Isn’t Facebook the weirdest trip of all? People of my generation who weren’t Lieutenant Colonels in the ROTC like that douche Neidermeyer in the movie Animal House, all pretty much remember doing drugs including hallucinogens like LSD and smoking pot, of course. Of course back then the drugs were purely recreational and not some refined hybrid species of monster chemicals and brain altering substances like today. Generally, we would just have these loooong slow “trips” of interesting feelings and unusual sensations that would (at best) expand our minds temporarily and occasionally open our hearts. At worst, they would just make us hungry and in IMMEDIATE need of strawberry ice cream. Now unfortunately everything I take, including aspirin, just makes me hungry. While I do remember a few people having “bad trips” and “bummer” experiences on drugs in high school and college (ie. “dont take the purple acid, man” at Woodstock, etc.) there was no rash of cannabalistic face-eating zombie attacks, or synthetic blends of chemical marijuana that led to someone stabbing someone else 234 times with a carving knife. At least I dont remember anything like that. Really psycho crazy people like Charles Manson and Ted Bundy always existed but we luckily never saw them and they certainly didn’t become our Facebook friends.

Did you hear what I said? There was no Facebook. Yes, young-ins, can you imagine a world devoid of Twitter, Zynga, laptops, cellphones and Netflix? Could you even survive in a digital wasteland without Wikipedia and Pinterest and Words With Friends? My point, before you and your attention deficit disorder comrades lose interest (I know, too many words and not enough good graphics) is that I do still like Facebook, even tho I doubt I’ll ever like Timeline or Mark Zuckerberg. I like Facebook because it is a tremendous forum for my kind of narcissistic self-disclosure, sometimes called humor and wit, and because it put me back in touch with lots of people from my past. Facebook is a constant, albeit paradoxical reminder of a long and winding trip I’ve taken called life. It reminds me of my childhood in Highland Park, Illinois, of my college days at UC Boulder, and of my glory days in Hawaii and San Francisco. Thanks to the magic of Facebook stalking it also reminds me how many of the people who I once thought were dweebs and dorks actually grew up to be rich, powerful, confident and successful human beings….and as a result they take actual trips to the Galapagos Islands, Istanbul, Paris, St. Kitts and Florence. I know this because I see all the pictures they post and I drool while they use their iPhones to take close up pictures of their breakfast, lunch and dinner.  They do this while I type away (in bed) in my unfinished partially renovated home in Atlanta where it is currently 106 degrees. Not that I am complaining or jealous in any way. I’m just saying having Facebook has both pluses and minuses, and when the mood strikes me I can either see what my high school classmates, circa 1971 are doing, notice how flabby and old my recent photos of myself appear, or use a convenient app to call the Publix pharmacy to see if my Simvastatin and blood pressure medicine is ready. Those drugs are ok I guess, but there really isn’t any kind of high or consciousness raising to be gained from either of them. Now my Viagra….that’s a whole different story.