The Big Delete

Every day I notice my total number of friends drops a number or two. Most of them are brides I virtually befriended via a wedding website who must now realize a year after their wedding that "quality is more important than quantity" or "the wedding is over and I don't really know ya, so bye-bye."

A nun from grammar school deleted my brother and me. My brother did the unthinkable and confronted her on the big delete. Turns out she de-friended us because as a Mets fan she didn't appreciate his constant pro-Yankees status updates. I got roped in by default for being his sister. In this particular case, I'm a tad relieved because I felt weird having a nun on my page anyway. I'm not exactly religious and I'm rather irreverent at times and was hesitant in "accepting" the request to begin with.

There's a certain feeling that goes along with the big delete. You notice your total number of friends has shifted downward. You go through your 200+ friends wondering who it could be. Maybe it's days or weeks later, then BOOM it hits you like a ton of bricks that you no longer see updates from that chick from your spin class or the guy you slipped your number to in 8th grade. Maybe you're informed on the right side of your screen that everyone's commenting on a photo and suddenly you realize you can't comment. Why not? You've been deleted!

Sometimes it's someone you know personally, a coworker or a friend's sibling. It makes you wonder, "Did I do something wrong?" It's understandable of course if there's a change in the relationship dynamic or if you're no longer working together. Perhaps rumors circulated around the office that spies are reporting fake sick days where folks status updates mentioned they were at the beach. Another common reason for the big delete is the obvious break up. Either you and a friend or significant other had a fall out or your bud dumped someone then insisted you too delete their now ex.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who questions the unavoidable big delete. I can't possibly be the only person who feels a bit strange about it, can I? In fact I once received a very threatening angry email because as a joke I deleted the gf of a then friend of my husband's. She is now a good friend of mine. I deleted her honestly as a joke because she was bombarding the MySpace bulletin board with silly updates. Facebook has the "hide" feature which lets you silence those twittering-style buddies who tend to over-update without hurting their feelings.

Does anyone else out there feel a weird sense of loser-ness upon suffering the big delete? Is there something wrong with me? Just a thought.

As always, thanks for listening.

"This is our last concert, dude."

"Dude, this is most likely our last show together," confessed my BFF Tarah at the June 6th Jane's Addiction/Nine Inch Nails PNC Arts Center concert in NJ.

I met Tarah in 1991. We were students at Nassau Community College. We experienced tons of stuff together. We took Nutrition class together. We studied together. We smoked cigs together. We had sleepovers. We shared secrets. We’d sit in the Garden City coffee shop on Franklin Avenue on Thursdays and enjoy pea soup together. We had each others backs when people made fun of our off-beat fashion sense and most notably, we attended dozens of shows together throughout the '90s from Lollapaloozas to the Beastie Boys to Jones Beach shows to Beck in Virginia because I was pissed that he sold out NYC...

Growing up kinda sucks… Buying houses, having babies, I mean, I know this is the natural progression and that something must be wrong with me to not be excited about it all, but the bon voyage to youth is a bit painful. Sure there will be BBQs and I’ll attend baby’s first birthday parties and communions and graduations and all that, but it’s just, I dunno, I don’t want to grow up. Like, yeah, I’m “old” but mentally I’m not. I’ve been married less than one year. We rent an apartment. We listen to the same music we liked when we were in high school. We play video games. My husband drinks too many beers. I think not being homeowners or parents aids in extending the immaturity.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally NOT complaining. It’s just that Tarah verbally pointing out the reality of her and her husband embarking on the inevitable next step in adulthood made my heart sink. They’re looking at houses and planning on having a baby soon. Once that happens, our late night phone convos will come to a halt. The IMing at work will disappear as it did with our friend Rene, whose full-time job at Travel & Leisure has since been replaced with trips to the playground, mountains of laundry, walks with the stroller and new puppy and whipping up healthy meals for her husband and their one-year-old.

I feel as if I’m stranded in Never, Never Land alone while my friends cross over to Adult World. Am I alone in this, really? Does anyone else feel this way? Is this like a late-in-life quarterlife crisis?

Sunrise or Merrick?

Andrew and I were planning our November 8, 2008 wedding on the south shore of Long Island and spending the majority of 2008 tending to wedding errands on Long Island. People from LI are very familiar with two major highways - Sunrise Highway and Merrick Road. Each can take you pretty much from Queens to Montauk.

A few weekends ago, we were heading to Drew's favorite seafood shack in Rockville Centre, on Sunrise Highway. He asked, "Are we on Merrick or Sunrise?" Easy to get confused as they are both very busy roads that run parallel along the same towns. I told him to look for the elevated Long Island Rail Road train tracks and was reminded of my youth.

When you're little, you don't know roads or towns. You simply sit in the back seat and relax while Mommy or Daddy drive you to your destination. You gaze at the store fronts and they become your landmarks. When I was a kid, my parents would take my little brother and me to Nunley's.

Nunley's was a small amusement park that was stuck in like 1959, and I always knew we were headed there when I saw the LIRR tracks along Sunrise Highway. My mom said they could never tell me when they planned on going because if something came up and we didn't get to go, I'd throw a fit. To avoid the crying tantrums complete with, "you prommmmmmised" being echoed over and over again, we'd just end up there on a random, clear, summer evening.

Nunley's was a glorious step back in time. There was a black and white photo booth and lots of very old arcade games composed of wood and metal. There was the famous fortune teller head eerily sitting in a glass box pumping out a typed fortune and lucky numbers for a dime. The large, indoor carousel had gold rings that weren't easy to reach. If we were lucky Dad would stick out his arm and grab one, because our kiddie arms were much too short.

I can still remember the warm summer breeze hitting my face while soaring down the tiny, rusty red roller coaster tracks. My little brother was small enough to ride the kiddie boats that teetered along a small pool of blue green water. We'd play mini golf and end the night with greasy fries and hot dogs. Nunley's was Long Island's Morey's Piers, minus the ocean view.