A story has just been put together that says that Sarah, Josh and Shane, the three American hikers being detained in Iran did not cross the border, but were kidnapped from Iraqi Kurdistan. This is the first time that the truth about the hikers is getting a viral media push through email and facebook. It is significant because it changes their status from prisoners who have committed a crime to hostages.

This is actually not really news.  The UK Daily Telegraph released the details in an article in August, 2009.  A local tribal leader saw the kidnappers crossing the border from the Iran side, and noted cell phone records of the call that alerted the kidnappers to the hikers presence. The article also notes that, at that moment, the tension between the US and the Iranian government was high because of US protests of the 2009 election in Iran.

So, why didn’t this information come out in the US before? Iran covered up this information and their official story was to allege that the hikers crossed the border and were going to be tried as spies.  Anyone that knows Sarah, Josh or Shane, is aware that this is complete B.S., but maybe this is the only way for Iran to save face keep them in Evin.  I am guessing here, but my sense is that there has been a tension between using official means to try and release the hikers and using the media to build public support.

I am still speculating when I suggest that nobody really knows WHY Iran is holding the hikers and this is responsible for creating this tension.  Is it because of the protests that the Daily Telegraph mentions? If so, why do they continue to hold them, wouldn’t this only strain the relations further? Is The Iranian government waiting for an opportunity for an exchange? (This came up in the media throughout the time that the hikers have been held. Most recently, it was  reported in February  that Ahmadinejad proposed a prisoner exchange and then, earlier this month, that Iranian officals said it is not in their practice to “exchange people”.) Is Ahmadinejad just looking for a way out that he can save face?

So because nobody knows why they are actually being held, since they are clearly not spies and clearly did not cross the border, it is completely unclear what the right tactics are to pursue their release.  As has been stated by the Free the Hikers campaign many times, this is a historically safe area.  It has only been within the last month that tensions between Iran and Kurdish rebels have begun heating up.  The border crossings of Iranian troops were distinct enough to be newsworthy. Outside magazine notes that Europeans and Americans regularly travel in this area and that at peak times, this trail does have significant use.  The article also notes that Iranian-US relations are at an all-time low due to “Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denials and anti-Israel diatribes, the surging power of Iran’s anti-Western Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the regime’s suppression of the country’s pro-democracy movement”.

It seems that the few hateful American’s that post comments saying that they deserve their fate for being so stupid may be the only ones that have ever thought that their jailing makes any kind of sense.  And now, with the public release of this border information, not only can I send a big FU to those self-righteous people, but it is the final piece of a puzzle that points to the fact that is was not a stupid mistake that the hikers are paying for, but is instead an international hostage situation, and one that has been downplayed for too long.

But here’s the rub, and how the situation is turned upside-down version of  a simpler hostage situation.  The hikers “are the opposite of ugly Americans” (as Outside puts it). They can’t be held up as models of imperialism. Instead, they are warm and generous people wanting to bridge gaps between cultures and advocate freedom, information and education for everyone.  They are pro-Palestinian.  While it would certainly be a stretch (and an incorrect one at that) to say that they are supporters of Ahmadinejad’s, they are not even close to his worst enemies and  are even farther from being enemies of the Iranian people.

Because of these personal qualities and the consequential journalism, teaching and activism that they have done here in the Bay Area and internationally, I have hope that international allies in Europe and the Middle East will step up and ultimately mount enough public pressure to lead to their release.

With the arrival of summer and several other blogging projects, I am noticing my energy shift from this blog. I am not sure how much I will be posting over the next few months, but please check out my other blog projects:

East Bay Alternative Medicine-A collaboration of local alternative medicine practitioners that is just getting going.

Insurgent Summer- This is a “guided” summer reading of one of the greatest pieces of  anarchist literature of all time.  Starting this week, it will take place over 10 weeks.

The good news is that we expect to be back in matching by the end of the summer, so I may have a whole lot of new material coming up soon. This will be especially exciting for those following my parenting/fost-adopt life.

I have always been an outdoorsy type. My husband jokes that I am a lizard, because I am happiest basking out in the full sun.  The bay area is never warm enough for me  since I was meant for temperatures that were 80 degrees and over.  Some of the longest bike rides that I have done in my life have been in temperatures over 90, including several trips between Pittsburg and Sacramento and the Davis Double. I am certainly not biking or hiking like I used to. I am doing massage in a dark room for money and writing with my spare time.  Still, these things are part of my identity and I never considered that I may be deficient of vitamin D.

I had noticed that my body tended to feel better during the summer, but I attributed that to dryer, warmer weather and being more active.

There has certainly been a buzz about Vitamin D over the last few years.  I have been hearing about it from my father-in-law, who is an MD, my L. Ac. and have also seen articles about it in alternative medicine journals.  I heard that there had been an increase in rickets, links to cancer prevention, and cardiovascular disease.  What I didn’t know is that it has also been linked to fibromyalgia and back pain.

A few months ago, I was sick-sick-sick, in order to kick it, I decided to start taking a few extra supplements, including Vitamin D (in higher amounts than the RDA).  Once I was better, I continued for good measure.

I had noticed a major reduction in shoulder and back pain-about 85%, actually. I attributed this to the fact that I had been working less, but as time went on and I got back up to a normal workload, my shoulder pain didn’t come back, they were still sore, but the pain remained relatively low.  I was also sleeping better because my lower back (which had me turning regularly) was also much better.

My back problems are old and chronic.  I have had episodes of pain since I was in my early 20’s, but I have also been seriously athletic since then, participating in either long distance cycling or serious running and hiking for most of that time.  Less activity and two disc herniations later, I have had a weak, numb and achey left leg for the last year.  My back was getting generally better before I started taking D, but the trajectory of improvement has increased and so has my quality of life.

About a month after I started supplementing my D, I had my level tested and it came out at 40.  That number is adequate, but not particularly high, so I suspect that I did start out with a deficiency that was leading to my body’s inability to deal with the inflammation brought up by my physically challenging lifestyle.

The image is borrowed from the Pine Street Foundation, I highly recommend taking the time to read and understand their longish article on Vitamin D.

Okay, well I don’t want to develop a reputation for thinking that I invented terms that I didn’t.  But this term I think I really did invent!  This species of person is found mostly in Berkeley and they like to plaster what they think on their car in cute little catchphrases. They are typically people that believe what they think is important and that other people care about it. There are even people with their whole hatches or cars plastered with their messages. Don’t get me started about art cars.  I apologize to my friends in advance. Please don’t take it personally, bumper stickers are a long standing, quirky pet peeve that I finally have to set free.

I did come home frothing after seeing an offending slogan and posted on facebook. Some of the ideas from this post are from my funny peeps there, and are duly attributed with their first initial.

Bumper Stickers that I hate:

Electoral

I am an anarchist. I do not believe that voting actually works. Publicizing that you vote for someone that I fundamentally do not trust fails to impress me.  It is kind of rubbing my nose in how bad the system is.  Additionally, as N- so eloquently said, “Girl I am with you… Mainly that people don’t take the political ones off after the election…Go Dukakis! :)”   You know those crusty looking worn away ones that are either half chipped off or so faded you can barely read them…

My Dog is Smarter than Your Honor Student

Why dis people that are all proud of their kids? Okay, you like your dog, a lot.  It isn’t really funny and it certainly isn’t true.  I see that the parent of the honor student is making themselves vulnerable for some sort of a class attack. They are almost inevitably middle class white people driving a Subaru Outback less than 2 years old.  You, on the other hand, with your beat up red pickup expose yourself as a young, unattached guy (well, you are attached to your co-pilot dog) from Connecticut who will probably be driving your kid around in an Outback in less than 10 years.

Do No Harm

Just explain this. It is on a car, which is basically a harm machine.  You can just add any sort of environmental message to this part of my list.

The Mystery Spot

I went to the Mystery Spot, when I was 8. Isn’t that when we all went? My favorite part was the painting that had eyes that followed you while I walked in the room. Second favorite was water that ran up hill. I stopped being charmed by this little gimmick shack when I was 9.  But I must not be all cool and retro.

A fish of any kind

If you have a desire to compete with Christianity, more power to you…but it isn’t funny anymore.

Bumper Stickers that get a pass:

Cheney-Voldemort ‘08

Even though I usually don’t like Electoral stickers, this one is funny AND true.

My Other Car is a…

You’ve got a schtick and you are excited about it, there is nothing there to offend anyone.  That is cool, dude. I would love nothing more than to see you hanging 10 down Shattuck Avenue someday.

Hang up and Drive

We’re all thinking it, anyways.

Found cache, Lost car

A little self-deprecation is always appreciated.  Considering this has happened to me more than once when I have wandered away from my car, with my nose in  my GPS…and the fact that this seems pretty hilarious, this one gives me a chuckle.

As long as you are riding my ass, at least you can pull my hair

Okay, so not only does this get a pass, but it may go down as the best bumper sticker I’ve ever heard of. Thanks S-…hahahaha.  If kids weren’t required to sit in the backseat, it sure would be a good intro to the birds and the bees.

After asking a few people and reading a lot of webpages about it, I decided to try and induce lactation. This is something that I had been considering for some time. I talked with a woman at a training who was getting small bits of milk and I knew that I wanted to try it.  So, I had started asking around about breast pumps. I couldn’t get my hands on a free one at the time.

Then, I asked our friend who is a social worker with A- county about breastfeeding foster kids.  Apparently, it requires a court order. At that time, we were still pretty far off from entering the matching process, so I let go of it.  We finished our PRIDE classes  and I had a renewed motivation to start pumping (but are still a few months from entering matching).  I figured, I would never regret trying to see if I can produce milk, even if we don’t have a kid that will breastfeed.  And the way that we are talking about setting our criteria, there is a good possibility that we would be able to get the court order to allow breastfeeding.

A lactation consultant had told me that if you produce milk once, it is always easier the second time.  Starting now would be an initial indicator of what I would be capable of later and would help me determine whether I would need to use drugs to lactate.

So, I began to pump on a regular schedule, every 2-3 hours.  My nipples hurt and cracked, but I was producing drops from the very beginning. I came down with a case of the swine flu a few days after I started pumping and I just couldn’t handle it anymore. First I cut down on how often I was pumping and as my symptoms got worse, I had to cut it out entirely. At the peak of my pumping, which may have been on the 2nd or third day, I got about 7 drops from my left breast (which seems to be slightly larger and more productive.

About a month later, I started again and immediately had an even bigger production, about 11 drops.  Part of what I had read was that pumping never works as good as a baby and looking at photos of babies and fantasizing about them may help stimulate the oxytocin required for let down.  I bought Sleeping Beauties which was filled with large, glossy photos of sleeping newborns.  I would spend the 20 minutes pumping starting at that.  But over the course of a few days, pumping regularly, I got less and less until I wasn’t producing anything. Had it been saving up over the month that I had stopped? Why did it get to be less and not more?

Although it seems that some people are able to induce lactation without meds (the primary being domperidone), the vast majority are only able to produce miniscule amounts. It may be in part the difference of those who have lactated previously.  One thing is agreed at the forums at adoption.com, it is much easier and much more likely to work with meds.

So again, I have put this process on temporary hold.  I will likely wait until we are matched then pursue meds if it makes sense at that time.

Today marks 262 days that Sarah, Shane and Josh continue to be held in Iran for accidentally crossing the border on a hike. The campaign to free the hikers continues to be strong and the families (and moms, in particular) have been amazingly strong advocates for their release.  A saving grace is that they were able to speak to their kids on the phone recently and although Sarah is being held in isolation, she is able to see her friends every day.

Unfortunately, any signs that give hope of their possible release are rare, indeed.  The hope that the supporters have is vitally necessary and mostly self-generated.  Because they are being held in a culture so foreign to our own and because the families and supporters of Sarah, Shane and Josh are not government people, it is hard to know what to make of anything that happens here or there or in between.   Is our government giving the families the whole story about negotiations?  Will the mom’s emotional and spiritual appeals for reunification help?  What do Iranian holidays mean to them and could that help their release?  How does their release relate to the political situation of Ahmadinejad both domestically and internationally?

I think that the possible answers to these questions have all changed over time and continue to change, sometimes daily.  The campaign has had to take every opportunity to appeal on a heartfelt and personal level for the hikers release.  And this is the kind of people that they are, the families and Sarah, Josh and Shane….heartfelt and personal.

I bring this up because Iran has alleged that the hikes have some sort of ties with the US intelligence.  This is absolutely ludicrous and I want to tell you a bit more about how I know them.  I should back up and say that I only really know Sarah and Shane and Sarah’s mom, Nora. I know that the only ties they may have to US Intelligence are to be in their watch list files.

Although I am not aware that Sarah and Shane have ever broken the law, they are an important part of my community, which is an anti-governmental anarchist community in one of the most left-leaning areas of the US.  And most of us are probably in those files because we actively organize for a world with social justice and anti-imperialism,which we believe is antithetical to most of the US governments actions.  To any patriot out there saying, “The US government is the greatest system in the world”, I respond that I realize the US government stands for a lot of great ideals, but they are long transformed into a mere symbol that no longer relates to the system.  Okay, but back to the subject, to put it simply, US intelligence doesn’t actually like us because if most of us had our ways, there would be an overthrow of their damn system.

When I met her a number of years ago, I had been hearing about Sarah “Bean” for a while, maybe a year. She lived with friends of mine at a house that is associated with The Midnight Special Law Collective. Take a look at the logo featuring a dead justice system, a monkey wrench.  If you read the text of the website, they are working to legally support civil disobedience.

I ended up meeting Sarah’s mom, Nora, first.  I was involved with an adult anarchist education project. We sponsored a community-based earthquake preparedness workshop and organizing meeting that Nora and I both participated in.  We talked about having central houses for communication and a central store of supplies in every neighborhood.  We envisioned setting up short-wave radios so that those houses could communicate with each other. We looked at mapping those neighborhoods so that we could check up on each other and offer mutual aid.

So, you see, I am not trying to say that we are a community of hooligans or even simple rabble-rousers (although we are certainly to some degree rabble rousers).  We are a community that is serious, thoughtful and organized.  We run some long standing institutions like a dojo, non-profits and worker collectives. We are sometimes parents, union members, teachers, musicians, artists and writers.  We come from many traditions, including an intellectual anarchist tradition.

I suppose that the one remaining possibility is that Sarah (or Shane) is a mole, a government informant or something.  Well, she is not. I know this because I know her family and I know her life. When she wasn’t doing political work, she was learning massage and teaching English and spending intimate time with her friends.  She wasn’t someone that lived in isolation and could trade her business suit for a black hoodie to show up and infiltrate a meeting. She had long standing accountability in her life. Her life was intermeshed with other lives, the lives of her family and friends.  Because of this, to varying degrees, pieces our lives are on hold until Sarah is back and for some, their lives have been transformed into a project of getting Sarah back.

I wasn’t actually sitting on the wall.  Honestly, I was trying to stand up there. On one foot. Okay, I was also jumping up and down in circles. It didn’t really work, so I did fall and the pieces were messy, messy pieces that looked and felt a lot like swine flu.

The magic tripod that allows me to maintain a highly productive lifestyle collapsed. Some Exercise, Decent Diet and Stress Management (are the three legs) stopped happening. I KNEW it was a mistake, but I scheduled two big events on the same weekend. I cooked for the anarchist cafe AND organized and held a big meeting for a new project that I am launching. And of course, the former exposed me to a whole lot of germs in black hoodies.

So, it is sort of a case of hard-to-prevent bad timing, but even before that, there were too many commitments with not enough fun. Even some of the things that used to be fun turned into areas of stress and obligation for me.  I did start dropping some things before I got sick, but there are some things that I just couldn’t budge without a crisis. Meanwhile, Zombie mom posted about her own work-a-holic nature, which made me raise my eyebrow, but it is easy for me to deny this since I don’t have just one “job” and most of my projects don’t pay money.

This all fits in with a parenting article that I read recently about the importance of unstructured family time. In particular, parenting in the last decade faces critiques for not providing enough outlets for children to entertain themselves and, in turn, has limited their initiative in  creative play.  What is best for kids developmentally (and maybe for people in general?) is having more unstructured family time, where you are just chilling out and someone says, “Hey, let’s play Monopoly” or “I am gonna build a cabin out of these Lincoln Logs” or “Wow, mom, the fridge is really dirty! Can I clean it?”  Of course, this is about not having your self and your kids in too many commitments.  I really don’t wan to be a mom that ignores her family because she has to work all the time or a soccer mom that lives and breathes to drive her kid to the next activity. Not to mention, that I want to MODEL myself as an adult that takes care of herself, making time for my own dental appointments and taking time to sit in the sun with a book and a cup of tea every once in a while.

A while back, my therapist gave me a great tool to frame this all in.  It is sort of a zen approach, where I think of all the activities that I participate in without obligation and as something that I am choosing to do right now, not necessarily forever.  Both setting my commitments up that way (with actual or potential end dates), but also giving myself the opportunity to change my mind about things as I go feels ridiculously revolutionary.

Being sick for a month also gave me a clean start. When I had to put everything on hold to vomit and lie shivering in bed, it was a reality check that I COULD do that.  My clients love me and they waited for me, I am not so poor that I can’t miss some work time every once in a while.  It was sort of like hitting a reset button. My diet cleaned up, my routines disappeared, and gee golly, the world didn’t freakin stop and my life actually didn’t change that much. Oh, I did lose 5 pounds.

So the upshot is cool new projects that will hopefully move my career in a good direction and a break (and exodus?) from the projects that aren’t serving me.  A renewed intention to focus on my career, both serving my clients and also moving my work in a direction that will be sustainable for me on a longer term.

More importantly, was the not-so-gentle reminder to take care of myself. Oh, and hang out with my dogs more, who seem to be magical converters of stress and obligation into joyful, frolicky runs, furry-soft cuddles and long lazy nights of sleep.

Foul Weather Friend definition from Urban Dictionary, Can you guess which one I am?

1.  The opposite of a fair-weather friend, a foul-weather friend only seeks you out if they have a problem, need a shoulder to cry on, a ride to town or someone to watch their dog, but otherwise they act as if they don’t even know you. They’re only your chum when they’re glum.
2. A foul-weather friend is someone who likes to be around you when you are unemployed, depressed and in the dumps. He/she feels sorry for you, and gets some pleasure out of feeling superior, handing out advice, berating you for having a bad attitude. As soon as you get out of the slump, get a job, get in shape, get a decent place to live, etc., the fair weather friend is jealous, and stops speaking to you.

J-  and I thought that we had made this term, but after Topeka’ing it (lol), it appears to not be our original idea.  We invented it for a friend who I would go for years to months without hearing from until she was released from the institution, losing her apartment or getting broken up with and then she would appear.  Well, I have become a sort of opposite version of a foul weather friend in the fact that my friends and acquaintances seem to be engulfed in crisis and I am wanting and feeling compelled to show up for them.

So, I have been thinking about this fact. I have many friends that live poor (by choice or not), many friends that are queer/single or not in traditional relationships and also among folks that do participate in more risky lifestyle choices.  Also, activists and radicals are less likely to devote adequate resources to their health (myself included), whether that means things like exercising and eating well or having health insurance.  We are also just plain and simple getting older, which increases our risk for disease and complications.  Most of the time, these things do not effect anyones life too much (and especially mine), but the moment seems to be a convergence of folks in need.

A friend to all is a friend to none. – Aristotle

Okay, but the last part. Why so much going on and going wrong and why do I sometimes feel like I want to take it all on?  Is it that I have lots of friends (423 by Facebook’s count) and am grounded in a community where I have known most of those people for 5-20 years?  Is it because I spent time working on mutual aid projects and am in a caregiving profession?  I sometimes wonder if it has become a dysfunctional part of my identity. Of course it feels good to help and be available and it is also sometimes a relief to focus on someone else’s problems.  Some of it is wanting to give back for those many bits of help that I received when I was poor and when we had the kids and any little bit of help made so much of a difference.

I suppose what feels most notable about this moment is that I cannot keep up  with the demand that I perceive.  There is more need that I can provide and this makes me feel a bit sad and hopeless. It makes me wonder if this marks a downturn that will continue for the future.  It is forcing me to pace myself and recognize my own self-care requirements (and the importance of them).  It is also forcing me to make choices that I would rather not make.

I remember my excitement about finding Facebook. Finally, a spot where a lot of my closest friends and, well…just everyone… are all in one place.  They were not all there when I started but most of them are now.  There was a rush of reconnecting with folks from high school and some ex’s and a period of weeding out those kids that grew up to be the kind of adults that flame my friends on my wall.  I tried out playing Zombies and did a little Super Poking and eventually sorted through the applications and the friends, groups, and pages that worked and made sense.  Facebook has become more prominent than email for my communication and has replaced my newsletter for my massage practice.  It really has become the center of my internet world, I often find my news there, correspond, check in, play some games and do some business.

The best unexpected pleasure has been finding those Facebook connections that work, and prove to be a very particular kind of connection.  And interestingly, they are not always the same of my friendships that work.  There are several folks with whom my acquaintanceship with has not had the opportunity to advance to a deeper friendship, probably for logistical reasons mostly.  They are on Facebook regularly and my fondness for them has grown as has their impact on my life.  I have read books by their favorite author, followed the comments on their status updates and gotten and received advice and parenting, running, cooking, etc.

Lets Keep it “Secret”

There was recently a rash of groups started and joined called “Secret X” with X being a city name. I admit that I initially joined Secret Oakland, thinking, “Great!  A place to find out what is going on off the beaten track.”  As Secret City groups continued popping up and more of my friends started joining them, I started to get a little annoyed.  Not that I wouldn’t want most of my friends to be a part of all of the secret things in my life… It is more that I would rather with those friends be invited to an event, find a restaurant or see a show that doesn’t have a psuedo-countercultural vibe all over it, while it is all over the internet at the same time. I went back and looked today and it did turn out that the group had turned into something that is not about secrets at all, but about the “Best place to…” which doesn’t seem any different than yelp or the East Bay Express.

This was shortly after the last of the many updated screen formats (which they still haven’t gotten right) and the first time that I started to question my intentions and use of facebook instead of just coasting and enjoying it. I started thinking about having some boundaries around how much I am on it and what I use it for. The simple time equation of the elusive Facebook time versus practicing guitar, exercising, spending time with friends and family is pretty convincing some days.  I have no clear answers yet, just still thinking.  I quickly dropped most of my fan pages, I am no longer a fan of “not being on fire” or “If 1m people join, girlfriend will let me turn our house into a pirate ship ” and I am also not imagining that Facebook groups are exerting any sort of political pressure.

Fuzzy boundaries

As I mention above, Facebook has become an internet hub for me. I love the idea of consolidating my goodreads account and my invitations with Facebook and seeing what people think about the movies that they are seeing.  I mean, why use 10 websites when you can use 1?  Well, for a couple of reasons.

The amount of time that it would take to follow all of these things for all of my friends is outrageous. Actually, the amount of time that I already spend online and on Facebook is pretty outrageous. And the more that I post or repost, the trickier things may get with the accuracy and privacy of my friends, as well.

As these things have begun appearing in my Facebook feed and I have been getting comments on them, I am not sure that I want to put myself out there so much.  Not only are my friendships an interrelated web, but I have varying levels of shared friends, intimacy, and comfort with these friends. These factors are not always related and they are always changing. Partly because I have such a range of friends and I do not want to have the same conversation about X movie with A that I do about Y movie with B.  So I have had odd feeling when seeing a comment from someone that I don’t know very well on my rating of a movie that I saw recently.

Virginia Heffernan writes on nytimes.com:

…Facebook undermined his whole notion of online friendship. “It’s easy to think of your circle of ‘Friends’ as a coherent circle, clear and moated, when in fact the splay of overlap/network makes drip/action painting a better (visual) analogy.” Something happened to this drip painting that he won’t discuss. He said, “Postings that seem private can scatter and slip unpredictably into a sort of semipublic status.”

Maybe most importantly, the defaults of Facebook are to share everything rather than nothing.  Unless you dig through the settings (which involves being somewhat computer savvy) you will have no privacy and every post from every person and every application will show up in your feed. Do I want to think everytime I rate a movie or mark a book “to read” whether I want all 420 of my friends to see this?  Do I want to be the person that is always nagging my friends with unwanted applications and feeds?  I have recently been spending a fair amount of my Facebook time removing myself from groups and pages and hiding unwanted feeds to reduce the stuff that I sift through. I am hiding friends that I am not close to and blocking the applications that I don’t like.  It will be less work and mess for my friends the more I trim what I am putting out to them.  Am I not networked with everyone (and duplicating the posts of mine that they see) that wants to be on goodreads anyways?

Obligation + Overcommitment = Burnout

I think the nature of being a young, active person in the Bay Area is having too many choices and a struggle with overscheduling ourselves. In this way, Facebook is actually the perfect venue because there are plenty of things that my friends or myself are participating in that have an open invitation to go along with it.  Before I was on Facebook,  I rarely got more than 1 evite per month, but now I get multiple invitations per week and sadly, I end up turning almost every single one down.

I do not like to let balls drop and I do not like to not follow up on correspondence with people, but on Facebook, I have found it nearly impossible to keep my standards of communication up while still being friends with all the people that I have interest in. And I still have the balls in the back of my mind most of the time, S-’s wall post that I never responded to, that message that I never returned, etc…

In 2008, Business Week predicted Facebook Fatigue:

Social network fatigue will set in as people tire of getting yet another invitation from so-called friends to join yet another social network. And, in the wake of Facebook’s fumbled social ads initiative, it will become even more apparent there’s no obvious way to pitch products on these sites without turning off members. Social features will wend their way into all kinds of Web services, from search to news, but the gold rush in social networks themselves will begin to wane.

I think they are a few years too early on this. I think that for most people that I have heard about leaving Facebook it is because they aren’t getting enough out of it or because they are pissed off about something.  I do not yet think that social networking, in general, has worn its welcome. And actually, I think it will probably just continue to evolve in ways that make it more appropriate, secure and manageable for people.  I think that a few key players including Google, Wordpress and Facebook are pioneers for the future of the internet, which will be more and more the way that we manage our lives in the future.

So, I am not signing off of Facebook, although I do not feel trapped, I do feel invested in the virtual world that I have there.  But the conversation is just beginning…

I got a credit card in high school because one of my friends told me that I should start working on my credit rating before I left home for college.  She was right, although maybe ahead of her time.  Actually getting the credit card gave me the opportunity to make up for the somewhat inadequate student loans that I was offered by putting my extra expenses on my credit card.  I hadn’t learned much about budgeting back then, although I did  relatively well, I did go into all kinds of different debt.

When I got out of school, I remained broke.  When it was time to start paying off my student loans, I was still broke.

By that time, I had figured out that I was much less likely to spend by not using a bank account and by not using a credit card.  It was the first time that I chose paper over plastic.  Rather than depositing my money and removing it slowly with a debit card, I cashed my check every month and budgeted that way. I found (and still find) that I am much less likely to spend if I am handing over bills than if I use a debit or credit card AND that I was much less likely to stay on a budget if I had a physical stash that I was using to monitor myself.

This is not really a groundbreaking discovery, but instead something that has been understood for quite some time.  A 2008 NPR story reports that this is psychologically rooted in that there is a difference in feeling between actually spending the money versus agreeing to pay the money at a future time.  It notes that the average spending at McDonald’s goes up from $4.50 with cash to $7.00 with credit.

Using cash only also supports my aesthetic and political sensibilities. I appreciate the added benefits of keeping my money local and under the radar.

More recently, I had some experience with bartering. It was a great way to practice massage without simply giving bodywork away. Barter served to build up my reputation, client and referral base. But the more skilled and busy that I have become, I have been less willing to barter. Sometimes, it ended up feeling like an unequal trade andother times it has created scheduling or tracking difficulties and stress.  I also ended up consuming many more services than I would normally, getting my hair done frequently and receiving private pilates instruction (although I do miss these things, they are just more extravagant than my budget actually allows.  I am at the point, where it is worth it to pay people for their work and for me to get paid for mine.  I have my schedule clear for paying clients and I can schedule with any provider that I want without dealing with feelings of obligation or micro-managing the relationship. It was as if I rediscovered the idea of money. It was invented for sensible reasons, but I know all about where good intentions lead…