SO I had this pesky operation—hellishly painful post-op, as my surgeon warned me early on—and I’m back home waddling like a diapered duck. Having made my bargains with God, I shall henceforth have to add bales of fiber to my diet, to chew everything down to microscopic mush, to run around the UP Academic Oval (without treating myself to ice cream at the end of the second lap), and to generally reduce my intake of creatures horned and hoofed. All this, because I never want to make the intimate acquaintance of another catheter, ever again.
I’d agreed to the operation in the expectation of certain side benefits, and I wasn’t thinking of just the break from work (except column-writing, which I’ll probably be doing on my deathbed, tapping out tepid wisecracks on my laptop). I was wishing that my surgeon would toss a tummy tuck into the package—might as well, while I was high on Demerol—or at least drain a tubful of lard from the old tire, but his scruples dictated him to keep to his mandate, which was to snip the most sensitive half-inch (well, maybe the next-most) off my poor, 216-pound body. Still, I was hopeful that several days of Dextrose would produce transformative wonders, and deliver me out of the hospital a svelte, sprightly 170-pounder.
Didn’t happen. Beng put me on the bathroom scale as soon as we got home and pronounced me trimmer—by three whopping pounds. I glumly theorized that I was probably just waterlogged and bursting with all that fiber additive I’d had to ingest. I looked at my profile in the mirror and everything was peachy—or rather, peach-shaped. UP Oval, here I come.
That’s as soon as I can get back on my feet. Thankfully I have the world’s best post-op recovery platform, a.k.a. my trusty, treasured La-Z-Boy Reclina-Rocker, my official residence for the next week. The only trouble is, “La-Z-Boy” is the antonym of “exercise.” Once you get on this thing, it won’t let go. Come to think of it, that may be where and how this whole mess began.
FRIENDS WOULD probably do me good right now, but thanks to a personal firewall I’ve put up, they won’t be too many. That’s all right. Friends are one of those things that, as you grow older, tend to get fewer but better.
That flies in the face of what’s been going on in the Internet, where an explosion of “friendships” seems to be the order of the day. Like you, I receive numerous invitations online—many of them from people I don’t even know—asking me to be their “friend” and to join them on this or that social network: Facebook, Multiply, Wayn, Jhoos, Hi5, Unyk, etc.
Just in the hospital, I must’ve received a dozen reminders on my BlackBerry to respond to this and that invitation—all of them, I’m sure, well meant. A week earlier, a friend wanted to send me some information, but sent me a Facebook link instead, thinking that I could access it. I had to tell her, sheepishly, that I must be the last person on earth (or at least in Diliman) without a Facebook account. Which is, admittedly, a rather odd thing, considering my penchant for all things digital.
But my stubborn resistance to “social networking” online is rooted deep in my analog, pre-computer psyche.
I don’t chat online (except during the annual Macworld keynote speech where Steve Jobs used to announce new gizmos—now sadly a thing of the past). I don’t even chat on the phone, coming as I do from a generation for whom a telephone—the big, black, plastic, two-headed doorstopper—was a luxury only rich people had in the house. Our family didn’t have a phone until I was nearly 30 and already married. I grew up thinking that there was no phone conversation you couldn’t finish within a couple of minutes (maybe remembering all those store signs that asked you to limit your call to three), and even today I get ear fatigue when someone keeps me on the phone for more than five, unless they’re truly friends.
I don’t think I’m anti-social or misanthropic or anything like that. I don’t mind meeting people and talking to them; I wouldn’t be a teacher otherwise. It’s just that some part of me recoils when someone I haven’t even met asks—nay, demands—that I be his or her “friend” online. I especially dislike messages that threaten me with being thought of as unfriendly or uncaring if I don’t respond positively and quickly to an “invitation”—you know, the ones that say, “XXX might think you were ignoring him/her if you don’t click the button below.”
None of this, of course, is the fault of the kind person who thought to invite me into his or her circle of acquaintances. It’s the Internet, and the nature of the beast, that’s blurred the distinction between an acquaintance and a friend, between someone you might exchange a juicy tidbit of gossip or a snippet of technical advice with on the fly and someone you’d trust your house, your car, or even your child with for a week or longer.
My friends are the people I drink beer or coffee with, play poker with, fuss over pens with, listen to live music with, and argue passionately about literature and politics with, without the discussion degenerating within three comments into what, online, would be called a “flame war.” My friends are people I may not be in touch with for weeks or months, who will understand and won’t mind the great pools of silence that sometimes well up between us when things get too busy or life yanks us in unexpected directions.
I can appreciate how Facebook, Multiply, Twitter, and such can be great meeting-places for people and convenient, speedy conduits of personal information. I’m probably missing out on something big, and I’m not silly enough to say “never” to something so clearly essential to the digerati (to catheters, yes). After all, I resisted blogging for years, and here I am.
In the meanwhile, like my friends know, the best way to reach me is by email, which gives me time to think of a sensible reply.