The Fastest Post I Have Ever Written

It's 8:30 p.m.-ish on Thursday, and while I wait for the Tornadoes to finish their baths, hairdrying and teeth brushing, I thought I'd say hi. Hi!

I'm very disappointed in the recent lack of attention I have been paying to my blog. I'm even more disappointed in my recent lack of attention to other people's blogs. Reading your blogs has become part of my daily routine, and I have certainly felt the absence. And? I am totally amazed that those two sentences just came out of my...well, my keyboard, I guess. It wasn't all that long ago that I could barely conceal my disdain for the blogosphere, and now here I am fully entrenched in it. How did this happen? Did I actually embrace something new? Or is it all ultimately inescapable?

All this adaptation makes my head hurt. Take facebook. As I believe I told you, I relented a few weeks ago and joined. Reluctantly, but I joined. I joined mainly because I wanted to stay in better touch with a handful of people who have been, and continue to be, important and relevant to my current life. I did not go seeking out long lost friends, classmates, and coworkers. Of course, I did hope to come across some of these people, for the purely selfish purpose of introducing them to my blog and column. Did I just say that? My god, I have embraced this...anyway, so as I have gone through the process of very selectively "friending" people I haven't talked to in years, I have experienced the strangest sensation. Connection.

Okay, a few of the initial old/new again friends have turned out to still be fairly irrelevant to my current life. I tried. Still, it was nice to see what they are up to these days, exchange some nice words, and feel all warm and fuzzy about it for a little while. And then move on. But as the days (and weeks) wear on, I find myself reconnecting with some people who mattered very much to me in the past...and, it turns out, still matter to me. Half a dozen close friends of mine from high school. A whole slew of people from elementary school just in the past week.

And that part blows my mind the most. I definitely felt like the world's squarest peg right up through junior high, but I am getting the sense that most of these "kids" felt that way about themselves to a degree as well. Everyone seems fully able to laugh at themselves now. Many of these "kids" have actually turned out to be adults that I would actually like to get to know.

All of this "connecting" means, of course, that my highly developed sense of cynicism has been put to the test. I refuse to give up my cynicism. But I can't deny that I am intrigued, and in some cases even excited.

So we are off to L.A. in the morning. Which means I need to wrap this up and try to wrangle those girls into their beds. Miss S., also known as "girl who is primarily responsible for getting me involved in blogging/facebook," is most likely connected to the internet - so perhaps I will deliver a west coast post. I'm sure a little time in la la land will do wonders to revive my cynical core. One can only hope.