April rocks!

i am no longer posting pictures of april birthdays, but i remember them all: charlie chaplin, pete rose, john muir, queen of england, jay leno, david letterman, well maybe not all. a lot of them. some, like john muir and the queen, share the same day, today. and i've met a few others who have today as well.

that's due mostly to the wonders of facebook. tonight i was wished happy birthday by over fifty people and actually felt a personal connection to all of them as i thanked them. they were from all over the world; some started last night from places like india and saudi arabia. by tonight i've heard from people in mexico, puerto rico, morocco, iowa, texas, michigan, all over.

facebook is good at that. not that it's a perfect site, but it's remarkable to me both that i've stayed in touch with all these people and that they know about my birthday and find it so easy to reach out to me. In many cases i remember when they themselves are april rocks birthdays because we've been through it before. and we april people are more in tune to the idea of "birthday" in this season so it's easier for us to reach out.

and that's important because in many ways we're more isolated these days. i find practically my whole social life to be on social media, some days, especially since i haven't gone anywhere for about a week. maybe it's not as good as f2f social interaction but it's better than the nothing i would have without it.

so, end of night, i'm scrolling up and down all fifty, and i realize i have a pretty good pool of friends here. it's like we're all in this vast virtual social event - i have my fifty or so who show up on my page tonight, and each of them lives in his/her own virtual world and perhaps goes to several parties like mine and, at the same time, has their own party unwittingly when their birthday rolls around. you get to see all their friends on that page on that day, like at any event, and often you see their personalities. i didn't have to post anything, it just happened.