7.26.2011

Thanks to everyone who responded to my last post.  Your encouragement is much appreciated.

As some of you may know, I recently joined Facebook.  I never wanted to join FB.  I thought it would be a huge waste of time.  Whenever someone asked me why I never joined, my standard response was something along the lines of, "I have a difficult enough time maintaining relationships with the people I see on a daily basis."  Now that I've joined, I kind of like it.  Yeah, it is weird to get friend requests from people I haven't seen since 8th grade, but generally FB does not intrude in my life as much as I though it would.  That said, last night I had a really weird dream involving Facebook.  People were posting criticisms of everything that I do or have ever done on my wall.  Not just one or two people, but a hundred.  I didn't care at first.  They were reasonable criticisms for the most part, but then they started avalanching.  They became more and more negative and personal,  and I got totally freaked out.
Fortunately, I woke up before I melted down.  Shit was crazy.  

That's all for now.

Love,
Jim

7.12.2011

When I started writing this blog and its distant ancestor, I did it because I could write anything I wanted to. It was nice to be able to express a full range of human emotions, or to be able to post any dumb shit that I wanted to.  I don't feel like I can do that anymore.  I censor myself to save the feelings of others, or to protect myself from the judgements of potential employers.  I've been told that many employers do not want to know that their employees (or potential employees) are real people who aren't happy all the time.  Every time I post something less than jubilant I have to hear about how depressing I am, or about how worried people are about me.
I don't understand.  Is everyone else happy ALL of the time?   It can't be so.
I haven't decided if I want to stop posting, or if I want to post more.  I realize that I don't have a ton of readers, but if you could drop me a line with your thoughts on the matter, that would be grand.  Perhaps your input will help me make a decision.

By the way, I'm doing pretty well.  Things are slow after my epic journey earlier this summer.  I had to quit my postal job before the trip, so I am searching for employment, and getting other stuff done.  It is super cool to be at home hanging out with Marleen.  We're preparing for the imminent arrival of Babycakes (the working title of our future child).  When I say imminent, I mean in less than 2 months.  The Baby is due on August 30.  I hope we have a name by then, because I'm pretty sure anyone with the name Babycakes will be teased by their peers even though many Dutch names sound far funnier than Babycakes does.
So yeah, I'm going to go.  Try not to let the bastards get you down.

Best,
Jim