Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

I am writing you today to ask you why you used the term “friend” as your way of connecting people together on Facebook. Not everyone who you are connected with on Facebook is a “friend”. They are someone that you meet through someone, work related, family member, someone you knew 20 years ago, and they found you again on facebook.

Some of these people turn out to be friends. But what about the people that you haven’t seen in 20 years and then you re-connect. You agree to meet and go for dinner, drinks or coffee. Then it goes a few different ways – you decide, “hey I think that person is someone I want to be friends with again after 20 years, let’s see where this takes us” or perhaps, “yeah, well, there was a reason why maybe we didn’t stay connected after high school and the past should be left in the past”.

I had a situation last year when I was “unfriended” and I have to be honest with you – it was a horrible feeling and an experience I would never want to repeat. At first I thought it was a mistake, and then I tried it myself and you have to do a two step process to remove someone as a friend, up to that point I had never “unfriended” anyone. It asks you, “are you sure you want to unfriend this person, because this action cannot be undone”. Once you click yes, you are done…that person is no longer your friend and you don’t exist.

This happened again to me this summer with someone I thought was a good friend. This person said that “facebook” did it and when she tried to click on a picture it said, “add as friend”…..well…we cleared that up, and then last night, the same person, I noticed when I tried to find the profile and was not able, came up “add as friend.” Another ‘mutual’ connection I found out last night removed me as a friend as well.

Facebook has coined many new terms in our vocabulary, like “in box me” or “friend me” or “post on my wall”…. and you all know that I really enjoy using facebook to share thoughts, ideas, tv show tips, food tricks, and all of that. I am not saying I don’t like facebook or don’t want to use it anymore (the HORROR LOL)

As I said in my post over the weekend, if you are sick of all my posts, updates, shared links, etc, there is a “Hide” button that you can use. I hope you won’t choose to do that to me, but if you do, I will understand, my facebook life is not everyone’s facebook life.  I have used “hide” before, and it is much better than some one you think is a “friend” to find out than in fact you are not, and they don’t want to be “friends” with you anymore.

Thank you for listening,

Your facebook “fan” not friend,

Lisa

I was so happy when Karey wrote me back and said that she also was a lover of Coach and she was so excited to make the cake I wanted. She told me to send her picture of my purse so she could get an idea of how to make it.
As you can see from the pictures on the side, this cake was EQUAL to anything seen on Cake Boss or Ace of Cakes. It was so real and true to life, it blew me away.

Only three people knew what the cake was before the party – the designer, Martine and myself. My mom didn’t know – she actuallly thought it was going to be a cruise ship, which also would have been a great idea (why didn’t I think of that?). There was one other person who actually guessed, which shouldn’t really have surprised me, that someone would have guessed what it was considering I was making such a deal that I wasn’t telling anyone!

When Karey came to deliver the cake my mom went out to help her and when she opened the trunk, my mother didn’t realize that the cake was the cake. When they brought it into the room, I was blown away. I had no idea WHAT to expect, but it was amazing, and so real to life.

I had put the cake on the dessert table and it was the only item on the table, and when people started to come into the party, they thought it was a gift table and my purse was on the table….until I had to say, “did you see the cake?” The reply was “what cake?”.

The pictures don’t even really do it justice. It was a 3D – masterpiece. It was almost 24″ high (and even wider), close to 12″ deep  and every single part of it was edible – the hardware, buckles, the straps, even the coach ‘tags’ that she cleverly put on the cake. Mind blowing!
When it was time to cut into the cake, I didn’t know how I was going to do it, or if I even wanted to.

A few weeks ago, the movie Julie and Julia was on tv. I hadn’t seen it before and sat down to watch it. I really enjoyed it. Since I have started NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and started blogging every day, I find it more relevant to my life.

She gave herself one year to complete all the recipes in Julia Child’s cookbook and she was going to blog about it. At one point she stares at the computer and types, “is there anyone out there? Are you reading this? Anyone?” And then she starts to get feedback, phone calls comments, etc.

I understand what she was going through. When you type a story, thought process, something you want to share out there in the ‘blogsphere’, it is hard to not feel like you are really just typing for yourself. Inner thoughts out in public forum. So many people are afraid of that. People don’t put personal things on facebook, don’t really share thoughts or ideas of their own. They are the first to joke about knowing all about my life. Trust me when I tell you that I have been the brunt of many facebook jokes and that people probably even know when I go to the bathroom.

I find that it is a form of flattery to be honest with you, that if they make so many commetns about me and my life – that they are actually FOLLOWING ME! They WANT to know what is going on in my life or they wouldn’t notice, or hide me, or even worse unfriend me.

I have been told twice in the last two days that these specific people are following my blog posting a day and not just for the last 12 days, but for a long time now. They follow from afar, don’t make comments on the blog or on the facebook statuses, but they take note of it all.

I am glad that I have a ‘fan base’ and whether you follow silently or comment on every single blog post or status update I make (really, would you do that??), I plan on writing for as long as there are readers. I am not sure if I can keep up the pace of writing every single day, but we will see what happens at the end of November. I plan on writing every day for at least that long.

So keep reading…and I will keep writing….

Until tomorrow…. G’nite!