Thoughts kicking around in my head, a.k.a. another meaningless post.

So far the response has been overwhelmingly in favor of the new look to the blog, and I'm delighted that everyone seems to like it. Thanks to all of you who've expressed your opinion and have told me that it looks great. I really did work very hard on the concept and design of this, have been planning it for weeks, etc. And I've gotten help from my closest friends in the form of programming, opinions on design, what looks good, what doesn't fit, etc. There's still some minor bugs to work out - I'm not pleased with the tags above the posts, for example - but the foundation is laid, so to speak. I'm very happy with it, and I'm glad that you all are, too.

I recently have friend-requested a couple of other "acquaintances" on Facebook, only to receive... well, no response. I'll tell you, that's one thing good about Facebook and all of these social networking sites - you learn really, really fast who is interested in your life, and those who couldn't give two shits about you. This time I'm not even expending the energy to be pissed off. See, over the last couple of weeks, I've been thinking... the people that are in my life, I'm starting to fit them into a nifty little 'graph' of sorts. Observe:



The little red dot in the middle of the 'target' is me. And the colored zones represent how 'close' one is to me. Obviously, the lighter the color, the closer you are to me. Now, granted, this picture isn't 'perfect', and just because one might be in the "really close to me" portion, that doesn't mean that I think of everyone the same way... but it's a close enough approximation to how I'm thinking these days. Yellow, it means you're REALLY close... i.e., you've seen me at my absolute worst, ever. Green? It means you know me, but... it's more of a loose friendship-bordering-on-acquaintance level. Blue, it's a definite acquaintance level with not much more going on than that. And black? It either means I don't know you at all, you're a stranger to me... or worse, you've been banished from my life altogether.

Most people are going to land in either the green or blue sections. A VERY few are in the yellow. And way too many are in the black portion... people whom have been banished from my life, people that I know and don't want to know, people whom have proven themselves unworthy of my friendship and what I have to offer.

Do these people on Facebook qualify for the 'banishment' level? No, but at the same time they're still in that black zone... because they're strangers to me. And I've decided to keep them that way.

I'm starting to learn that I don't need other people's "approval" to live my life the way I want to live it. If one doesn't care to be friends with me, or to hang around me.... fuck them, that's their loss. I'm still going to grin and "do my thang", regardless. I have no more time for negativity or unhappiness.

Here's a video that spells out my feelings rather well. Lyrics are here. Enjoy. This is a great track.