The "I voted" sticker is like a foursquare badge for luddites.

And thanks for the hair props. :) I'm not in love with it - straight takes getting used to, plus I have no ability (and frankly, no desire) to blow it out straight all the time!

My pipes are offended at your implication. ;) (seriously, everything below the sink (i.e., in the basement) is solid - the galvanized pipe under the sink connects to copper in the basement.

Clearly, he's calling in to report that you remembered to put coffee in the machine.

(continued from above) There's one social network where my use was solely related to AN - the group was primary and the network used to connect with it was secondary. As I branched out to other networks I was looking for different things. When I joined Twitter, for instance, it didn't occur to me that "hey, I need to invite all of AN to join me here." That had nothing to do with AN as a group and everything to do with wanting my participation in a new network to evolve organically. Like I said, this probably isn't going to be a well-received response. As @stylishboots said, sometimes friendships and people drift apart - it's natural. I think ignoring this simple fact creates unrealistic expectations that perpetuate tension and create more opportunity for hurt feelings. And hey, maybe I'm the only one who feels this way. I suspect I am not, but if I am, I'm okay with that, too.

I am on a lot of social networks and each one has a specific use and the circles I frequent in each are different. Because each has a different use, my friending "policies" are different for each. For some networks, I keep a much tighter circle - some of that is about privacy and information control, some of it is kind of like topic control, and frankly some is volume control. On a couple of networks I've reached my capacity for the number of people I can maintain in my circle, so adding anyone likely means subtracting someone or dividing my attention more than I'd like. But the short version is that the reasons are varied and they usually have nothing to do with "I don't like you." And I also don't feel a great need to explain my policies on a case-by-case basis. I also share @Sarah's assessment that in any group, it's rare that everyone enjoys the same level of intimacy with everyone else. For instance, as the years have passed and the original AN crowd has changed, grown up, etc, interests and personalities have changed and I'd be dishonest if I said I felt the same way about every member. (Nor do I expect every member to feel the same about me.) This I'm sure is an unpopular sentiment but I'm not going to lie about it. Obviously I am very close to some members of the group - and to me they are just my friends, not my AN friends. We've gone on vacations together, our families have spent time together, etc. I don't apologize for that. By the same token, there are people who I included in my circle because they were part of a larger group, and as time passed I began to question these connections based not on the group but on our individual connection. That has led me to change my circles to some degree. And I'm not alone in this - there are people who have selected me out of their networks, so I won't pretend all groups, like AN, are as tightly knit as it once was or as some of the responses indicate. It *is* of consequence who is on my networks - and muting or filtering can be helpful tool in maintaining my own boundaries, but what happens when I go to a new network? I don't want to continue replicating networks that aren't functional for me for one reason or another.

teeheehee :)

John, he's one of the funniest writers, ever. :) In addition to him being a funny (and just plain excellent) writer, I don't know if there's ever been a writer better suited to read his own works out loud. Reading one of his books is wonderful, but hearing him read it is sublime. He gained popularity when Ira Glass began featuring him on "This American Life" in the mid-1990s and has gone on to sell something like 7 or 8 million books. He does frequent reading tours and I never miss an opportunity to hear him read in person.

The feeling I get is that shoes.com just doesn't care. If you recall I blogged about bad customer service (got wrong color shoes, no response to their worthless online form) and the only reason I got any response was because someone who knows me and reads my blog works in their IT department and bumped it up to someone in customer service. You shouldn't have to know someone in an unrelated department to get decent treatment. Lesson learned - I'd rather have no Lucky Rewards and shop from Zappos or Endless (and get a better deal on shipping!) than shop with shoes.com again.