14 months ago I sat down and wrote a song after being hit in the face by a bee while riding my bike home from work. Last week I finally borrowed a bass guitar and finished it up.

So, as you listen, ask yourself, “Could this song have used 14 more months of work?

I spoke about why I took time off, but I never spoke about why I participate in these social networks in the first place. Social Networking as become so ingrained in our society at this point that most people don’t even feel they need to explain why someone else should be on Facebook. You just do it. Don’t listen to Christina Hendricks, just do it. Whatever reason other people do it, here are my reasons.

I enjoy my friends. It sounds pretty obvious, but this is my main motivator. One of the first things I had to overcome when I went on hiatus was the nearly involuntary clicking of the Facebook link in my toolbar. Even without that, typing in “fac” into Firefox’s Awesome Bar is a quick way to get there. This muscle memory action is directly tied to my mind (my heart? awwwww) when I think about my friends. Juan had mentioned in his post that we all crave attention, which is no doubt completely true about me, but I think I would still use Facebook even if I wasn’t able to share my thoughts with the world my friends through it. I read through my Facebook news feed not just to see what my friends are up to, but to do as much socializing as I can given the little free time I have. Even if I couldn’t respond with comments, or give ‘thumbs up’ or otherwise feedback to my friends, I’d still go just to be able to see what’s going on in their lives. These are people I care about, and seeing them grow and change is an important part of my life. (Sappy.) Seeing them doing things together, even if it doesn’t include me, is enjoyable, just cause, well, despite how cheesy it sounds, I just like my friends being happy. And even if I can’t be there as they do whatever it is that they’re doing, them being able to share that information with me is a way that we can have a shared experience despite my absence.

One thing I really didn’t like about the hiatus was not being able to share things with my friends. While sharing things on the internet isn’t a new thing, the proliferation of Facebook has made it incredibly easy to do, to a lot of people. Heck, the origins of blogs was the weblog, which was nothing but a link of the cool things you found on the internet. It was literally a log of what you found on the then wild west internet. Now-a-days most of the most popular sites on the net are just better, cleaner, more widespread versions of just that. So I’ve had my blog for almost 10 years (OhMyGoshThatIsRidculous), and had plenty of chances to share stuff with anyone who reads it, but not until Facebook came around did I really feel like linking something was really getting it out there. People use Facebook, which is why the notes on Facebook of this blog have (hopefully?) gotten more comments than the actual blog posts themselves. Bringing my links to Facebook is more likely to find viewers than expecting them to come to me. But I really do enjoy finding a good video, or a comic, or something else, and knowing that some of my friends will see it and enjoy it themselves.

I guess none of this is quite revolutionary. Perhaps this post was kind of a waste. Maybe I should talk less and go waste some time on Facebook.

See you at internet.

I had feared that my posts talking about this issue weren’t very clear (Who would have thought my incessant rambling would not be easily understood?) as to exactly why I was doing it. So, here goes attempt number four.

I originally touched on how Facebook consists of a lot of posturing. A good bit of preening happens before you post something on Facebook. Sometimes it’s as simple as only uploading the pictures of you that make you look good. Other times it’s spending a couple minutes figuring out the best way to say something in a short, concise manor so you look more smarter. As I said before, this creates an idealized image. And heck, anyone who doesn’t do this and whines about being unhappy all the time, those people are ‘hidden’ from view, furthering the pristine aesthetic. So that’s Facebook.

Another portion of the net I’ve stepped away from is my RSS feeds. This is something that I myself have preened to perfection. I’ve found all the sites I like, and I’ve assembled them together in Google Reader to make some sort of Tony Entertainment Nexus. A portion of this is idealized visions of other people (their blogs). Other portions are made up of funny videos, good music, pretty pictures. What it ends up creating is this world view perfectly tailored to my ideal life. It’s all good, and no bad. If any bad gets through, I skip past it, or I’ll eventually remove that RSS feed.

So here’s the basis of my problem: A very large portion of the “good” in my life, is coming from a glowing screen I sit at all day. When I’m NOT looking at this constant flow of good stuff, I’m in my car, or on the bus, or at home raising my kids. Much of that time I can’t do anything to create my own good stuff. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my family, but right now we’re in a tough spot of having a newborn and a temperamental 3 year old. That means a lot of my time at home is spent managing Noah, and once he’s in bed, Teresa and I are so tired we can barely manage to do more than fall asleep on the couch watching TV. So externally, the world is great, my friends are having fun, creative people are being wonderfully creative, and life is good. Internally, I have the stress of a job and life, a self loathing at my own failure to be creative, and a sense that I have no free time to do anything I want to do. THIS is the essence of my problem. Right now I feel like I don’t have control over making my own happiness, and while it may not be true, the Tony Entertainment Nexus is telling me that everyone else has a great handle on theirs.

All that aside, here’s the truth of this situation. I do have control over my own happiness. While it may be difficult sometimes, it’s my job to remind myself that, despite their Facebook pages, other people don’t have perfect lives either. I have no plans to permanently disconnect myself from the social web, and it’s not going to change itself to my liking, so it’s on me to figure out how to deal with this external/internal dilemma. But if learning to deal with that includes cutting myself off for a while, or maybe every once in a while, then so be it. When I “come back” on Thursday, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to dive back right back in and go back to where I was. Perhaps I’ll try to trim down that enormous RSS list (which will be very long after not looking at it for a week). Maybe I’ll limit my Facebook use to certain times. Who knows. All in all, I’m glad I’ve done this so far, if for no other reason than to prove to myself that I can. I never claimed to be addicted to Facebook, but anybody can say “I’m not addicted. I’ll stop right after this.”

I Bet that Song is about Me:
Why quitting social media doesn’t work

Constantly connected, telling our “friends” our every move, repeatedly shouting at the internet masses with hopes of saying something witty enough to be RT’d, wondering what we could’ve said to get more likes, pageviews, @’s and medals; the world is a bit different now. Social media has changed the way we interact with one another, is it bad? No. It’s the future. It’s the Now…ture.

The economy sucks. People are breeding. You work harder to achieve things you want, and skip events because the cost is too high. You don’t go to that movie, you skip out on that bar outing, you say “maybe next time,” but you know the truth. Your actual friends strewn about the highway that is your busy life. But you’re still there, living, and so are your friends, just not together. We all crave attention, it’s why we’re driven to meet people in the first place, you listen to their stories in hopes that they’ll listen to yours. We are a vain species and we can’t all be monks. So instead of going outside, we hang out with people all day every day on them internets. Now we can have conversations that last days with people miles away, without spending our overpriced cell minutes and texts, by msg’ing on facebook. These close friends have your email address, do they use it? No. They msg you. From their bathroom.

“I thought this was supposed to convince me being on the net was a good thing.” Nope, this is supposed to convince you that being off the net is a bad thing. Now you’re out of the loop. Now you lose touch with people you care about. Now funny things throughout your day are replaced by boredom and snacking(?). And your need to be heard, to one-up another with witty one-liners, is still there. You just blurt it at whoever is near you, who will most likely have no idea what you’re talking about. But your friends would know, and they’d probably LTAO. Combine that with the fact that we no longer trust or give a damn about local media and you could be facing actual disaster. I don’t want to watch my local news team to know what’s going on, F*/! THOSE DUDES, THEY DON’T KNOW! The internet is a joyous place and we’re getting tied in more every day.

Do I need to know what all my friends are doing every moment? Do I need to have what used to be in print magazines shoved in my rss addled face? Do I really need to see a cat play a keyboard or a three wolf moon? Probably not, but your friends will do it all anyways, and if you ever actually physically hang out with them they’ll be dropping internet knowledge briquettes and you’ll be left standing there like an ignored spouse at a company party.

“So wait, what?” Exactly.

So I guess I haven’t washed the thought externalization out of my head completely yet.

Then again, it has quieted down up there a bit. In a good way. Not in the “man there’s a lot of fumes at this gas station” way.

It’s funny, this week has also probably been the most social I’ve had in a while. On Saturday Tree and the boys and I (still testing out how to say that kinda stuff) went to Grant Park for some art fair thing, and we met up with a former band mate of mine, Andrew Asher (of JATO fame) while he visiting from Tampa. Although if it weren’t for Teresa reading Andrew’s post on my Facebook wall, we wouldn’t have known he was in town. So it’s good to know I have a curator while I’m away.

Then last night I went to Kennesaw to practice with UVM for an upcoming show that I’m subbing in bass guitar for. Twas nice to see my friends again. Moreover, it was great to play live music with people again. It was awesome. I don’t know if any of the other guys picked up on it, but I was trying to hide a giddy smile the whole time. There’s nothing that beats the energy of individuals coming together to make a synchronous racket together. I could gush about it for 3 more paragraphs, but I’ll spare you.

I also found another way to avoid looking at my phone every 30 seconds. Just leave it at home. That’s VERY effective.

It’s not really the physicality of it that astounds me, I mean, the kid can ride a bike better than Lance Armstrong, so it’s not that crazy to think he can rub his hands together under water. It’s more that he knows to do it. Sure, we’ve told him a thousand times to wash his hands after going to the bathroom, but I’ve told him a thousand things a thousand times and he still barely listens to me…not sure why that one stuck.

So today is day 3 in the technology lite lifestyle. Wednesday night I pulled my sim card out of my G1 and put it in some crappy Nokia phone we’ve had around the house for years. I deleted the link to facebook in my browser, and I used Leech Block to block twitter, facebook and Google Reader.

The most noticeable effect was being late to work both Thursday and Friday. Turns out that taking the battery out of the phone that also acted as my alarm clock was not a smart move. So I’ve reinstated the G1. I got rid of the social networking apps on it, and use it only as a phone, calendar, and alarm clock.

Second most noticeable effect is sheer boredom in the bathroom. I won’t go into details there.

I read an article this morning in Relevant Magazine about how Facebook is turning us all into narcissists. I was pretty disappointed with it, as the whole narcissism claim has been around since blogs started getting popular. It talked a good bit about how we preen our images, and go back over our profiles to make sure the image we’re projecting is the one we want projected. The author claimed enough of this and you start believing your own lie. This isn’t my issue at all. Yes, I’ve preened my image, but I’ve never deluded myself into thinking that’s the real me. My issue is that I buy into other peoples’ dolled up lives. When I surround myself constantly with the updates and insights of the perfectly preened people, my own flaws and short comings stick out in my mind more. Even a friend of mine who lost his job and had to move out to the middle of nowhere to live with his mom…I envy his chance at a new beginning, his free time. Yeah, see? It’s bad.

The other reason I’m doing this, as mentioned before, was to try and get rid of this constant inner dialogue where I talk to all of you all the time in my head. If I’m not actively posting a status, I’m thinking of what it could be. I’m even thinking of little fake ones, or what I could say if I was in a situation, one that I’m not in at the time. One sentence from the aforementioned article really stuck out. “It’s a constant reminder to externalize our thoughts.”

Ever since I was a kid I would have this thought process, pretty similar to an interview. As I was doing something, I’d imagine being interviewed by someone about it. “So, what were you trying to say with this?” “Well, I feel that…” blah blah blah. It wasn’t so much a sense that I was important enough to be interviewed, more of a desire to be understood, and I guess the interview format was a good way to explain myself. I used to think it was completely crazy, but a person that I look up to once said he did the exact same thing in his head, so I feel mildly validated.

So coming from the self-interview format, and suddenly being given a tiny text form that says “What’s on your mind?” that I knew would be instantly beamed to 80 or so people, well, that’s a pretty hard thing to avoid. I know what you’re thinking. Am I not doing this right now by writing this post? No. I’m not. You know why? Cause with Facebook I knew it would go straight to those 80 or so people, at least those that have not hidden me. With tonybullard.com, Google Analytics has clued me into the fact that it’s only 30 or so people a month, and 25 or so of those people are just looking for The Metal Vocal Tutorial.

Overall, I must say I’m surprised at how little effect the whole process is having. Let me rephrase that: This process has been a lot less grief stricken than I thought it would be. Granted, I do feel the “externalizing thoughts” portion of my brain calming down, but I DON’T feel like I’m missing out on a whole lot. I still have the same desire to hang out and spend time with my friends. The light interaction provided by Facebook never was able to satiate that. But if I think about it, I do feel content to just be at home with my family this weekend. I don’t feel the overwhelming desire to compete with everyone else on Facebook with fun weekend pictures or something.

That being said, enough of this blogging crap. Time to get outside with my family.

I’m shooting from the hip here, kind of a stream of consciousness thing, so forgive me if this gets out of hand. (This implies other posts have some form of organization or plan, which is an outright lie.)

Anyone close to me could tell you that I tend to be discontent. Teresa laments over my desire for “things” all the time. This is partially because I dream out loud, without filter, so I’ll often come out of the blue with “I’ve been thinking about getting [ ].” Even if it’s obviously out of our financial reach. Even if I have no real intention of getting it. I find myself often thinking of things I want. Now, it’s said that those who are thankful for what they have, will not want what they don’t. It’s probably said more eloquently than that. Overall though, I think I’m pretty aware of that I live a pretty nice life. I have all my needs covered easily, and I even manage to balance a few expensive hobbies at the same time. So I don’t quite feel like I take for granted what I have, and thusly want more. But I may be forming a theory.

My mind is always thinking about speaking to you. Yes, you. The internet viewer. Whether it be tonybullard.com, or through status posts on Facebook, I’m constantly thinking about how I can talk to you. When I do things, I think about how I want to tell you about them. When I see things, I want to comment to you about them in some clever way. It’s not twitter narcissism, where I think you WANT to read about what I think about some guy on the train, it’s more like a screaming desire to socialize with people. Crap. I’ve talked about this before. Well, that time I didn’t go so deep into my psychosis of performing for you through text alerts.

I’ve become a little bothered by how much of my mental time is spent putting on a show for people I don’t ever see. So I’ve started to think about going dark for a little while. Yes, that’s right, I’ve done the most pathetic thing in the world, announcing my plans to ‘leave the internet.’

I spend almost my entire day on the internet. I wake up, sometimes check facebook before I shower, then get on the bus, where I listen to podcasts, check facebook and twitter. Then I get in to work and between tasks I’ll check RSS feeds and facebook, again. When I go to the bathroom, part of my routine is pulling out my phone, turning on my wifi and refreshing twitter, so I can read while I…um…sit.

It’s pretty easy to see it’s too much. I spend my whole day seeing other peoples’ idealized presentation of themselves (Is it just me or does it seem like everyone goes on awesome vacations?) and news of new things, and everyone’s link to cool things, etc. Perhaps I’ve been too good at designing all the input in my life. I’ve trimmed it down to all this great stuff, and it’s giving my own life a malaise in comparison.

So, to the point. The thing I’m contemplating. The sentence that will make most of you go, “yeah, so what. Get over yourself.” My plan is to swap out my smart phone with some old candy bar phone around the house, block Facebook in my browser, and generally avoid online interaction for a week. There it is.

I guess I’ll have to start reading books finally.

Calmly sitting in the other room, oblivious to the world, is little Desmond.

“Oh yeah. Yeah, we should probably bring him.”

See, this is how my mind starts to internalize things. Teresa was in love with Desi and dreaming of her new four piece family within weeks of finding out. I, on the other hand, am like a fine wine. Facts must age in my brain until they’re ready for use.

As we load into the car, the old process of buckling Noah in has now expanded to buckling Noah in and getting Desi locked in. I try to avoid the second part, as putting a newborn into a car seat is akin to fitting potato chip into a change purse. It looks like it could fit, but your pretty sure something will snap in the process.

So while it used to be “Me and Tree and the boy” now it’s “Me and Tree and Noah and Desi.” It’s no longer “Noah is an addition to our couple.” It’s “We are clan Bullard.” We are a traveling troupe. Matching t-shirts would almost be appropriate.

After a long struggle (search “poop” and see how many posts come up) Noah has finally come to terms with the fact that poo belongs in the toilet. Turns out the breaking point was simply lying about the world’s supply of Noah-sized diapers. We warned him that we were running low, and that soon he’d be forced to poop in the toilet. It was a game of human waste chicken. Who would blink first?

Noah held out until the very last diaper, and then only held it in for a day before finally deciding the toilet wasn’t the spawn of satan (in regards to poop…peeing in the toilet has been no problem for months.) I got a call at work from a tiny voice saying, “DADDY I POOPED IN THE TOILET!!!” This time it wasn’t a wrong number.

So my life has changed in a very good way. I haven’t had to clean up anything resembling adult poop in over a week. It’s almost weird. He’s tells us when he’s going about 50% of the time, so sometimes you’ll just walk in on him, or it will be really quiet, and you’ll get suspicious.

“Noah?”

“I NEED PRIVACY!”

Luckily I didn’t listen, otherwise this blog wouldn’t exist.

So two days ago I posted about Desi and our family and how we were sick. Little did I know that within a few hours of that post we’d be in the ER. Desi has a fever. Teresa burst into tears like we had already failed him as parents, and I went into “let’s get done what needs to happen” mode, and got us to the hospital tout suite.

So generally, in medicine, the way they find out what’s wrong with you is by seeing how your immune system is fighting. The problem with this method is that 2 week old babies don’t yet have and immune system, so there’s nothing to check. So what they have to do is take blood samples, then put them in petri dishes and try and grow various bacteria. If it grows, then it’s in his blood. If not, then he’s clear. This is a process that takes 2 days. So we get to stay in the hospital for 48 hours. To top it all off, they have to check for spinal meningitis. Yep, spinal. So you know what that means?

My son, at the ripe age of 2 weeks, got a spinal tap. This means Noah is going to have to step it up if he wants to kee the “I survived my father” title for long. If Desi keeps on this course, he’ll be fighting giraffes by 3 months.

Your move Noah…your move.

Tree and I tend to play parasite ping pong, then Noah came, and with the addition of Desi I guess we can now play doubles. It’s good to know that we’ve informed him that he’ll always be safe with us, his new family, as long as he can weather the minimum of one-per-season cold that I get, and then spread around the house.

Last night was awful. Tree and I had been dealing fairly well with the less sleep thing, but last night was bad. Desi had gas, and I suppose starting to feel the cold too. He was miserable, and was sure to let everyone else know about it.

Upside, Noah spent his first night in underwear. He woke up around midnight to use the bathroom, and made it the rest of the way through morning without incident. This would be more exciting if he had pooped in the past two days though. He pees fine, but he will run around demanding a diaper to poop in. He simply doesn’t understand the idea of popping in the toilet. He will openly admit to preferring to poop standing up, hiding behind a curtain like that ghost kid in Three Men and a Baby. That’s a not a joke. I’ve actually caught him standing behind a curtain, with that blank stare cats have when they poop.

Today I’m back at work, Tree’s first day alone with the boy. Noah is at school. Personally, I’m envious of the woman. She’s probably sitting at home right now with an unconscious kid on her chest, watching Arrested Development on Netflix Streaming, dozing in and out of consciousness.

Meanwhile I’m here, at work, working my fingers to the bone. Yep. Busy, busy, busy.