Ever since I self-published my first novel, Tribe of One, nearly two years ago, I’ve been nagged by thoughts of social media. One of the main joys of self-publishing is the satisfaction of finally having something tangible to show for all my hard work. My major challenge is promoting my work.

I’m well aware of how social media has revolutionized self-promotion and communication and yet…I’m still reluctant to do anything more than email and blog.

I have several revulsions toward setting up anymore social media platforms. The number one reason is the amount of precious time it would take to “do it right.” Since I am a full-time high school science teacher, I barely have time to work on my current manuscript, read from my rotating stack of books and magazines and take a myriad of dance and fitness classes. When school is in session, I honestly don’t have room in my tightly packed schedule to fit in yet another thing that would seemingly take daily effort.

A few friends suggested that if I “did it right,” I could generate enough income so I could quit my day job, which would free up more time. Right. More realistically, I’d sooner be laid off then I’d  approach social media as a means of not going insane with a whole 24 hours on my hands. Besides, setting up another social media platform would distract me from drowning in depression caused by unemployment.

Another consideration was brought to my attention when I bumped into a former college friend of mine. We exchanged business cards. Whereas my business card exuded artistic flair, promoting myself as a fiction writer (since high school teachers rarely have business cards advertising ourselves as teachers!), her business card listed: cell number, office number, fax number, facebook, linkedin and twitter. She was  immersed firmly into many social networks, but the visual that sprang forth was my friend trapped in a huge spider web, waiting to be sucked dry by the black widow of social media.

There is such a thing as being possessed by one’s possessions even if those possessions exist in cyberspace. Social media is the latest evolved technological mutant, promising to make life better, accomplishing things faster, giving you more.  Ever stop to wonder what those improved, fast, abundant things are? Or to evaluate if the quality of your life is truly better?

When I graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill, I started my teaching career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tanzania. Among the vast, beautiful, life-changing experiences that I encountered, I marveled at how much time I suddenly had without many time-saving devices.

I had time to write long letters back home, read more books than I ever had in a 2 1/2 year time period, cook meals from scratch (since prepackaged starters were not readily available and usually expensive for a PCV), and journal. The hectic pace of my typical American lifestyle came to a screeching halt when I moved to Tanzania. Doing simple tasks such  as withdrawing money from the bank or buying a stamp from the post office involved being in a barely perceptible moving line. Yet I never wasted time since I knew to bring a book or stack of post cards to write out as I waited.

The irony  of  using time-saving devices, just like using social media, is that I don’t save more time. I just raise the bar on more shit to do within 24 hours. With the few social media platforms I maintain, I don’t communicate or stay in touch better with people–unless it’s the people I tend to see on a regular basis anyway. I figure the “other people” who I don’t email/call/text/see regularly are just fine with the monthly/yearly/need-to-know timely updates.

Now that I’m living in the happening city of Austin, I’m even LESS inclined to add another strap of social media to myself. I love it when I didn’t know about so-and-so’s party or such-and-such’s event until after the fact since that means I didn’t have to whip out my phone, look at my social calendar and debate whether I can fit it into my schedule.

I remember as a precocious adolescent, I’d read about a reclusive writer, living in a cabin in the woods without a telephone. At the time, I thought that guy must have been some grumpy old man who  was probably socially retarded. Now that I’m older and wiser, I  understand his choice. In order to get anything creative accompolished, one has to isolate one’s self in a productive space to create.

In this hi-tech world, writers no longer have to live in the boonies. The boonies can be anywhere by creating a communication void. Imagine, creating a cyberspace of nothingness within the social media fabric.

I maintain my cyber void by using face-to-face communication. Just like being out in the sunshine for at least 15 minutes a day is healthy, so is being around actual live human beings, especially when you can surround yourself with positive, productive, creative people who are happy to be alive.

Of course at any time I could relinquish my social media reclusion and bind myself to many social media platforms in order to promote my work, but that would surely be the day I start selling pieces of my soul for money.

I’ve had quite the dramatic weekend, starting on Friday when I discovered that I could no longer enter “last minute,” ie “late,” grades electronically since the deadline had already passed.  I’d been marking furiously to complete my short stack of grades only to be locked out of the electronic gradebook. I took the first of several deep breaths that I would take this weekend, recalibrated my expectations and drove to the gym.

Despite my busybody schedule, I always manage to fit in swimming at least once a week. This past week’s host of juggled activities left Friday as the best day to swim. In this case, things worked at well since a good, hard swim would be just the thing to unwind my nerves. Just driving to the gym was therapeutic since I was no longer at work. Even though work was on my mind, being out of that environment was a step in the correct direction.

I swam my usual twenty-lap routine, which consisted of three sets of freestyle,  backstroke, breastroke, elementary backstroke, butterfly, bassackwards, and sidestroke. Fortunately, it was a good workout, complete with a shower since I came home to discover that there was no hot water.

No problem. I warmed up a pizza, repacked my swim bag and worked on my writing until my pizza was ready. While eating dinner, I watched a movie about three corporate executives who’d been “downsized” and they were struggling to reinvent themselves in order to find a new career.  In the end, one guy committed suicide, another guy started his own business and the remaining guy worked for the new business owner.

 Since suicide isn’t an option for me and I cannot visualize having another boss once I finally exit the classroom, the character that spoke to me was the one who started his own business. Of course in the movie, that guy already had the assets to launch his own business, including previous business experience in the field that he was starting.  In a way, so do I. I’ve just not fully embraced the idea of being my own boss.

Saturday, just before heading out to a mid-morning salsa aerobic class at a dance studio, I discovered that I no longer had to worry about the lack of hot water since there was no water! I quickly packed a post-workout bag so I could drop by the gym to take a shower after the aerobics class. That decision was pretty automatic since, unfortunately, I’ve been in the no hot water or no water at all situation several times since moving to Austin.

In the meantime, the internet was down; so I could not even send my writers’ critique group a last minute reminder that we were meeting at my apartment on Sunday. I figured it was just as well since I may not have any water by then!

I normally don’t attend a salsa aerobics class, but I  had rearranged my Saturday routine in order to see the 2 pm showing of  “Wicked.” The best I can say is that I survived that entertaining salsa aerobics class and dashed to the gym. I took the fastest shower that would still get me decently clean, drove home, whipped up something to eat and drove to the theatre.

Thank God I live a few minutes from UT. I had no problem finding a nearby parking garage that charged a reasonable rate.  As a matter of fact, the only challenge was finding the Bass Concert Hall itself. None of those buildings had the theatre name on them and no “Wicked” advertising could be seen until one entered the correct building!

The best thing about arriving 10 minutes to showtime was that there was no line at “will call.”  The time I saved there was readily invested in the women’s bathroom line.  An usher gave me the heads up to use the women’s bathroom on the third floor, which proved to be faster.

I breathed deeply while walking coolly into the theatre with plenty of time to spare. I guess it’s unusual for someone to attend a musical by herself since some people had taken the liberty to use my empty seat for their purses and coats.  I thanked them for keeping my seat warm. 

As soon as the show began, I became swept up in the music, dance, costuming and witty dialogue.  Very few experiences teleport me to my childhood, but “Wicked” had that wonderful effect.  I loved learning the backstory of the Wizard of Oz characters.  For three hours, the challenge of my life was paused…

Only to pick up where it had left off once the play was over! 

I’d planned to meet someone for dinner at a nearby sushi restaurant.  After thirty minutes of walking around, I finally met up with her on the street and we discovered that the place we’d planned to eat was closed on Saturdays.

We hopped in my car and I drove us to another restaurant that I knew would be open and delicious. That popular Mexican watering hole was packed and we ended up eating at the bar.  Not the ideal place, but we weren’t in the mood to wait for a table.  The whole point of our meeting was for her to pitch some money-making scheme to me.  She was politely evasive every time I asked what she did for a living, preferring to hear more about my background.

I thought that she was not going to make a sales pitch since we had already finished our drinks and dinner, but then, she ultimately clued me in to what she was selling: financial services, including insurance. I figured it was something along those lines. I was noncommittal, but agreed to read over the literature she’d given me.  After all , one way to reinvent myself is by doing something that I’ve never done before.

The cold water had returned by the time I came home. I had picked up 5 gallons of water before returning home just in case. I’m quite sure that if I had not bought water, then the water would have still been shut off. Nonetheless, I know that I didn’t waste my effort since there will surely be another time when the water is unexpectantly shut off due to leaky pipes or some other mishap.

 I started making an Italian vegetable and bean soup for my writers’ critique group. Since buying myself a high-powered blender for Christmas, I’ve been excitedly trying out new things to do with it.  This cooking challenge was chopping some of the vegetables rather than blending them completely to a smooth or creamy texture. After all the vegetables and spices were blended and thrown into the pot, the soup had that “thrown into the pot” quality.

I’d watched enough competitve cooking programs on the food network to know that every budding awesome chef does whatever he/she can to save the dish. I strained the excess water out of the soup, threw in a cup of bulgur and concluded that I needed to buy another can of beans to add to it. While I was at it, I’d buy fresh oregano since I’d originally forgotten to do so.

Saturday night, part of my dreaming montage included me turning on the hot water and it flowing with abandon. I woke and optimistically tested the hot water, based on what I hoped to be a prophetic dream. A sickening gasp sounded from the hot water faucet.  Silly me!

I got ready for my bikram yoga class, taking less time than usual in order to pick up the extra soup ingredients.  I ended up at yoga class well before time and got a good spot.  Continuing my challenging streak, the good spot was retracted when another yogi put his mat right in front of mine. Granted, the room was packed, but normally I can still see myself in the mirror. 

Not only did that guy block my reflection, but he was not attractive to look at.  Another theme in my life is that the men I’d love to look at are never in viewing position and the men I’d never look at twice are in full view!  A far more attractive man had positioned himself behind me, but since he’d come in later to set up his mat, he had full view of himself.  I tolerated not seeing my reflection for the first four movements, but by the time the first balance-on-one-leg position came around, I politely asked the woman beside me to scoot over so I could see myself. Although I blocked the attractive guy, he managed to reposition his mat as well.

To my delight, I did most of those yoga positions better than I’d ever done.  Ironically, my mind had volleyed thoughts concerning my future career, the water situation, cleaning up my apartment for the group and the lacking soup. Next thing I knew, bikram class was over and I had not entered a “yogi” state of mind.

I showered and returned home to get things in order as best I could before the writing group came over. My first task was laundry.  The sole reason I started doing laundry on Sundays and Wednesdays was to wash my sweat-drenched cloth yoga mat.  It just made good sense to clean up my apartment as well.

I added the extra beans and fresh oregano to the soup, which had magically transformed into something delicious overnight. The bulgur grain had absorbed the extra liquid and the texture and taste were delightful. I still added red pepper since I needed a little kick to the soup.  If I were making the soup just for myself, I would have added far more hot spices.

I fussed around my apartment, complete with polishing the furniture and getting the card table out of the storage room. Everything was all set. About a quarter after two, one of the writers called to tell me that she would not make it.  We talked for fifteen minutes. I continued working on my writing while waiting for the other two.

After an hour past the time we should have started, I figured they had forgotten and just ate by myself while streaming one of my favorite TV shows.  (I do love how I can fit shows into my schedule rather than scheduling my life around them.) The soup that I had worried so much about, turned out fantastic.

When I washed up my dishes, I turned on the hot water faucet out of habit. Just like my dream had predicted, the hot water flowed. Unbelievable.

So, my weekend has come around full circle with hot water and internet. Just in time for work tomorrow.