Facebook is like a brother to me

Facebook, you're a funny thing.

And not in a funny, humorous, "Am I a clown, do I amuse you?" kind of way, but in a fickle friend, somebody-please-give-me-a-warning-if-you're-having-a-bad-day way.

Blogging and tweeting are similar, but not in as personal a way as Facebook is.

For example, a couple years ago I remember talking to my friend about how we love Taco Bell so much and how if we were a Taco Bell menu item we would be _________.

This spurred a Facebook status post asking "If you were a Taco Bell menu item, what would you be?"

I'd say in about two hours there were 50+ comments and at least 75 likes.

BUT

When I share something about Support the Arts, or pose a question of something, dare I say, serious or (for fear of sounding condescending or snooty) intellectual, I'll maybe get three likes and people rarely comment on it to share an opinion or have a conversation about it.

Occasionally, when I see someone else's status and it pertains to something I don't agree with, or would like to learn more about, or have some opinion on in any way, I tend to keep scrolling because who likes getting into actual conversations or (the horror!) an online argument.

I totally get that, by nature, most of us are non-confrontational, but does that mean we can't have conversations through our laptops and smart phones? I know that having a round table discussion about marriage equality, abortion, vaccines, immigration, politics, or whatever can be intense for many people because of volume, interruptions, eye contact, body temperature...whatever physiological reactions may occur, but online you're safe behind your computer wherever you're typing. No one can interrupt you, and you have as much time as you need to think things out, present them rationally, and breathe through whatever nervousness you have.

I guess what I really mean is...

Why have we drifted so far away from actually talking to each other? And why have Like buttons and Shares claimed plots in our land of communication skills?

And why has social media become such a factor in sharing feelings, asking questions, relationships, jobs, and essentially every aspect in life whether it's interpersonal, individual, happy or sad, joyous or sadness?

Why is it so simple for friends/followers to Like, Share, RT or double tap for like anything devoid of emotional response or critical thinking, but when there's an actual discussion that could be had where questions could be asked, viewpoints can be shared, and knowledge can be exchanged, we clear the road like a wild west duel at high noon?

Maybe this is more a question for Facebook programmers' algorithms for News Feed sharing. How do you decide what's important to share in my friends' feeds? Is anything relating to food, sports, or pop culture highlighted? Is it based on #NowTrending topics? Or is there a filter that actually hides posts with emotional/inquisitive words like "feel" or "help" or "why?"

Facebook, you're like a brother to me.

But in the way that I know "brother" as I was raised and not as I learned to use the word brother as in "my brothers were in my wedding party" or "I served aboard a submarine with my brothers".

You're like the older kid that lives in the house with me but doesn't really talk to me. You're that guy that is  used as a model for excellence for when I screw up, and as someone who takes credit for when I succeed. I share with you in hopes of conversation, but all you really want to know is what I had for lunch, how many games of Words With Friends I'm playing, and how many other social media apps you can follow me on.

You don't really care that I have a job, as long as you know I have one. Nor do you really care what's on my mind, how I'm feeling, what I'm watching, eating, reading, listening to, or what. You don't what to know why anything is going on, but more so just what.

Or maybe this is really about people I think I connect with on Facebook.

So I'm taking back control of my life online as I am taking back control of my life in the sunlight with my feet on the ground and the warmth on my face. I'm not worried about Likes or Shares or updating my information or if you care how many firsts, or places I've been, or relationship status, or hometown, whatever.

I'm calling the shots. I write my own chapters. I ask my own questions. But if you really care what Taco Bell item I am, then ask someone else. I'm a Sonic Chicago dog with cheese tots and a strawberry limeade. I'm a fresh funnel cake with powdered sugar on top--straight up classic no frills. I'm a chocolate Frosty with fries on a summer day while you sit on the curb with sweat dripping down your calf from the back of your knee.

And yeah, if you care, I love my job as a Service and Training Manager at Old Navy. My hometown is TBD because home is home wherever it is. But I was raised in Oakland and Antioch, California. I don't specify that as my singular hometown, though. The LBC is also my home. As is VB back east. And does it really matter if I select Separated, Single, or Divorced? Because anyone that really wants to know could probably have a better conversation with me than your drop down menu.

My life is my life and sometimes I'm more raw and open about it than some people are ready for.

But the cool thing about social media--whether it's a blog like this, or a tweet, or a Facebook status--is that it's like leaving a postcard on the floor of a club. Most people will probably step on it or over it, but every once in a while, something will catch someone's eye and they may read it.  Someone may even pick it up and share it with someone.

Whatever happens to it, I got it out in the open, and for me, that makes it more real. That puts my thoughts down "on paper," for public consumption, and I stand behind what I say. That's really me. And as much as I don't fulfill the stereotype for musical-loving theatre geek...

Take me or leave me.

PBDC Day 8/31: In the Corner

Initial thought: REM. That's me in the corner/That's me in the spot/Light/Losing my religion

The theatre-related response: In my own little corner/In my own little chair -Cinderella

The chick-flick loving side's response: "No one puts Baby in the corner." Also see, "I carried a watermelon?"

The "How Can I Tie My Whole Day Together" response:

Our first snow was back in early November. It's now the second Saturday in March, and we were still getting new snow this morning. I got some new shoes last month (Day 21/28: Tiny) and this morning was the first time I cursed them. But it really wasn't their fault. They're great shoes, and I love em, but they aren't impervious to wintry effects on the ground. There has probably been snow on the ground on approximately 97% of the days in the last four months. Thinking today was no different, I walk outside like I do every day I go to work, and my first step outside on the snowy ground, my sweet kicks are suddenly at chest level and I'm on my ass. Ok, it's winter. I get it. So I get up, look around, and brush the fresh powder of my ass. I take my next step and I've got a panoramic view of the sunrise sky and have an impromptu trust fall exercise with the Earth, and the Earth was definitely there for me. After the first fall, I was glad no one was around, but after the second, I wished someone was there to enjoy the show. Luckily, I know how to just take a fall to avoid any injury by trying to catch myself.

I carefully made it to my car and made it to work safely, assuring myself and my bruised pride that, although I had a couple of spills to "start" my day, they were merely an opportunity to hurdle some minor adversities and not an early indication of a rough day ahead. Once at work, I discovered the printer had once again taken a day off, and I was faced with hand writing a few forms/tables that are templates which are filled in each morning for the work day. With a couple of other curve balls that I'll leave out, I'll just say that as the morning developed (and the pain started setting in from the two spills)...

I began to feel like I was painted into a corner.

But the day turned out alright, and my decision to look at each individual hurdle as just that, an individual hurdle, helped me keep my spirits up and my smile genuine throughout the day.

Back at home, still without a photo I could relate to the prompt, I kept my eyes open in the apartment for something I could artistically interpret for today's subject.

And so...today's official response.

Behind my Long Beach State jacket, against the wall on the left is a blue case. Smaller than a guitar, but small enough to wear on your back. There are actually two straps on the back to wear them on your back, but at this angle you can't see them.

It's my violin case. Same one I've had since high school. Yes, high school, that thing I graduated from last millennium back in 1999. If you didn't know, I can play the violin, but honestly, I've barely played in the last few years.  I played in a couple shows I was in in college, but other than that, it would just come with me from apartment to apartment without seeing the sun that much.

To put things in perspective, my wife has never heard me play. Well, she's heard me fiddle around once when we were working on a community production together in 2011, but she hasn't heard me really buckle down and play. I mean really play. Like close my eyes and read the music that's burned into my mind while I walk around and sway like a hula girl on a dashboard of a dusty El Camino across gravelly roads of New Mexico.

I keep it for the same reason I keep the plays I mentioned in this month's Day 1: Yellow.

I do intend to start playing again, but part of me wants to keep this very violin in case a sweet child o' mine wants to play the violin. I like envisioning sentimental future situations like that.

Maybe writing about it is the just what I needed for myself to brush the dust off the case and let the old girl get some fresh air. I actually think about that a lot. Not playing my violin, but about how me writing this blog is just as much for all of you as it is for me. That I've now typed it all out and shared a thought for all to see where I can look back to it, or you could hold me to it in the future. I've seen some folks share blogs like that. Sharing their bucket lists and 30B430 lists so that we can enjoy the journey together, and really just to say it aloud to the world to make it more real instead of just having it float around in your head, hidden from everyone.

That's really the main reason I did NaNoWriMo last year. Because I needed something, someone to get me to tell the story that's been in my head for years. And since then I've been able to just let it flow and write it out.

I'm anything but painted into a corner, my friends. I'm just getting started.

Photo and Blog a Day Challenge-Day 27/28: In Love With

The first school play I was ever in was in the fifth grade, and it was a class play (meaning everyone in the class was in it). It had an educational theme to it, being set in a classroom and pertaining to much of the curriculum that year--states and capitals. Despite my enthusiasm for the production, I was not given the opportunity for a lead role since my teacher did not believe I could focus enough to learn all the lines. So I had one of the smallest roles in the show, a boy named Jimmy Johnson (maybe that's really why I don't like the Lowe's 48 #NASCAR #StandWithSmoke), and my first line in the play was, "I'll say!"

When I was in high school I landed my first lead role-with the church theatre group-and I later found out that I wasn't cast based on talent, but because I was the only male that fit the lead's character description. With my high school drama program I was cast in my first musical, Little Shop of Horrors, and although I felt my nerdiness made me a lock for the lead of Seymour, I was cast to appear onstage as an unnamed supporting role ("Wino) in the opening number, but then sat in the orchestra pit to be the voice of the plant, Audrey II. At five feet, two inches tall, and about 120 pounds soaking wet, most audiences didn't believe that such a little guy supplied the booming voice for the alien plant--but I did. Well.

Through my time at Diablo Valley College I was blessed with an array of works to perform with: Shakespeare's MacBeth, Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid, an original Greek work by Nicole Hess-Diestler and Zach Diestler called Iphigenia at Aulis. There were numerous scene studies, or Brown Bags as we'd call them, where I was given great opportunities to delve into pieces by John Patrick Shanley (Frankie and Johnny), Emily Mann (The Execution of Justice), David Rabe (Hurlyburly). And there were even a couple of musicals, Bat Boy, a contemporary rock musical, and Some Enchanted Evening, a Rodgers and Hammerstein revue.

At Cal State Long Beach I played a cholo (Los Lobos de la Noche), an Indian boy (A Chance, an original piece by Chetan Sanathara), a Shakespearean father (Gentlemen Redux), and a gay man (Our Lady of 121st Street).

With the shows that I have been fortunate enough to be in, I've been challenged and stretched and corraled and set free. And even with my tattoos (which are something many of my theatre classmates considered to be taboo or too cumbersome to have to work around), I didn't have to cover them up in as nearly many shows as I was asked to show them off. Actually, for my role in Los Lobos they actually added more tattoos. And through all of this: Shakespeare, Greek, Moliere, cholo, Indian, gay, original pieces, I never had to be naked onstage. In a piece I directed, The Big Funk, by Shanley, one of my actors had to be naked, and I mean fully naked, no socks, dance belts, or nothing, but I myself had never been naked on stage.

Being naked is a scary thing for many people. Taking a shower or bath is probably the one thing that most people can be comfortable doing naked. Yes, I omitted sex, because 1. you don't have to be completely naked (#socks #shirts) and 2. being this intimate with someone doesn't necessarily mean you're absolutely comfortable with being naked.

So that leaves showertime as the singular occasion of being comfortable with nakedness.

I write quite a bit about positivity, especially in regards to loving one's self, and although it probably won't come as a surprise, I feel it to be a strong gesture to say it explicitly. I'm not always happy with my body.

In more bathrooms than not, stepping out of the shower usually places me face to face with the mirror above the sink. Nothing like starting your day with a vigorously hot shower, reviving you from your slumber, only to be slapped in the face by, well, your face...above your naked body. This is typically not the best feeling. 

But recently, I've been better about accepting my awesomeness and being happy with who I am. How much better? I took a picture of myself after I got out of the shower today.

With my hair messy and still a little bit wet, unkempt eyebrows center stage, I took a picture of myself at a time when I would normally not want anyone to see me. But today I do. Because I love who I am and I'm in love with myself. Not in a narcissistic way, but in a way that is in reply to, "If you don't love yourself, why should anyone else be?"

I'm a pretty hairless guy. Have you ever seen me with a mustache? Or a goatee with some sweet chops to frame it? Nope. And my hairless back (which I'm not complaining about) pictured above is right in line with my unmanly (by stereotypical standards) hairless chest.

This commercial was a nice reminder that every style is ok. Thanks, Genesis. #CallMe

The tattooed cat is out of the bag, and my upper back tattoos are now for everyone to see in all its bloggy glory. Kanjis for "wisdom" (Connecticut) and "loyalty" (Virginia), an anchor-inspired Sagittarius symbol (NorCal), and a modification of the Alexander Pope quotation, "To err is human, to forgive divine." (Montana).

I used to think that tattoos helped to draw attention away from parts of my body that I did not wish to show off (especially in my beach bum days when all I wore was a hat and a pair of board shorts), but I have since then refocused my appreciation for my ink as I became a curator of my own gallery. The tattoos on my skin are like patches on a cruise jacket-symbolizing deployments, missions, and battle groups.

Being on stage naked was something that many of us talked about in school, mostly in a fearful light. Just thinking about all those people and making eye contact with them afterwards knowing that they saw you in such an adulterated manner without reciprocation. But with live theatre, after the moment it's gone. With photography, that moment is frozen in time forever. 

But what good is a moment unless it's shared with others. So I wanted to share it with everyone (thanks to body positioning and framing a tasteful shot).

I am in love with myself. That's the healthiest, most fulfilling love anyone can have, and everyone should.