No Facebook For A Week: Day 7: Sunday, July 4, 2010
Text Contacts with FB Friends: 0
Email Contacts with FB Friends: 1
Telephone Contacts with FB Friends: 0
In-Person Contacts with FB Friends: 5
Today, as the nation celebrates the first day of its independence from Great Britain 234 years ago, I celebrate the last day of my independence from Facebook.
Largely, it didn’t seem like a real Fourth of July; it was Sunday, which meant I had to work in the morning, playing music at St. Eugene’s and even later at St. Agatha’s where I usually just sing, I was called on to play the drums due to an absence of available drummers.
Even that evening it didn’t feel like the fourth. There was no family BBQ (that would be tomorrow, an observed holiday) and none of my usual Fourth of July parties were going on…at least none that I’ve heard of. I’m sure I’ve gotten some invites via Facebook, but since I’m off of it, any events I’d miss out would be part of this experiment. Oh what I do in the name of science.
That evening, I just stay in my neighborhood, riding my bike for short distances (wouldn’t wanna ride around too much, lest a stray firecracker blow up in my face). Speaking of which, there was a multitude of er, undocumented fireworks displays going on not only in my neighborhood, but some right above my house – the next door neighbor shot up some professional-grade ‘works up in the sky, with a loud, deep swoosh before it popped some two hundred or so feet up.
I got hungry, and so I did what any normal American does on July 4 – have a carne asada burrito. This time, courtesy of El Gran Burrito, the old standby in the neighborhood. A couple of LAPD officers also stopped by, for tacos, as an undocumented fireworks display went off down the street. They seemed unfazed.
In my observations, it seems as though the longer you’re “out of the scene,” people tend to forget you. Thus no phone calls, no texts, one email contact. The five people who are my FB friends I did see today were all part of my church choir – people I would be seeing today anyway.
In all, July 4, 2010 was as uneventful as King George III’s some 234 years ago – supposedly.
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