a fucking jumble of unreadable shit).

A bit about the readers:

Oh the joys of being “followed” on blogger. Right now I have about 18 people who have followed me on blogger. While in the beginning this seemed rather silly since most people need only look to my feed to see when I post, now I am realizing that as this moves on I have no idea if people I have unfriended are still reading. While this is part and parcel with the whole idea, again it pays toward that tasty validation I so desperately need to carry on without whining too much. So yeah, maybe follow me if you aren’t, as a carrot for you; I plan on having a get together when this is all over complete with swag at some local watering hole, and I will probably only post the flyer on the blog as all my friends, and profile will be gone by then.

A bit about the nastiness referenced earlier (as if anyone can remember that far back). I had someone who was basically a friend of mine, not like blood brothers or anything, but someone I liked to talk to, or atleast tolerate on my bad days, essentially troll me. Shitty comments, some shitty facebook fan page (which if you joined or got joined you might want to leave) and some basic back and forth. While I live by the motto “don’t feed the trolls” I got a liitle pissy about it. I am not against trolling as an idea, as it helps to keep me from taking anything too seriously, but I guess I just didn’t see it coming and got all butt-hurt about it like a little bitch. It’s actually a little surprising to me there hasn’t been more of that, but I am thankful there hasn’t been as I don’t like getting all huffy about what is essentially a meaningless interwebs thing.

A bit about some pleadings referenced earlier (jesus, what was that like in the 90’s or something) Some folks have been either confused by this whole thing, or are actually concerned about getting unfriended. The folks that have been confused kind of confuse me. On the one had I understand that no one reads every post on their news feed, I certainly don’t. And as I mentioned earlier, some people may have me hidden what with all the cats and nerdy interwebs horse shit I post. But If you get unfriended, and don’t take a second to actually read the sticky post on the main page that is on you. I know in a lot of ways this whole thing is silly, and self-centered, and to be taken with a grain of salt as it is coming from me, but if I am actually your friend I would imagine that at somepoint you would look at all these similar posts on my feed and be like “what the hell is he doing” and maybe glance at one. If you aren’t interested after that, or at the bare minimum aware of what it is that I am doing, just go ahead and get the fuck off my list. It really is like the LEAST bit of effort one can do and still call themselves my friend. I mean, I have very dear friends that I don’t hear from for years at a time, and I still love them like they never went away, but if you are on my list and can’t spare 2 minutes to look at something that is in your face every day…well take a flying fuck at a rolling donut I guess.

As far as people who are somewhat fearful of getting unfriended; that is pretty flattering…albeit in a kind of weird way. You should take solace in the fact that I just because we are no longer gonna be FB friends, does not mean I am dead. This is the interwebsfuturetime we are in, there are a million other ways you can get ahold and keep in touch with me. Here are a few:

Email: on my info page which is now public (my whole profile is which would be kind of terrifying if I thought my personal information was valuable or even mildly interesting)

Deviant art: Again on my website list on the info page, for those of you who still want to see some of my doodles.

My business site: Info. If you need something designed, or know someone that knows someone who needs some designin’.

My telemaphone:Message me and I will send it to you, and maybe even read the text, or answer the call you make to me.

Letters: again message me for my address.

Carrier Pidgeon: Hell if I know how those things work, but google that shit.

Drew: My hetero life partner already has to answer for me all the time, I am sure if you say something to him, he is sure to bitch to me about it and I will get in contact.

And finally the Blog: While after this is over the blog will not be updated at all, rest assured it will stay up and if you follow or comment on it, it will get to me.

So you see, don’t worry your little heads (jesus, I mean I am kind of a douche, why the fuss anyways) I am the interwebs, I am self aware, and all your base are…well you get the idea.

In closing:

Over the next 127 or so days things will be interesting. Maybe not daytime tv interesting, but definitely Billy Mays infomercial interesting. If you have read this far it would be nice if you shared this massive massive load of horse shit with some people via your news feed, twitters, reddit, stumbleupon, or digg (haha gotcha, who uses digg…if you still use digg let me know so I can unfriend you). My anemic ego needs some stroking, maybe you know just the person with that special supple wrist to help out.

That is all for now, no one gets unfriended today lest they do so of their own choosing.

Curt