Just got this notice from Facebook: “You currently automatically import content from your website or blog into your Facebook notes. Starting November 22nd, this feature will no longer be available…”

This bears close scrutiny, and loud protest, both because it is the craven and selfish move of a monopolist mentality, but moreover because it makes the Facebook community duller, more parochial, and more carefully controlled. This is facebook saying, you are MY EXCLUSIVE AUDIENCE.  Do Not Stray! RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!  Et cetera…

What facebook dreads are posts which entice you, the visitor, to click out of their wire-enclosed playground. What they prefer are “partner sites” where, as you click, you never actually leave the compound. It’s an aquarium, people.

Well, I am here to tell you that there is a whole other universe of internet sites out there to explore and join. Spending hour after hour browsing facebook is the web equivalent of always eating at MacDonald’s: it boring, and ultimately bad for you; fatal even. Today, why don’t you make a pact with yourself and go visit Google Plus, Tumblr, WordPress, Twitter, or even DiasporaAlpha? Create a new web presence for yourself, or at the very least revisit a social network that you used to enjoy, and devote extra time to it today. Craft something NEW in an unexpected place and way,  AND THEN TELL ALL YOUR FACEBOOK FRIENDS!  Encourage them to go take a look at it…

Take a stroll beyond the wire today…  beyond the limits of the compound…  It’s a beautiful day out there, people.

It was dark this morning at 5:15 when I headed out for the Savannah Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon. We’d been warned that parking would be congested, so I gave myself plenty of time. But it was dark and my night vision is…not great. All I could imagine were the events that might delay me, like things that run out in front of me. Deer, for one. Curbs, for another. Did I mention my night vision is dreadful? I wasn’t worried about other cars–they’d have their lights on and I could see one coming. Well, I’d see two until it got close enough, and hopefully I’d have figured out which one was real by that point. But deer? They don’t wear headlights. And my car is small, very small. (Think SmartCar meets Godzilla.) And have you noticed that curbs are put in the strangest places sometimes? Like separating one line of traffic from the oncoming line. What is it with that?

And that got me thinking about my bucket list. Not that I think anything’s imminent and I obviously survived this morning’s oh-dark-hundred drive. I used to say I planned on dying at 93, but I’m thinking of upping it to 103.  But before that murderous deer got me this morning, I was going to have my obituary written. It’d go something like this: “Ann Beardsley, age 60…” and right there I’d tune out. Sixty? “She had a good long life,” they’d say. Not like I’m ten years old or anything. “But I’m not finished yet,” I pleaded. “I’m still figuring things out.” And that’s so very true. I always thought you were supposed to have things all worked out by now, but nope, I’m here to tell you that some of us sixty-year-olds just haven’t grown up yet.

Or maybe we have and there’s just nothing to figure out. No answers, at least not for certain. Some of us leave legacies, some of us don’t. Some of us have children (well, they’re sort of a legacy), some of us leave works of art. Maybe I’m onto something here–children are a work of art. Messy art, but art nonetheless. And some of us leave nothing at all, and is that so bad? Legacy can go both ways (think Adolf Hitler, for one, though he’s probably a hero to some), so maybe it’s safer not to leave one. Not as much fun, perhaps, but safer.

But who wants to be safe? I’m not running this half-marathon to be safe. My knee might give out. I might get trampled by the corrals behind me (ahem, there turned out to be only one behind me, and if I report that most of them had blue hair, well, then you’ll lose all respect for my fantastic accomplishment this morning). I might give a thumb’s-up to Occupy Savannah as I run by and somebody might bash my head in. I might not even survive the drive in the dark.

I survived the drive. I even survived the run. And what’s more, I survived the McDonald’s Combo #1, which was a guilty pleasure. I had beer (thank you, free MGD 64) at (gasp) 11:30 in the morning, wine at 3:00 p.m., and there’s more wine in my immediate future. Come to think of it, I might not survive the half-marathon recovery plan.