O Facebook, How I Poke Thee

August 27th, 2008 by Sally | Posted in ACKtivity, Girl's Eye View, Uncategorized |

O, Facebook. How I love thee. How to count the ways? I could write a poem with all the two-letter words I’ve acquired in my vocabulary. I could recount the number of hours and days filled with nothingness before Facebook gave me Funnest Person Contests, Groups and Fanships, Pokes and Posts. I could tell tales of all the fun I’ve had ignoring friend requests and deleting boring people from my list.

I could update my status.

Instead, I bring you herewith three things that have gone down in the last 24 hours thanks to Facebook:

1. I made up a NEW rule of friendship: Reunions with old friends must remain just that. No matter the circumstance for the original break-up or losing touch, the reunion must remain a reunion. No need for dredging up the why and how of a lifetime ago, especially when that lifetime largely involved illegally drinking cheap beer and listening to the Violent Femmes. Exhibit A: Seeing Chris and Betsy Lowenstein again (thank you, Facebook Friend Finder), right back here on the beach in Nantucket. It was a reunion full of joy and catch-up, meeting babies and spouses, and comparing dog photos and heel injuries. I don’t know if I pissed them off sometime in the 80s, but they didn’t mention it. That was awesome.

2. I tried Jerk Chicken for the first time. I didn’t like it, but that’s not the point. In July, when my friend Ellie suggested that I might love the fried chicken at the Rotary, I put it on my Nantucket FOOD TO DO list. It’s a long list, so it’s taken me until now to get there. And alas, when I did, I was told that the fried chicken would not be ready for “23 more minutes.” I could wait 15 minutes, but not 23, so I figured, “When in Rome” (the Rotary is owned by Jamaican folks), and thusly chose the jerk chicken with a side of plantains. It was gross, but doesn’t it look pretty in the picture? Thanks again, Facebook Friend Finder. (No Ellie, no jerk chicken.)

Jamie Ranney

3. I appeared on Nantucket Local 17 TV. Attorney by day, local TV celebrity by night, Jamie Ranney is also an old “boyfriend” of mine (when we were 13 and “boyfriend” meant sitting on a bench together on Easton Street two nights in a row.) We were reconnected through…wait for it…yep, Facebook, and he invited me to appear on “The Jamie Ranney Show,” which is a terrifically low-gloss, “Wayne’s World”-ish production that shoots from the basement of a house on Barnabus Street. I took my turn on the infamous orange couch immediately following Nantucket Harbormaster Dave Fronzuto’s interview about the state of squidding, scalloping, and sailboat moorings. If people turn the channel when I start talking about friendship rules, LA v. ACK culture shock, and my jealousy of Jamie for having his own show on Nantucket, so be it. Because, as Jamie so astutely pointed out, “You know you’ve made it when you have your own blog and your own website.” And after being on Jamie’s show, I KNOW I’ve really made it. Thanks again, Facebook.

With all that it’s given me, I have something to give back to Facebook: its newer, more European pronunciation. FAH-CHAY-BOOK. Learn it. Love it. From the Italian-sounding Facia (could mean “face,” but doesn’t) and the, well, English, for “book.” First introduced into parlance by one Eduardo Braniff, FAH-CHAY-BOOK is sweeping the nation. Listen for it on “Gossip Girl” this fall. Then immediately go back to original pronunciation and never admit you ever used this one.

Poke.