Back in September, I started a new job with a new company. I went from primarily working out of my home office in Hermes to working at my new company’s regional office in Riverdale. It is a fifty minute commute. The office building is walking distance from the shops and restaurants in historic downtown Riverdale and even closer to an office building where I worked for six years when Philip was a small child.
The other day I walked past that old office building during my lunch break. There was my former office’s window looking down at me: Second floor, second window from the left. I could see the shade was lowered about one third of the way. My former company had been sold to a larger corporation and operations had been scattered to other locations. Someone I probably did not even know now occupied my former abode. The art work that once occupied the walls inside that office was now hanging from the wall of my home office in Hermes. Still, the second window from the left on the second floor looked virtually unchanged. It was enough to fill me with a flood of memories from that time.
The old company had relocated me and my family from another state to San Geraldo in order for me to work there. That six year job stint took me from the days when Philip couldn’t even pronounce his own name to the first half of his second grade year of elementary school. It included Chloe’s birth and the first three years of her life as well as our move from San Geraldo to Hermes. So much had been packed into a little more than half a decade.
It is funny what memories take hold for us to cherish. For me, one such memory dates back to Philip’s early days in preschool. I had taken the train to work that day. Young Philip loved trains. “Twain – twain,” he would say pointing whenever he spotted one. Amelia had plans to have dinner with a friend in Oxford Hills. We decided she would take Philip to my office for me to bring home. It would be his first chance to actually ride on a train.
Philip and Amelia arrived in the late afternoon. The train home would arrive forty minutes later. I wanted to make Philip’s rare visits to my office special. On that day I began two rituals which I would repeat each time he visited my office for the rest of the time he was in preschool. First, I took him to the office kitchen for a can of root beer from the refrigerator. Going forward, “Rooph Beer” was all he would get to drink in my office and we refrained from serving it to him in any other venue. The other ritual was drawing a picture. With my green highlighter pen and copy paper, I would draw “Dexter the Dragon” which was a children’s ride at the San Geraldo Zoo. Those rituals played out on perhaps twenty visits to my office over the next two years, always at Philip’s request. During some of those visits, Philip would get to ride the twain again.
Walking through downtown Riverdale the other day was an experience somewhere between stepping through a time portal and getting a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past. Some things looked exactly the same. There was still the hair salon run by an extended Vietnamese family that provided a fantastic men’s haircut for a fantastic price. Two coffee shops, two Irish pubs, two Thai restaurants and an upscale deli were still thriving businesses. Other things had changed. The Microbrew had changed its name and ownership. My Hungarian tailor had retired and a tanning salon had replaced his little shop. My favorite Mexican restaurant had gone. And the Armenian shoe repair shop had expanded business to include luggage repair. A lot is the same and a lot has changed in some eight years. What can be said about downtown Riverdale can also be said about my family.
Tonight, our whole family along with Chloe’s friend Patty will spend the evening enjoying a New Year’s Eve Ball. Guys will be wearing blazers and ladies will be wearing dresses. Amelia and I plan to watch from a distance as Philip dances with one elegantly dressed, lovely teenage girl after another while Chloe and Patty share dances with younger boys. On Sunday, Philip will take part in a lacrosse scrimmage under the lights at Cabrillo High School involving the area’s high school and college players. I plan to plant myself in the bleachers and soak in the pleasure of watching Philip holding his own against MCLA lacrosse players.
So much time has gone by. The adolescent Philip who ballroom dances and plays varsity lacrosse seems so different from the little boy who drank rooph beer and wanted to see another highlighter drawing of Dexter the Dragon before riding home on the twain. But every so often, something as simple as the sight of a second story window brings all those great memories back and connects them to the great memories that are being formed in the present.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Unfriending, Blocking, Unblocking and Refriending
The unfriend option is the first line of privacy defense one can use on Facebook. An unfriend can happen without warning. If the unfriender in question was unimportant, the unfriendee might never even notice and probably would not even care. But if the unfriender in question was important, the unfriendee can notice very quickly. Navigate to the unfriender’s profile and the Facebook page contains significantly less information and offers the opportunity to “Add as Friend” by clicking on a blue button.
The block option is a more serious privacy tool. These are the digital equivalent of a restraining order. Blocks can come without warning as well. They do what the word means. A blockee cannot even view a blocker’s pages. The only evidence a blockee can even see of a blockee might be in other people’s tagged photographs. But the blocker’s tag will not provide a link back to the blocker’s profile page for the blockee.
Facebook provides these options to users so they can defend their privacy online and associate only with those with whom they choose to associate. But the existence of such easily deployed defenses adds a new layer of complexity to how people set boundaries with one another. Adolescents are particularly active on Facebook. Unfriending and blocking happen with greater frequency among adolescents than they do among adults. Unblocking and refriending also happen with greater frequency among adolescents.
Every so often Philip experiences an unfriend from a peer and it is to the point where it generally does not even bother Philip any more. He knows that many of his peers are impulsive and that it only requires two clicks of a mouse to unfriend somebody. The act itself usually serves to lower Philip’s opinion of the unfriender in question. Since Philip will not send a friend request to anyone who has unfriended him, the unfriender puts himself or herself in the position of either sending a refriend request or remaining reciprocally unfriended.
Despite Philip’s social resilience to adolescent social politics on Facebook, there was one unfriend that did bother Philip. Nearly one year ago, Erica decided to unfriend Philip. Believing he could easily rectify whatever had led to the unfriend, Philip went to talk to Erica about it during their lunch break at school. In their exchange, she flatly denied unfriending him. But that evening, instead of refriending Philip, Erica blocked him. Her block was followed by Erica bad-mouthing Philip on Facebook, on Formspring and perhaps elsewhere treating the fact that Philip cared about the unfriending as something to joke about with others.
Erica’s unfriend could be written off as impulsive. Lying to Philip when he confronted her in an attempt to reconcile could be attributed to insecurity. The block was an insult that would admittedly be difficult to forgive. But in the end, the talking behind Philip’s back was nothing short of an act of war. For the remainder of their freshman year, things were cold at best between Philip and Erica. But the war Erica initiated took a very distant back seat in both their lives. Philip focused on the varsity lacrosse team, while Erica focused on developing a relationship with an older guy.
By the time their sophomore year was comfortably in session, there didn’t seem to be any outward evidence of a rift between Philip and Erica. Philip was back on Erica’s short list of guys she would press up against for photos. Their smiles in these photos as they were published onto Facebook certainly appeared genuine. But on Facebook, the unfriend and block were still in effect and would remain so until Erica at least made the first move.
That move took place some time before their Thanksgiving break. Perhaps Erica even did it on November 17th, National Unfriending Day. The exact date is unknown. But Philip suddenly noticed Erica’s tags on the photos in which they both appeared suddenly contained links to Erica’s profile page. Philip was glad that Erica had unblocked him, but he certainly was not comfortable initiating a refriend. Erica made her second move after the holiday break had begun by sending Philip a refriend request.
And that is where things stand at the time of this writing. The two have not traded words on the subject in nearly a year. Instead, everything has been unspoken. Now the request to be, Erica’s friend again greets Philip each time he logs onto Facebook. But Philip has still not decided whether or not to refriend with Erica or how long to wait if he does. While Philip is happy to be on friendly terms with Erica at school, the idea of merely accepting the refriend request does not sit well with him. Erica’s insult simply went too far and lasted too long.
And maybe there is just a little bit of satisfaction having the tables turned, because now Philip is the one refusing without explanation to refriend Erica, rather than it being the other way around.
The block option is a more serious privacy tool. These are the digital equivalent of a restraining order. Blocks can come without warning as well. They do what the word means. A blockee cannot even view a blocker’s pages. The only evidence a blockee can even see of a blockee might be in other people’s tagged photographs. But the blocker’s tag will not provide a link back to the blocker’s profile page for the blockee.
Facebook provides these options to users so they can defend their privacy online and associate only with those with whom they choose to associate. But the existence of such easily deployed defenses adds a new layer of complexity to how people set boundaries with one another. Adolescents are particularly active on Facebook. Unfriending and blocking happen with greater frequency among adolescents than they do among adults. Unblocking and refriending also happen with greater frequency among adolescents.
Every so often Philip experiences an unfriend from a peer and it is to the point where it generally does not even bother Philip any more. He knows that many of his peers are impulsive and that it only requires two clicks of a mouse to unfriend somebody. The act itself usually serves to lower Philip’s opinion of the unfriender in question. Since Philip will not send a friend request to anyone who has unfriended him, the unfriender puts himself or herself in the position of either sending a refriend request or remaining reciprocally unfriended.
Despite Philip’s social resilience to adolescent social politics on Facebook, there was one unfriend that did bother Philip. Nearly one year ago, Erica decided to unfriend Philip. Believing he could easily rectify whatever had led to the unfriend, Philip went to talk to Erica about it during their lunch break at school. In their exchange, she flatly denied unfriending him. But that evening, instead of refriending Philip, Erica blocked him. Her block was followed by Erica bad-mouthing Philip on Facebook, on Formspring and perhaps elsewhere treating the fact that Philip cared about the unfriending as something to joke about with others.
Erica’s unfriend could be written off as impulsive. Lying to Philip when he confronted her in an attempt to reconcile could be attributed to insecurity. The block was an insult that would admittedly be difficult to forgive. But in the end, the talking behind Philip’s back was nothing short of an act of war. For the remainder of their freshman year, things were cold at best between Philip and Erica. But the war Erica initiated took a very distant back seat in both their lives. Philip focused on the varsity lacrosse team, while Erica focused on developing a relationship with an older guy.
By the time their sophomore year was comfortably in session, there didn’t seem to be any outward evidence of a rift between Philip and Erica. Philip was back on Erica’s short list of guys she would press up against for photos. Their smiles in these photos as they were published onto Facebook certainly appeared genuine. But on Facebook, the unfriend and block were still in effect and would remain so until Erica at least made the first move.
That move took place some time before their Thanksgiving break. Perhaps Erica even did it on November 17th, National Unfriending Day. The exact date is unknown. But Philip suddenly noticed Erica’s tags on the photos in which they both appeared suddenly contained links to Erica’s profile page. Philip was glad that Erica had unblocked him, but he certainly was not comfortable initiating a refriend. Erica made her second move after the holiday break had begun by sending Philip a refriend request.
And that is where things stand at the time of this writing. The two have not traded words on the subject in nearly a year. Instead, everything has been unspoken. Now the request to be, Erica’s friend again greets Philip each time he logs onto Facebook. But Philip has still not decided whether or not to refriend with Erica or how long to wait if he does. While Philip is happy to be on friendly terms with Erica at school, the idea of merely accepting the refriend request does not sit well with him. Erica’s insult simply went too far and lasted too long.
And maybe there is just a little bit of satisfaction having the tables turned, because now Philip is the one refusing without explanation to refriend Erica, rather than it being the other way around.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
When Life’s Consequences Overtake Parental Punishment
I like to watch television shows on DVD with each of my kids. So does Amelia. Right now I am watching Season 1 of Glee with Chloe. The show has just about every high school subplot, stereotype and neo-stereotype the authors could squeeze into a single television season of forty-three minute episodes of what Philip calls High School Musical: The Series. Chloe loves it. I enjoy it. And most importantly it launches us into important daddy-daughter conversations.
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