I've Kissed 4-6 of My Facebook Friends

Earlier this evening, I announced that I was a little afraid of "Friend Facts" on Facebook. It was serving me up a lot of questions that I just didn't want to think about: "Do you think Angie Rogers (my sister-in-law!) has ever performed a strip tease?" "Do you think Branden May (my NEPHEW, for God's sake!) has ever had a one-night stand?" Straight yes/no questions--nowhere to click "Good Lord, I hope not!" or "Ugh, I don't even want to think about that!" or any such thing.

You can pay "pieces of silver" to discover who said what about you, and a friend suggested that they were just trying to arouse our curiosity and get money. "Ha," I responded. "They're barking up the wrong tree with me." I have, as you probably know, virtually no curiosity.

Later this evening, a Facebook application proved me wrong. It dropped me a little note telling me that one of my Facebook friends had answered "no" to the question "Do you think Tiffany Sanders is a good kisser?"

Now, if this is speculation, I don't care who said it. And, in fact, "no" might have been the quick response of someone who REALLY DIDN'T WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT. I can definitely identify with that.

Thing is, I've kissed a few of my Facebook friends.

I thought of three right off the bat and considered each in turn.
Two I was pretty sure wouldn't have said that. Pretty sure. Then I remembered that my husband is also my friend on Facebook...so that was four. And raised the stakes a little, since we were together for ten years.

I wasn't quite ready to pay 96 pieces of silver to find out who said it, though.

Okay, I didn't have 96 pieces of silver.

I went to my friends list and scrolled through it and, to my chagrin, found two other men I MIGHT have kissed in my youth.
Give me a break--I'm 42 years old. If it happened, it was more than a quarter of a century ago...can I be expected to remember every little detail? Hell, until I started scrolling through the list, I didn't even remember that my ex-fiance is also my friend on Facebook. (For those of you keeping score at home, that brings us to 5-7, depending on the two "possibles".)

I spent a little time answering questions and racking up pieces of silver, but it was late and I wasn't that committed to finding out--or at least, not to finding out immediately. So I gave it up for the night and turned my mind to other things, and that was when--BLAM!--out of the blue #6 (or 8) occurred to me.

I’m beginning to see what wisdom there would have been in buying 96 pieces of silver and getting the question answered quickly, before I had too much time to think.

What's Wrong with Caterpillars?

I hate to admit it, but this post is inspired in part by the Hannah Montana movie. See, there's this theme that runs through it (and ties in to Miley Cyrus's latest song) about caterpillars turning into butterflies. This issue was already on my mind because a few days ago I saw a quote that said, in essence, that in order to become a butterfly one had to want to fly badly enough to be willing to give up being a caterpillar...and I thought, "What's wrong with caterpillars?"

Of course, there's nothing wrong with butterflies, either, and I'm all for encouraging those who really want to fly and are willing to put in the work and make the sacrifices and hone their talents and give it their all. But I'm not quite sure everyone should be so willing to throw away the caterpillar life.

On the way home from the movie, I repeated the quote to my daughter. Predictably, she immediately pointed out that the analogy was flawed, because "all caterpillars are meant to be butterflies". But are all humans meant to "fly"? I'm not so sure. Or rather, if we are, I'm not sure that it means what we think it means. And I'm not sure that we have to give up being caterpillars to do it.

Caterpillars, after all, come in various shapes and sizes. Once, when my daughter was 8 or 9, she was looking out an upstairs window and spotted something that sent her running for the front door. It was a big, fuzzy, bright yellow caterpillar--so big and bright that it looked like a dandelion moving across the lawn. She dropped to her knees in the grass and asked softly, "What are you?" and we watched it all the way across the long front lawn. Butterflies had nothing on that guy. What a shame if he'd spent his whole life being dissatisfied with what he was because he couldn't fly, hm?



I've flown; I've been a butterfly. It has its advantages and maybe it's something everyone should experience. But should we aspire to live our lives in the air? I'm not so sure. I think I'm a caterpillar when I'm walking with my daughter in the evening, when I'm making her dinner and taking my mother to the doctor and sitting by the fire in a coffee shop with a friend. I think I'm a caterpillar reading novels on winter Sunday afternoons and sitting here in my not-so-orderly bedroom writing this blog post. I'm a caterpillar when I'm bowling with my kids, or feeding my grandson, or helping a neighbor child with her French homework. And I don't think I want to trade all that in to fly--I think I'm good with the ground under my feet.

Spring Wonderland?

This morning, we walked out to several inches of soft new snow, beautiful story-book pine trees laced in white, and lovely spring weather. I had to clean off the car to take my daughter to school, but I didn't have to put my coat on to do it. The snow was heavy and packed perfectly and you could hold it comfortably in your bare hands.

My daughter looked around and said, "So...we're in a Barbie movie?"