past lives

Cell phone doesn’t want me to talk to anybody this a.m. This really gets my whiskers in a tangle.

I would be remiss not to mention that this blog was originally established to be a written record of my participation in The Vermont’s 23 Things exercises. But let’s hope that it becomes so much more…

As I prefer not to reveal my sum total to all prying eyes, I decided not to establish a My Space or Facebook page of my own. Rather, I set out to discover which of my former compadres had set up spaces themselves.

A kind, talented friend of many years has a My Space page and website – just google “the marble tea” or try this link

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=94452306

be sure and tell him felix sent ya! this is the guy who corrected my pronunciation of ethereal, taught me an appreciation of the nuances of the electric guitar, and endured some of my bitchier trivialities with a beautiful smile. Wholeheartedly recommended!

I spent a fair amount of time just going thru the old mental rolodex and googling names. Some small surprises and then stumbled upon a former, uh, “friend”. Now, thoughts of this cat never fail to bring a sly grin to the face along with much purring. But now arises the dilemma with the social networks – it’s become so easy to encounter someone who, once upon a time, you would simply have been left to ponder for eternity “what ever happened to…?” And if you do get up the gumption to e-mail someone with whom you’ve had no contact for 9 years, how will they respond? Where are the rules of etiquette governing such things? I certainly would not look this fellow up in the phone book & call him out of the blue, or mail a letter because those things seem a little weird ( and can also be intercepted by other parties!) but is e-mailing less intrusive?

The network my former paramour (also talented) participates in is a professional networking site called Linkedin. Apparently he also has a My Space page that I couldn’t spend much time exploring – I do have other tasks to tend to!

The following is a cut & paste from Wikipedia describing LInkedin:

The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. The people in the list are called Connections. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection.

This list of connections can then be used in a number of ways:

• A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the connections of each of their connections (termed second degree connections) and also the connections of second degree connections (termed third degree connections). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone you wish to know through a mutual, trusted contact.
• It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one’s contact network.
• Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
• Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.

The “gated-access approach” (where contact with any professional requires either a preexisting relationship, or the intervention of a contact of theirs) is intended to build trust among the service’s users. LinkedIn participates in EU’s International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles.^[8]

I will eventually set up a “legit” profile of my human self on this site to keep in touch with former colleagues from the business world.

There are reasons why folks fall out of touch. Change of circumstances, hurt feelings, a need to move on and re-create ourselves into something more tolerable to ourselves and others. The prospect of contacting someone who knew me in one of my former personas brings up several emotions, but mostly just plain old cat’s curiosity, and this cat’s curiosity is never completely satisfied!

Kind regards,

Felix

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