Reach out and touch someone

I know, again, I haven't posted in a while. Laziness is only part of it.

This blog was started partly as a fun exercise, and partly to dust off writing muscles that had grown stale since becoming an editor. And while I try to write this without sounding self-pitying, it's not as much fun now, sad to say.

Truth is, these are tough days in the newspaper industry (duh). And while I try not to bitch too much, it's hard to watch an industry I dearly love go down the tubes.

By nature, I'm more skeptic than optimist, so it's tough for me to see a bright side. Especially when every day seems to bring news of more layoffs across the board in all industries, not just here in the fourth estate.

Even President Obama's magnificent inaugural address, with its solid message of determination in the face of adversity, can't temper the sobering reality it also outlined: We're in deep doo-doo.

But there is one ray of sunshine when I hop on the Web now: Facebook.

Look, I work on the Web, but I don't get to play on the Web that much. It's hard to explain.

However, my wife joined Facebook and LinkedIn earlier this year, and she is now an addict. To be fair, she uses her account for mostly professional purposes. Many of her Facebook contacts are co-workers and professional colleagues.

At first, I was skeptical. First of all, I'm not the most social of people. But all it took was one incredibly nice friend invite on Facebook from someone I wouldn't have expected to open my friends list up. And make me re-think this whole thing.

Let's face it: High school, timed to coincide with all the awkwardness of adolesence, can be a special circle of hell. At least it was for me. I haven't kept in touch with many people from there.

But I have to look in the mirror for a lot of why high school sucked, too. I was a bit of a self-absorbed jerk. OK, I'm probably still a bit of a self-absorbed jerk.

Then again, our class, the smallest in our high school's history (an honor I believe we still hold) was also known for (and at the time, prided itself on) its apathy.

But with one click from the batch of friend invites I got, I got to see a childhood friend's beautiful triplets for the first time. He's not the only one with kids now. We're all at or near 40, with children of various ages. Amazing.

And it hit me: Maybe we can all grow up a bit in 22 years.

Even me.

-JDE2