Facebook, Saturn Return

A week ago I got a Facebook account and today I turn twenty-seven-years-old. I’m not sure exactly what inspired the Facebook thing; I had resisted it for so long, partially because the phenomena cusped I was on the cusp of something else (adulthood), and partially because I had already done Friendster and MySpace and felt that starting all over again would be exhausting. Then I learned that an extremely unlikely friend had an account, as well as all my friends’ moms (which I, too, had read about in the Times a while ago, but it didn’t really hit home then), and that people find apartments and jobs through it, and that basically it’s a combination Yellow Pages and rigorously updated alumnae directory. (But you can't stalk people!) I began to fear what would happen if I were to put it off any longer.

(I edited an essay in a book a while ago, which argued that social networking sites are the beginning of the end of life as we know it, that intellect will one day be measured in RAM, that MBrains will rule, that the last “cogent” decision we make will be clicking “I AGREE” before letting the hard drives take over our souls; I don’t know enough about the subject to know whether this is laughably reductive or sci-fi or what, but that essay is the first thing that comes to mind as I reconsider Facebook.)

A friend told me that birthdays are “personal new years.” I guess it’s always a little shocking to reflect on all that happens and doesn’t happen over the course of a year, how some stuff is born and dies, and how some stuff stays constant, and how some stuff continues to reinvent and repurpose itself-just when you think you’ve identified one thing and how it informs another, it surprises you by informing something else. Maybe this is all just life and very obvious, and I don’t know what in particular I’m talking about here, aside from boyfriends. In general it’s probably more interesting to spare the details anyway.

I had my birthday party last night at a bar in Brooklyn. Because my preference is to behave like a middle-aged lesbian with a fabulous kitchen (ideally the type from an Amy Bloom story), I have always thrown parties in the style that my mother and Martha Stewart had taught me. They often happen on Sunday afternoons. There are canapés and lots of other edibles. And wine. And music that neither puts you to sleep nor gets you up on your feet. They are old person parties! And I think they have always had a quaint appeal for my friends, most of whom usually attended age-appropriate parties and have done age-appropriate things like social dancing and drugs. This year I chose a bar in Brooklyn where no one would be compelled to dance and I made cupcakes (red velvet with Swiss meringue buttercream frosting, from the wonderful new Amy’s Bread cookbook, though they came out more the color of a brick or a dead rose because I used the Goya brand of food coloring and only half as much as what was called for). We showed up almost exactly on time (I was the late-ish one). We installed ourselves at a few tables. Everyone had a beer or two and a cupcake. We conversed civilly. And a few hours later we all went home. It is always a rare indulgence to have most of my friends in the same place at the same time, and this was very relaxing and fun, but for some reason, last night the Ironic Old Person Party vibe didn’t come through. . . It could be because it was a Wednesday night and not everyone is a fancy-freelancer like me, and maybe I threw things together too haphazardly, with variables more beyond my control than usual. But it could also be that it’s not ironic anymore. Because all this pretending to be old has resulted in making me old.

So it’s a good thing that I am beginning my Saturn Return, into which Facebook appears to factor. I’ll go to yoga today and hopefully be less skeptical when I dump my mudra (in this case, flower petals) over my head, and will sincerely rustle my hair around in ecstasy. (I got into it yesterday as the class progressed.)