Will the Real Me Kindly Stand Up? (Pose sideways?)

Lately, my mind has been swirling with the big, hard (mid-life, help-I've-fallen-into-a-deep-black-hole crisis) questions like,

Who am I, really?

What is my point here? and;

How am I going to make this one life (that I can be sure of) matter?

Perhaps it's comically apropos, then, that my private facebook page seems to be mocking me with those very same questions:

Thanks to my friend David Stanley for capturing this screen shot of
 the many faces of me that may now be located on facebook.

Which Gae is the real Gae?

And, why should we care?

What does it really matter?

As those of you who know me well know, my facebook world is important to me.

My private page is a racy, silly, funny, sometimes profane, always supportive, and often ridiculous outlet -- a real (if mostly virtual) community where I connect primarily with my writer-friends around the country, but also with long-lost (and happily-found) friends from my past: high school, college, work, and childhood days.

My page is certainly not for everyone, but it is for me, and I have spent countless hours there, high only on the type of witty banter that has often escalated to literally hundreds of posts in a few short minutes to one thread.

I have shared my life there on my page in thoughts, photos and videos. I have abated Sunday blues by playing there, and smoothed Monday angst, with the same. I have celebrated and cried there with people who I may not have met in the flesh, but I truly believe I now know.

The truth is, my facebook page matters to me.

So, it is with huge frustration that my second facebook page (my first one froze, to no avail, ages ago) began experiencing glitches last week.

I've held out hope that Mark Zuckerberg might care and respond, but alas, he's too busy with his courtside seats at the Knicks.

So, then, it seems this second permutation of facebook me is done --gone the way of the first, into virtual facebook heaven.

So be it. It's just a page on a screen in the endless white void of the universe.

My new page is here. I hope some of you will follow.*

Meanwhile, stupid as it may seem, I am mourning the loss of "old, second, facebook Gae."

Silly?

Maybe.

Okay, definitely.

But, all the same, still true.


- gae



*please note that you must be over the age of 19 and appreciate a racy, sometimes stupid, sense of humor to participate there.

How Red (Cold? Blue?) Can You Go?

If my hair is any indicator, very, and likely proof that I am frantically staving off  (another) mid-life crisis.

It started as a strand or two, and now look, it's taken over my head. What's worse is that I'm eyeing bottles of green, and orange and purple.

At least my kids think this version of insanity is cool. Only when they're older will they realize. . .

Some days it's not too bad, but the rain this week doesn't help.

Nor the fact that I'm out on submission (writer speak for praying an editor will freaking just please take my book!). And, despite an amazing, competent new agent, who believes in me, it's this market that's killing my confidence...

Also, NOT helping? The fact that the open water season is going to end one day soon, like, say, yesterday, maybe, or at best, this Saturday. Because the novelty of swimming in 40-degree water is quickly wearing off. Been there. Done that. Thrice, as they say.

Then, it's six months in the (fucking) cholorinated pool.

Plus, there's my eyesight: yep, I need reading glasses . . . and, even still, I can't see shit. My last trip to the eye doctor nearly made me pass out. It's the light they shine in your eyes while they describe how you're slowly losing focus. . .

Oh, and  my "bum" hip which, no, has not gotten better despite all I've done to ignore it *coughs*. I mean, bursitis???? What the fuck?!)

And, suddenly, I realize I never made the five-mile swim this summer I was counting on -- okay, I realized sooner, but suddenly the weight of it is hitting me hard, and bumming me out big time.

I know, I know. There's always next summer. But I wanted to do it this one.

Waaaaaaaa.

So, yeah, I'm feeling angsty and blue and fearful of the cold days looming ahead. So maybe it just doesn't matter how red I go. Maybe no red is quite red enough.

Maybe I need to go blue . . .

(You know, as in, 

5.

blue - adj. - suggestive of sexual impropriety; "a blue movie"; "blue jokes"; "he skips asterisks and gives you the gamy details"; "a juicy scandal"; "a naughty wink"; "naughty words"; "racy anecdotes"; "a risque story"; "spicy gossip")

This is my writer-friend, cum girl crush, Tami Sue Snow.  (yes, people, that is a totally business-like and respectable way to use the word cum. You know nothing):

Yeah, I said girl crush. I mean, seriously, can you blame me? 

Right.

I didn't think so.

Anyway. Tami hosts an erotic radio show on Shark Radio called The Naughty Slot (*curtseys because she helped her name it*) and, as sexy as she is, she is also sweet and talented and adorable, and suddenly I find myself rushing home on Saturday nights at 10 pm EST (if, miracles of miracles, i am even out in the first place) to chime in on the chat room delirium that takes place in the sidebar, along with my new VBFF (and very funny counterpart) Heidi (she's a peach!), as if we are silly school girls.

Silly, blue school girls staving off an emotional breakdown...

Me, flaunting my blueness on a recent Saturday night....

I would have thought that all this girl-on-girl (and totally in-fun) debauchery would actually be more entertaining to my husband -- who would usually only dream of such things -- but mostly he just seems to shake his head at me. 

Maybe it's the combo of red, cold, AND blue, that's freaking him out just a bit.

And, the fact that it's only November.

But that's what marriage is for, right? To roll our eyes while the other spouse isn't quite looking, then nod supportively when we realize they are.

*nods enthusiastically*

*sighs*

It's gonna be an interesting winter.

- gae