Writing, for me, without Facebook, is something like feeling the “mental tickle” of an observation that might do someone some good — something that will make them laugh, or cry, or experience righteous anger — and then finding the best way to say it: you know, you writers, how it goes, make the words count, beat out the rhythm of the word-sounds, their relational baggage, (the way the word “mind” feels, for example, versus the beefy nothingness of “brain”), make it all a little surprising, and then memorialize the sentiment in the English language. Put it out there for everyone to see.
Well, without Facebook, for me at least, it’s a bit like printing it out on my laser printer and tacking it to the front fence. No one is going to see it. Eventually, it will dry up and wrap itself around an apple tree or some lamb turd.
It’s nothing like the wine, and the friendship, of telling a joke in the tavern. It works, or it doesn’t work, but at least you know you were talking to someone.
