diandra--my enabler :-)

so today . . . my name is julie and i'm a social media-aholic.

i am not even going to give you all the pathetic details of my condition. let me just say, if i were in a support group, i would have to go tonight and say, "it has only been a few hours since i joined a new social media platform..." say hello to tumblr.

i spend plenty of time on facebook, probably more than is good for me. i blog, and when i blog, it usually takes a couple of hours out of my already full day. i also tweet, but mostly as a quick way to post something to facebook.

and then, last night, diandra discovered tumblr.

i'm not quite sure how it happened, but she spent all evening working on her page layout and posting stuff. i was curious about what she was doing, so she said, "just go on and follow me." so, of course i did.

i was surprised to learn that i already had a tumblr account. i have no idea how that happened. i do not remember signing up for tumblr. i didn't even know what it was!!! but i was following one person. one. this was a surprise to me! but anyway, now that i had an account, i decided i should start to use it. diandra said it was very user friendly (meaning, "even you could probably figure it out, mom,") so this afternoon i tried to get it working...

first i had to get over the forgotten password hurdle. since i didn't even know i had an account, i sure didn't know the password! i tried every password i could remember ever using for anything. nothing worked. i finally had to give in and have them send me the "don't you keep a list of your passwords somewhere?" email that told me how to reset it. which i did. this allowed me to finally access the account.

and then the trouble really began, because i was suddenly faced with choices, choices, choices. layouts, colors, fonts, oh my! after viewing several free ones (because you could pay up to $49 for one! seriously?? i mean, i know designers should be paid for their work, but my page is just for fun. and probably only two people will ever bother to go look at it, so i don't think i'll be paying anything for a layout template,) i chose one that was very simple but colorful. i was pretty happy with it, but then my lunch break was over so i had to wait to finish it up...

when i got home, diandra said she had posted about 20 things to her tumblr page over the last two days. i thought that sounded like a lot. i'm pretty sure i won't be posting nearly that much, but i thought i should go finish figuring the thing out. but first, diandra went to look at it. and that is when the mocking began... because since i hadn't posted anything, my page was just blocks of color--no words, no pictures, nothing. well, that isn't technically true. because in setting the page up, it wanted me to give it a title. sheesh. i didn't know what to call it. i didn't know what kind of stuff i was going to post, so how could i know what to call it. "hmmmm, mom? really?? that's what you are going to call your page? hmmmm??" that was diandra's response. this was not encouraging to me. i had thought it was a decent title. that is the sound of thinking... it seemed like a good idea at the time...

ok, fine! i needed words. but i didn't know what to write. i'm not quite sure what to do with tumblr. i use twitter if i have an amusing thought to share. facebook is where i interact with my family and friends. (i even have two facebook pages now--one for family, one for friends. although, some friends are on the family one, because i haven't had the friend one for very long. so it is a little confusing, even to me.) and this blog is where i write, since i have discovered i love to write. (actually i'm not sure if i love to write or if i just love to tell stories, writing being the easiest way to do that...) so i don't really know where tumblr fits in...

i thought maybe it should address a particular area of my life. my blog is just about random stuff that happens to me that i think might make you laugh. facebook is mostly a response to the people who are or have been a part of my life. so tumblr... maybe it should be inspirational. i could write inspirational. i think. or maybe it should be opinionated. i certainly have opinions, but i rarely share them. or maybe it should just consist of reposting stuff i find that interests me. but would any of that be interesting to anyone else? and will anyone else ever see it? and does it matter if they do or not???

i don't know. but i kind of wanted my first post to set the tone for what was to come. how could i do that if i didn't know what was to come. i was sitting on the couch, unable to write anything. diandra was sitting next to me, whining about needing food. "we can't go until i write something," i said. "you made fun of my empty page. what if people stumble across it and it says nothing!" "we are going to be here all night, mom, just write something!!!" she said, (that was the hunger talking...) but i couldn't. i was paralyzed. but she was hungry. so she leaned over my computer, and in the title space she wrote "paralized," while i tried to push her fingers off my keyboard. "ACK! DON'T POST THAT!! I AM NOT GOING TO HAVE MISSPELLED WORDS ON MY PAGE!!!" she proceeded to write a pretty cute entry, which was quite a feat considering i was trying to prevent her. but i read it, corrected the spelling, and thought, ok, that is a good start. and then i wrote some more. and then some more. and then i decided to post hers first, and then mine. but i am still learning how to use tumblr, and i accidentally deleted hers. which is too bad, because it was cute...

and then i started my blog for today. because if i can't blog on tumblr (which technically i can, but i don't have time for two blogs,) then i needed to blog about tumblr--just this once. and then diandra said, "if you blog about tumblr, then maybe people who read your blog will come to your tumblr page. and if they come to your tumblr page, they might see MY tumblr page. and what if they follow me?" "that will be good, won't it? don't you want people to read your page?" i asked. "no," she said, "this is just my personal page." "then maybe you should make it private," i said. "well," she paused, "i want people to read it, but maybe not people i know. what if i want to post something inappropriate?!?"

ok, that made me laugh. i am following her on tumblr. she knows that. i am her mother. i doubt she is going to post something inappropriate. but i understand what she is saying. i am sort of feeling the need to have a place where i can write it all--the good, the bad, and the ugly (the ugly would probably be a gallery of photos of my bangs...)

so. tumblr. i'm not sure exactly what it is going to become. but it might not be for everyone. maybe i should call it "julie. unplugged." you know, just in case i decide to post something inappropriate.

;-)