When Michael Scott was giddy about having risqué photos of Jan, he couldn’t help but share with his buddy.  So he opened up his e-mail client, started a new message, attached a photo, typed ‘pac’ into the ‘To:’ address field and let the auto-fill do its thing, and sent the message on its way.  Moments later, he was faced with a terrible truth: the auto-fill grabbed “packaging@dundermifflin.com”, not “Packer, Todd”, so the photo only reached its intended recipient by way of being propagated throughout the company.  Oops.

The same thing happened to me recently.  Well, a less disastrous version, and I wasn’t the perpetrator.  A coworker sent a link to me that he meant to send to someone else.  In an effort to suggest a smoking alternative to “natalie@” (name changed to protect the guilty), he sent “neil@” a promo for Smoke Electric’s new Crown 7 HYDRO, the world’s most advance e-cigarette.

I’ve never been a smoker, but now that I know about a carcinogen-free, tar-free, non-flammable, deco-style nicotine tube that comes in watermelon among other flavors, I might take a closer look.  Besides, according to the FAQ:

CROWN 7 is an alternative to smoking that offers reduced health risk, freedom to smoke anywhere, social inclusion versus isolation, no first or second hand smoke, virtually odor-free smoking, non-flammability, convenience, and lower cost than traditional smoking.

If it’s environmentally responsible, socially responsible, and won’t make me stink or get kicked out of restaurants, it could be worth a shot!

At the behest of a friend, I finally decided to make a Facebook profile.  Don’t know if I’ll be a big fan of it, but let’s see what happens.

My reluctances in joining a social networking site were manifold:

• I have had a Web site for many years that gives updates about Ginger and me and our exploits; I have this blog where I share with the world my important musings; so I didn’t need yet another site.
• I still gag a little when I hear anyone mention a myspace page, and gag a lot whenever I have the misfortune of actually seeing one.  Myspace is the bad apple that spoiled the whole idea of social networking sites for me.
• I would rather not have to keep up with information in multiple places.  I actually did a research project in college about storing volatile information in multiple places and the headaches that ensue from managing all the instances of duplicate data or what happens when you don’t.
• I’m not freaked out about it or anything, but there’s something to be said for NOT having your life’s details out there on a public network to be seen by who-knows-who.
• I’m lazy.  Which doesn’t necessarily mean that I didn’t want to start something, but made me wary of getting into something that would just fizzle out due to lack of interest.
• I might be annoyed with so much activity.  In this age of instant communication, some people send a message and expect a reply right away.  I’m not like that.  I can let something sit for some time while I stew on it.  People might think I don’t like them if I’m not up to their level of chatter.

But despite the reasons for not Facebooking, there are reasons for it, which I decided threw the balance in its favor.  The whole point in having neilandginger.com and a blog is for some sort of interaction with the world, including friends, family, and random strangers, and that interaction is enhanced as traffic is increased.  Kind of like marketing.  So Facebook may funnel some traffic to the places where the real good stuff is.  Not to mention, it’s an acceptable way to reestablish casual contact with people I don’t hang around with any more due to geography, etc.   So here I am, Facebook: NeilMeister the reluctant social networker.

I e-mail myself all the time.  If there’s a thought I have or a transaction I need to record, I’ll send myself an e-mail rather than trying to remember (which doesn’t often work) or writing a note (which would pile up on my desk).  So even though the thoughts can and often do go unresolved for a long period of time, the only waste is a small amount of increasingly-cheap disk space.

I have found myself e-mailing myself a lot more recently, because I have been coming across more articles and other tidbits having to do with the 2008 presidential election.  My intention is to sort through a bunch of information that interests me and jot down some of my own commentary.  I missed the November 4 deadline to get this done before the election, but I’ll have plenty of opportunity to think about and share my thoughts on what went on and what continues to go on in its wake.  Nothing is “over”; it’s just that the 2008 election, just like the ones in 2004, 2000, 1996, etc. interesting tick mark along the continuum that is the timeline of our history.

All this is to say that instead of e-mailing myself so much, I’ll post to this blog pretty much unedited.  That drives me nuts, because I hate to communicate stuff that I haven’t had much time to edit in my mind and on the page.  But hey, there are two things that give me peace about this: not many people are going to read it anyway, and if they do and comment about it, that will give me the kick in the pants I need to take some time to clarify.

I visit MSN.com several times a day to 1.) look at the red numbers at the right side of the screen signifying how much the stock market is going down, interesting and not-upsetting to me now since I have had almost nothing invested in the stock market for the past few months, and 2.) briefly glancing at the headlines to see if there’s anything interesting.

I happened upon an article that describes, from somewhat-credible psychological and scientific sources, what I’ve been stewing on for years but lacked the authority to proclaim: you’re probably doing yourself more harm than good by trying to be too darn clean.  The writer outlines the dangers of what she describes as the Cult of Clean.

Three main trains of thought stick out to me:

One: From a physiological standpoint, people worry too much about being so sanitary and need to relax and just accept the fact that germs are a part of life and appreciate the role of dirty stuff in the world.  And all through the middle of the article there’s a sweeping commentary on the irrational “dreams of disinfection” being tied to us being too affluent, disconnected socially, wanting to avoid risk, and too bent on trying to be “in control”.  My personal favorite is the subtle reference to advertisers convincing you more and more that you should be dissatisfied with your state of cleanliness and buy their stuff to fix this problem.

Two: The pursuit of purity undermines the immune system.  If you lack exposure to the things that will build up your immune system, you’ll be more prone to develop problems like asthma and allergies.  Seriously, if you’re as old as I am (which isn’t old – if you grew up in the 1980s), you remember a time when there was no such thing as warning labels about peanut allergies (specifically addressed in this article) on food products.

Three: There are just some great quotes.  Take AmeriCares’ Ella Gudwin: “The whole world is covered in a small film of fecal matter. Just get used to it.”  And my favorite from Harvard Medical School’s Lynn Bry: “We have an irrational fear of germs and dirt… I fully advocate appropriate hygiene and cleanliness. Don’t suck on your fingers after you cut open a chicken. But you don’t need to scrub yourself until you’re sore.”

So, do yourself a favor – wrestle with your dog, scrub around in the dirt some, and enjoy life with the germs.