Well, I have done what I never thought I'd do -- I joined Facebook. For those who live in a cave, Facebook is the most prevailing social networking website for grown-ups (the pre-teens tend to gravitate towards MySpace). Greg summed up my reservations with two main points: first, some of the guys he knows have used it mostly to see what all their ex-girlfriends now look like (ugh! Don't need that!) and; second, I pretty much keep up with the friends I want to keep in touch with. Do I need Facebook to add virtual friends? I mean, if I haven't spoken to them in 20 years, do I really need to start now?

Well, the answer I suppose is yes. There are all kinds of people out there who have played an important role in my life at some point that I don't keep up with. Many of them I have found (or they have found me) on Facebook.

In the past few days , I've made contact with many of my high school and middle school friends, like Stephanie Salts, Jenny Salts, Denise Jenson, Kara Harold, Tiffany Pridmore, Laura Daniel (!), and Piper Webb (!). Piper may be the only other member of my high school graduating class to move to Alaska -- she lives in Cordova. No luck finding my best friend from 5th-12th grade, Jenny Hughes yet though.

I've emailed and "chatted" with college buddies, too. Some are my girlfriends that I already keep in good touch with, but this gives us one more means. Others I don't keep in touch with, but have been a really wonderful memory, like Steven Smith, my roommate when I lived in Washington DC for a summer. How fun to see what he is up to! And then there's my friend Connie, the social worker from Liberty Park Child Development Center in Spokane where I did my year of volunteer mission work. Connie is a few years older than me and was around when I first fell head over heals for Greg and offered some of the most sagacious advice and words ever. She had the experience to offer very good advice to me.

So, would life be worse without Facebook? I don't know that I would go that far. But it is a bit fun to see what has happened to various people I've known from different points in my life. I will say it is fraught with tension and drama. I feel a high when I get an email request to be somebody's Facebook friend. And why haven't those couple of people I've invited to be my friend responded yet? Yes, Facebook plays to our most base emotions. But it's kind of fun.