I Can Tell That We Are Gonna Be Friends

Here is a picture of the Bloom County house on Summit Street in case anyone is feeling nostalgic for a certain comic strip.

I finally took the plunge and signed up for Myspace this weekend. I've been hesitant for so many reasons, but a lot of my friends are musicians and it's a good way to keep up with when they'll be playing around town. Plus, it's so quick and easy to send messages, but most importantly, both of my daughters are on Myspace and this way I can check in and possibly get to know some of the 65 year old men they're befriending over the internets.

There are so many observations I have about the whole bizarre process of setting up my profile page. The strangest part for me was trying to garner friends. Collecting friends on Myspace is a bit like cultivating Sea Monkeys. At first you troll around to your friends' sites looking for people you knew a while ago who may have moved and you send in your friend requests. It's fun when people start to respond and your Sea Monkeys are all cute and contained. Then you go to sleep and when you wake up, you see all these new requests from scary men you've never met before with names like Monkey Love and Big Tony and the requesting takes on a life of its own and goes out of control and you feel a little sick for even starting it. But unlike Sea Monkeys, you can just easily delete out all the hairy backed, swinger scum from your inbox and it's so much easier than cleaning the scum out of your fishbowl.

The bigger problem comes with trying to keep the creeps from forming in your Myspace fishbowl at all. At first, I decided to pretend that I was married. All my friends know better and it wouldn't be a total lie if you think about all the things and ideas I feel married to. For instance, I have a deep emotional and spiritual commitment with my American Heritage dictionary and while it will never go anywhere, I also have a really unhealthy relationship with Bad Grammar and I can't seem to quit him no matter how many times he disappoints and embarrasses me in front of my friends.

Now, if you thought saying you were married on your Myspace profile would keep Monkey Love away, you were very, very wrong. It turns out that the creepy guys could care less about your marital status, and to prove it, they will inform you that they too are married or in a relationship - just so you know that you're both on the same philandering page. So, my next plan for staying under the radar of the swingers was to post a little kid picture of me for my profile. Which, in combination with declaring myself married and listing C. W. McCall as one of my favorite musicians, has seemed to lessen the number of creepy requests I've received. I just hope naming John Denver as a favorite as well, won't keep my real friends away.