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As of tonight, my Facebook account is gone. Permanently. The short version of why I left: As I said on my final wall post, I will miss the people I really connected with there, but I will not miss the experience of using Facebook. I just don’t like it. Also, it’s a huge time-suck. For the long version, read on:

I should start by saying why I joined FB. At the  2009 SCBWI conference in LA, an editor suggested that FB  and Twitter were good resources and ways to connect for kidlit people. When I got home, I joined both FB and Twitter just to check them out, assuring myself that I could quit if I wanted to. I immediately liked Twitter and hated Facebook, but decided to give it a chance in case I changed my mind.

Shortly after I joined, something strange happened. People I didn’t know and had never heard of started sending me friend requests. I wondered, “Who are these people and why do they want to be friends with me?” But they were friends with all my other friends, so I decided on an open friending policy (I friended everyone that asked).

The longer this went on, the more cynical I became. The more friends I had on Facebook, the lonelier I felt. Probably because I didn’t know most of my so called friends.

It wasn’t all bad. It was great to connect with real friends and kidlit people on FB. It was also really fun to get a hundred or more, “Happy Birthday!” messages posted to my wall on my bday (it took me a while to figure out how they all knew it was my bday).

I’ll admit that I never really learned how to use FB (like not looking at the users manual when you buy something). I thought at first that it was like Twitter (it’s not) and that it was, “plug and play” (it wasn’t, there was a lot to learn). The worst part is that I didn’t realize that by friending everyone, I was putting my real friends at risk. Most people on FB are nice, honest people, but some aren’t. A friend of mine let me in on the fact that you had to be careful of who you connected to on FB, because they had access to all your friends and their info. If that wasn’t bad enough, FB kept changing things like privacy settings, which allowed people to see your personal info even if you didn’t want them to!

I almost quit several times, but FB kept sucking me back in. There were a few friends that I only talked with on FB and I didn’t want to lose touch again.

But looking at the news stream felt like drowning. There were all these people (many that I didn’t know) talking about all these other people I didn’t know. And they were playing games and sending me requests and asking me to join their book pages and, and, and … and I was going crazy, and not writing or drawing as much. Someone told me how to turn off all the game stuff, which helped, but Facebook was still a stressful place to be. And I still hated using it. Every time I figured out where everything was and how it worked, FB updated things so we all had to start all over again.

I almost quit again at the beginning of the year. Then I had a brilliant thought. I could make FB pages to keep my personal life personal! I could unfriend all the people I didn’t actually know! This gave me hope for a nanosecond. Then I found out that it’s a horrible feeling to unfriend people, even if you don’t know them, and that it felt bad to ignore new friend requests from unknown people. Also, not many people liked my new pages, which made me feel stupid for making them in the first place, so I tried to share the posts on my wall and tweet about them, which felt like screaming, “look at me, look at my FB page.”

It took a while to realize that I didn’t care/wasn’t offended if people didn’t look at my Facebook pages  or read my wall or comment. Most of them were probably drowning in their own crowded news streams. The

All the snow this winter has turned the snowmen into zombies!

The remaining snowmen are running for their lives!

The prompt this week for Illustration Friday is “Layer.” Whenever I watch waves, I think of them as having layers of colors. The colors of the waves crash into the colors of the water, blending the layers into one, until the next wave rolls in.

I wish I were at the beach right now! At least the sun is shining today

The laundry room caught on fire (again) today. The smoke billowed up through the building and into our apartment, so I’m out on the balcony listening to the construction and the jackhammers. They’ve told us not to leave, but the firemen left, so I’m thinking of leaving as well. The last time this happened was October 1, 2008. I blogged about it then and that post could have been written today:

Post from October 1, 2008 on the old sruble blog

How’s life at the Inferno Apartment Complex on Incendiary Lane? Glad you asked. Earlier today, I smelled smoke. I tried to find the cause of said smoke, but couldn’t. A few minutes later, a thick heavy smoke smell filled the room (and I couldn’t breathe, which was very disconcerting). It also seemed a little hazy. I did the smoke check again and discovered that there was smoke wafting in from the hallway (I did NOT open the door, as I am not addle-brained).

While throwing on jeans (no need to go outside in my Halloween themed PJ pants I wear sometimes while being creative), I made a mental list of things I needed to do if there was a fire: encourage LeFurrball to get into his carrier without too much of a fight (ha ha), put on shoes, grab the Remus kitty, car keys, laptop, ID, money … FLEE! (Note: If there were flames or more smoke, I would have grabbed the cat and bolted.)

Before enacting my fire-fleeing list, I called down to the concierges to see if they could elaborate on the disaster that was surely happening, or not. He said that someone’s clothes caught on fire in the dryer!

Our apartment is nowhere near the first floor, where the laundry room is; the smoke came up through the elevator shafts and the vents in our apartment. Our apartment is not smoky anymore because the windows are open and the vents and bottom of the door are blocked off, but the hallways, elevators, lobby, and laundry room are evil smelling. I feel bad for the people with burned clothes.

The fact that someone’s clothing started a fire in the dryer didn’t surprise me. A few months ago, I noticed that clothing coming out of the dryer was so hot, that you would get burned if you touched it (fabric, not just metal zippers). We’ve been drying our clothes on medium or low since then. Dryer fires are scary and charred clothing is not fashionable.

I hope this isn’t a pattern, but just in case, remind me to look out for laundry fires again in 2012. I really wish I would have done laundry yesterday! Argh!

p.s. Unfortunately, I can’t find the pictures from last time. I haven’t been downstairs yet, but I’m guessing it looks similar. Imagine an industrial sized dryer with burn marks that looks a bit like a melted marshmallow, if you only held the marshmallow up to the campfire on one side.

For the 3 of you reading this who haven't expired from sheer boredom, following this thread, I have actual finished art to show.

Today I shifted into 'just get it done' mode. I was up at dawn, coloring away, and am happy to report that I now have 10 of the 30 pieces completely finished. Yay!



I had to remind myself that this is not art for a gallery, or for a CPSA entry; its art for an educational publishing book for little little kids. With a deadline and fee to match.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, I'm just saying. Its tempting with my colored pencil work to linger over every stroke, and for something like this, I just can't.
So I got my rear in gear yesterday and today and started finishing things up.
10 down, 20 to go (although they're actually all halfway done, thankfully).

~~~~~~
Other thoughts:
FLIES. Its getting hot now, so the flies are out in force. Yuk. Who invented flies, and why?
GAY MARRIAGE. But not in California, oh no, that would be too civilized. I want to rant about this in about 120,000 point type, but can't, so won't, and be glad.
CATS CATCHING BIRDIES. Sad. Although I have to say, the squawking, dive-bombing blackbird that made all of us miserable for weeks was asking for it. He is now RIP in my yard.
MUD PIE ICE CREAM. I think it has LSD in it. Its good stuff. Weird dreams though, man.
DENNIS HOPPER. A guy who looks just like him is moving into the house across the street from me. And no, its not the ice cream talking ~ he really does. If I see a Peter Fonda drive up, then I'll start to wonder...

Back to scanning art ~

The United States Library of Congress hosted its first National Book Festival in 2001. Thirty thousand people attended. On September 29, 2007, the date of the seventh edition of the festival, attendance exceeded one hundred twenty thousand.

In addition to the use of online tools and digital media, including podcasts, the National Book Festival is just one of many of the Library of Congress’ initiatives to promote literacy and a love of reading and writing.

On this edition of Just One More Book, Mark is joined by Matt Raymond, Director of Communications for the Library of Congress, to talk about the National Book Festival, the online Young Readers’ Toolkit, and the use of new media to promote literacy.

Links:

• National Book Festival
• National Book Festival Podcasts
• Young Readers’ Toolkit
• Library of Congress Blog
• Library of Congress Podcasts

National Book Festival poster image from the Library of Congress website.