Facebook? Me?

Facebook? What's facebook? Alright, so I know what facebook is, but honestly, I was holding out. Sure, I blog and tweet and tweet and blog. Then one day, my son says, "Dad, can I get a facebook?" He's fourteen and now he's trying to keep in touch with kids from the summer college program he met - they're from all over the world, come to lil' ol' old western New Jersey.

What am I going to say, no? I already say no to lots of requests, so... okay. But this means that now I need to keep tabs on him. So.... me and the wife, well, we sign up for facebook. Apparently we were also the last of our friends to do so, because she had numerous pending requests to befriend her friends.

Do they ever make it easy to sign up! And they find everyone you know, have ever known, are likely to know at some point, or really don't want to know. Jeez. Everyone was there. It seemed like every person I work my day job with were waiting for me behind some trash cans in the dark alleyway. Yeah, that's what facebook is. People you know lurking behind stuff ready to jump out and say BOO! and WELCOME TO FACEBOOK!

Yeesh. My brothers were there, my friends, people I've worked with or gone to school with and people in my writing community. It's totally freaky, and it's a world unto its own, not much smaller than our slowly/rapidly warming planet.

Naturally, I checked out my high school, and dang if there weren't just tons of people I knew. All those kids I spent my adolescence with - their pictures get sliding past my eyes like in a shooting range. All I had to do was pull the trigger and click the magical *Add as Friend* link.

But, did I really want to? Two of my best friends - one I already keep in touch with, and the other - well, no idea where he's gone to. He went from Brandeis University to somewhere in Chicago, to rumored sightings in Texas and then Pennsylvania. But he's not on facebook... unless he's assumed the alternate identity of Bruce Banner. He's hard to track down, because he shares the name of a celebrated television series director.

Anyhow, I'm rambling. Facebook? Yeah. I'm on it now. Why? To keep an eye on my kid, which happens to be the same reason as somebody I used to work with gave, before succumbing to the collective. That's right. Facebook is the Borg.