I'm off of Facebook. Going on one week now. If you know, you know. If you've never had a problem with the addictive nature of online social networking and you think I'm weak/weird, then fuck you and stop reading my blog.

It's hard... I see old pictures that I'm in, but now I'm not tagged, my comments are removed; a ghost. A ghost dyke as a central figure in a chaotic portrait of queer PDX life in 2010, and I'm Not Really There. So strange. So needing to get used to it.

What does it feel like to reclaim privacy? What do I give up/sacrifice in the process?

Will I know what to do with myself once I've grown accustomed to a world where I don't worry about what 500 people think of my thrice-hourly status updates? Will I remember how to function in one-on-one social interactions again? Already, everything seems more fascinating and overwhelming to me, just in one week of being 'off it'. Like I'm hearing people talking about how genuinely interesting they are for the first time, not just tuning in for whatever sound bites I can pilfer and post for later. Not storing up quips and social fodder for the sake of accomplishing vague witticisms online... but seeing the people I interact with. Being able to consider my reactions, interactions, and judgments for a moment longer, and in real time. Knowing that I have all the phone numbers and emails I'll ever need, and that I will be fine.

We went to a reading this evening of a book about the Riot Grrrl movement, written as a dissertation by a woman who, admittedly, did much of her interviewing & research through Facebook connections. She stood at the front of the room, her advance already cashed & spent, and told the audience that if people weren't on Facebook, they most likely were not in her book.

That got me excited. Excited to think that, yes, there are feminist hermits out there, people who this twee doctoral researcher was too lazy to get to, who are off the grid doing God-Knows-What and harvesting turnips. And I Love Them, they inspire me, and I quest for that place. Where we can claim our power to say NO. NO, I am not part of this mad world, I will not be caught up in the dissolution of my own creativity, I will go out and hunt for the authentic, the pure, the difficult.

So say I, writer of a blog read by no one!