Our Electronic.. Lamentations?

I promised G today that if she didn’t have her laptop by next Christmas (the one following this one) I would be forced to buy her a laptop because she needs to begin “The Next Great American” novel. Why? Because OEF is starting to come undone like that character in the Wally Lamb novels. You know, you just keep reading because it’s got to get better - right? For reals? Or maybe I just need to come back here to this website because it was home before one of my high school friends posted a half nekkid lady in my comments page on Myspace.

The original intent of OEF is stated in it’s banner. Friends living in separate states trying to find a way to chat each other up on a regular, without driving, expensive phone bills and well the melodrama that can sometimes inadvertantly erupt over instant messenger. There also was the unwritten rule (at least in my head), that somehow by banding as a team we’d push each other creatively. We did at first. We were honest in our internet Garden of Eden and then with any friendship: the inevitable changes came.

Myspace was the first attack. When suddenly faced with the choice of adding friends or writing meaningful (in our heads) essays, the three of us were powerless to it’s charms. I mean for heavens sake you even get a theme song on your profile page! I think part two was the inevitable “girls can be catty” phase. In the olden days when there was a conflict, you’d handle it out on the play ground. Some pulled hair, some torn up book bags and problem solved. In college town, there was the “house-meeting” where you’d converge on the helpless miscreant of your apartment and decimate her self esteem rendering her useless as a feeling & thinking person for the next four years of said life (when in all honesty you probably really could have dealt with this person had they just washed a dish.) Brutal but efficient. And now as it becomes harder to see people everyday, how else is one supposed to react to social blights, but to say snarky things about others for the world to see via the world wide web. One good snarky comment deserves another and the battle rages on.

Oddly as OEF’s mantra started to come undone, the phone started ringing, and the road trips started. We didn’t have to write electronically if the people were sitting in the living room in the flesh. We didn’t have to write to kill time if there was work and productive engaging work at that. Plus well as added incentive, at any given moment we are all only two paychecks away from poverty. So what’s a blog to do when it’s owners have all grown up?

Lately I’ve felt my internet toilings are flailing. I read my last few blogs and was like “Dude, stop being a cry baby." I don’t like reading politics. I don’t like watching them. I yell at Bill O’reilly when he’s on at the gym. Why am I writing about it? .....Sidetracked....... I need to be writing about how AWESOME Law and Order is and how I think a whole channel should be dedicated to it. Or hello - who else is watching “Heroes” on NBC. Perhaps the funniest event of this month was Cattina sending me pictures of a stranded owl that somehow found itself staring RIGHT AT HER (and did not move) during Hurricane Ernesto a few weeks ago. Or even about how awesome it is to be off work. Not so awesome to be stranded at home without power. Boo.

To be honest, I’m like Simon and I like to do drawrings. My favorite OEF endeavor has to be “Flour-Face” as he is the embodiment of anyone whose ever had a superior that has no idea what he/she is saying. Mumbo Jumbo..kerflaffle mumble.

Is this a goodbye blog? Nope. Maybe just an attempt at a commitment of non-malicious, snarky, or venomous blogs. As Alumni Leslie would say to High School Leslie... “I’m just not THAT angry anymore.” I guess where I’m going here is that on the eve of OEF’s (GASP) 2 year anniversary (October I think). it’s time to get happy.