A Simple Way To Go Faster Than Light That Does Not Work

I posted a tweet yesterday that, after a couple of hours, I came to regret for its negativity, so I took it down. It was basically: "This vacation is about 1.5 days too long." Before I did remove it, dianamp04 quite sensibly left a Facebook comment to the tune of "Oh no, a vacation! My heart is breaking for you." I had it coming, but I feel the need to say a few words (ha ha) in my defense.

Two reasons why my vacations need to be either shorter or lower-key than this one:

(0) I HAD A GREAT TIME OK. Nobody seems to believe me, especially when I pronounce it in all caps. But it is true anyway. Future timestream world-branches where I get around to upgrading my Flickr account will see me uploading some nice pictures.

(1) Introversion. classicaljunkie gets a free pass, but being in the presence of any other person on this green earth counts against my being-around-other-people bettery. I need frequent and long bouts of alone-time to recharge. Collapsing in hotel rooms after a day of itinerary-following, then getting up early the next morning in order to continue the itinerary: does not work. After a couple of days of this I am completely and visibly wrung out, and well-meaning people keep asking me if everything is OK. (See point 0.)

(2) Attention-miserliness. Lately, especially since getting back on the GTD horse, I've come to put a lot more value upon my attention, treating it as a highly precious and finite resource. A major reason I love working for myself is that I am in complete control over what things I spend my attention on. When I'm touring under someone else's power and schedule, I lose control over this. It can be fun and relaxing to let it go for a little while, but eventually I end up only feeling frustrated and anxious about it.

Why, yes, I can see you making the "world's smallest violin" gesture from here. Thanks. My point is that vacations are good for me but I have to put better definition on their size and scope in the future, or I'll get sufficiently stressed from them that I'll make bitchy twoots that I'll then bitchily delete two hours later. That's all.

Because of a new project, I shall endeavor to spend more time haunting Facebook. Feel free to friend me there (if I know who you are).

I visited FB for the first time in a long while the other day, and was surprised at how many people I know have taken to hitting it regularly, generating new status updates crawling up my wall. I think the disconnect I feel comes from relatively few people in my local social circles relying on Facebook as a social focal point, at least compared to Livejournal.

A lot of the folks on my LJ flist now are people who got accounts expressly so they could keep up with friends' conversations as they become increasingly filled with verbal pointers to LJ posts. Through conversation with a remote friend (who recently deleted their LJ), I see that FB holds that same role in other small social communities. I imagine it's quite possible that more people use Facebook for things like event-organizing and other social announcements than LJ, now.