Kicking My Habit: Week 2-3

Dear Facebook,

I miss you. I wish I could log in and connect with people. Facebook, I lost my phone over Halloween and I had no way to get a hold of my friends! It was very sad and I longed for you dear Facebook. I didn’t realize how many people I’ve “lost touch with” since leaving you. People think I’m crazy for giving you up, they mock me or laugh when I say I’m going without you for thirty days.

Facebook, the truth is that you take up too much of my time. I must learn to control myself around you. Paul wants me to return to your social network, but I can’t go back, not now, not when I have come halfway. Trust me Facebook, I recognize your benefits, I see your beauty and intellect. You help me stay in touch with friends and connect with Marijuana Radio fans, you are a social platform which allows my voice to be heard. You provide hours of mind-numbing entertainment perfect for a lazy Sunday or hectic Monday at the office. Facebook, you are great, perhaps even a social networking miracle.

I will return to you soon my dear, and we will be reunited, it will feel so good. I’m counting down the days until I can tag friends in photos, comment on posts and be “in” on the latest gossip or trend. Oh Facebook, in less than a week we shall be together again, until then try to stay strong.

Love,

McKenna

Kicking My Habit: Week 1

I’ve been without Facebook for a week and with each passing day it becomes easier to live without it. During the first few days I wanted to login every minute, my job entails extensive use of the internet and being online was torture. For a couple days I felt disconnected from society, out of touch with my friends, I even worried about how I would get in touch with them, then I remember email and cell phones. Facebook was one of the five internet sites I visit each day, I’ve yet to branch out and discover what the web has to offer, but I’m taking this thing one day at a time.

Living without Facebook has given me a new perspective, I never realized how social networking is so ingrained in American culture. My friends talk about news they see of FB or about a mutual friend’s wall post and comments. I remember when I first learned about Facebook back in ‘03; I though it was lame, I didn’t want to connect with fellow students via the web. It’s incredible how FB took off and captivated the minds of so many Americans.

Since giving up Facebook I’ve had more free time. I’m more efficient, instead of staring at Facebook for fifteen minutes every hour, I work. I no longer feel obligated to comment on friends’ walls or photos, I’m more free to do what I want. This week I’ve worked out more, cleaned my apartment, began keeping a journal, and spent more time with friends.

Although I miss Facebook dearly, I’m looking forward to going without it for another week. Perhaps I will discover a new website, finally organize my office, read a new book or take more bong rips. There’s no telling what I’ll get into with all this free time on my hands.

Hello, my name is McKenna and I’m addicted to Facebook

After waking up and brushing my teeth I log into Facebook. I check my email, then log into Facebook. I do a few tasks then log into Facebook, I eat lunch then log into Facebook, I take a break by logging into Facebook. Facebook consumes hours of my day.

I sit idly reading status updates of individuals I don’t really know, remaining apathetic to their joys, worries and sorrows. Keeping tabs on what my “friends” are doing isn’t going to benefit me in anyway, yet I find myself perusing pictures of strangers’ tropical vacations when I could be working to afford one of my own. My productivity has declined and my addiction to Facebook is to blame; when a task is too difficult I find myself logging in, in order to disconnect.

I’m not sure when my addiction began, I used to be a very moderate FB user, only logging in once a month or so. My job with Marijuana Radio really connected me to social media sites and eagerness to see friend requests and read comments fueled my need to log in every hour, every day.  When it comes to Facebook I have no self control. I must form better habits and learn to live without Facebook. In an effort to become more productive I will not use Facebook for thirty days and have deactivated my account. Quitting Facebook will be an extreme challenge, which will take skill and determination to overcome, but plan to kick my habit. Tomorrow will be day one without the big FB, I’m gonna miss it, I already do.

You can follow my progress by reading my weekly blog, wish me luck kiddos!

Radio Profound or Superficial

My life is in a peculiar stage of metamorphosis.  For one thing, I always feel like our radio show is on the verge of some grand new moment.  I have never cherished anything professionally like I do Marijuana Radio.  It’s more popular than it ever has been.

I’m also turning 36 years old this fall and am expecting a baby girl on the way.  I have mixed feelings about these occasions. I am thrilled to have a child, but it also means my certain eventual decline, and in another way, I cherish the stage I’m at for the seriousness of my pursuits.

Lately though I have felt a great restlessness that has been hard to manage. I have spent hours trying to figure out how to take the show to a new level of success.  In so many ways, the niche of marijuana has been a blessing in business, it has allowed us to actually carry on a dream podcast.  Read it and weep, Marijuana Radio is and has been a rare self sustaining and singular commercial entity.  Yes, I said commercial.   The pleasure of business every step of the way is that it has been constantly growing and leading to new opportunities.

The best part is the radio.  I love getting on and letting the creative juices flow.  I am really pleased to have DanK and McKenna to share the mix with.  Dick Black adds an occasional special variety.   That’s right, I swear, it is all about the ensemble.  The situation we’re in is plainly unique.  I know the role I play, and I try to share the air.  I don’t want to hog the spotlight, even though when I am passionate, I may.

I want an opportunity for the show to appear on a larger medium and give new life to our creative and political potential.  The truth is, I can’t any longer be the lone one responsible to bring all the future magic.   I need other people in unique positions, and people with cutting edge skills to help me bridge the gap to our next era of success in this company.  I would love to give up the hassles of the company and be put on the air at Sirius XM Radio.  I don’t know the slightest thing about whether they’d even look twice in our direction, but I like to think they would.

It’s hard to come up with the right words to explain how I’ve been feeling.  For practically anything that I love, once in a while I feel the need to call it in to doubt to force reflection upon my situation.  It’s how I’m wired, and right now I feel overwhelmed trying to make this radio program grow and thrive.  But I love it, and there’s still this fire in me that says it must survive, and it will play a role in changing people’s minds in a positive way about marijuana.  Stress about the show is not even the radio program itself as much as the business behind it, which must be strong to ensure it’s survival, plus it must be built with solid and reliable people.

We have established a really rich history, and for me to go on, I want to know some things.  Could we have 1 million listeners from the internet alone?  I’ll tell you what, if we could, I would be just as happy going on without a transition to Satellite Radio.

I remember a few times in the past few years I leave my work here and go to happy hour in a bar called ‘My Brother’s Bar.’  I usually have a nice size beer and a shot or two of Tequila.  The patrone Tequila has quiet an affect on how I feel.  The best way I can describe it is a momentary feeling of prescience, as in, I feel like my work is my destiny, and I know that I’m fulfilling it.  Lately I have not had a shot of tequila, and I wonder how I’d feel if I had one.   Quite literally, my Tequila drunken mind gives me a perception of greatness that is inspiring and for a moment gives me direction.

Sometimes it pains me to think that my own words don’t matter.  I don’t always come across as a person who wants to listen, but sometimes I don’t have the personal constitution to stomach certain debates, and I regard this as a fundamental flaw of mine.  When right to me is clearly right, I suspend the notion that I have to wait for others around me to catch up.  Rather than trying to understand someone’s perspective, I come to a point of full condemnation, resembling nothing of diplomacy.  Glenn Beck for example, I won’t give reasons why, but he’s a condemned fellow in my mind, a reasonless demon.  For all the nonsense we engage in on Marijuana Radio, when I am serious, you can be certain that I’m bloody serious.  If I were a Glenn Beck sort, I’d bend my most fundamental principles in a moment’s notice, depending on the political wind around me.

I feel the fundamental original intended freedom of our country has been gravely compromised.  I also feel that Marijuana Radio is a growing stage which can gain more relevance.  We can mature and become more important.  Our audience can grow and we can have a measurable affect on change.  I have to believe this to go on, and I do believe this.

For whatever filthy banter might come out of Marijuana Radio, nothing matters more than meaningful dialogue. Prohibition causes me to feel a personal threat to myself and friends, which part of me feels content expressing on the radio, and the other part of me knows changing the nature of the threat comes far too slowly.  I suffer in my own pit of self loathing, as if I should somehow be the one able to speed up the pace of it all.  I want this radio show to be an epicenter where everyone interested in this topic wants to speak their mind.  This is an honest radio show.  We were not deliberately conceived to resemble any other radio show out there, and for what it is, I really think it stands singularly on its own.

But how can we change things?  Aren’t we just superficial all the time?  I don’t think so.  We can change minds.  Deep people will hear meaningful moments in our program.

Sitting down to write these words now has made me feel a deeper sense of direction and purpose.  Even still, it’s a struggle to keep this thing going.  I have to ask again, can Marijuana Radio thrive and grow to continually justify its existence?

We’d sure love to achieve a new level relevance and notoriety.  Can you help?  Do you think this is possible? Please, share your ideas.

About the Supermarket

I visit the super market every Monday after the weekly Marijuana Radio meeting. I generally get lost in my thoughts while shopping for sustenance, and make silly observations. The super market neutral territory, there are no cultural wars or political upheaval. Each one of us needs to eat regardless of our perspective on Obama’s health care plan. People are compliantly pleasant, many attentive to their surroundings, others in tune to solitary thoughts. This fact fills me with anxiety. There I am picking out a loaf of bread, wondering who could be staring at me, judging me while they peruse the freshest batch of pastries. Perhaps its mere paranoia, nothing to be alarmed over, this feeling generally subsides when I’m forced to remember what I came to purchase. One thing is for sure, grocery lists save time and money.

My trip to the super market this evening was rather pleasant, the remodling is nearly finished and the store was back to a somewhat normal state. I began my journey by walking right up to the salad dressing isle, bingo, one item off the list! Then I searched for crackers, walking down the juice isle I learned that grown men are just as impressed with Capri Sun as children, when a man asked his wife to buy a flavor he’d been “dying to try”. I could not find the crackers.

I stood in the produce section for fifteen minutes, too stoned to really make out any objects, it all appeared to be a sea of green with speckles of orange and yellow. One can only stand in a single spot for so long before other shoppers begin to question her motives. I quickly moved to the zucchini, then mushrooms and darted away only to realize I still needed fruit.

Two young men held up the deli line with their order of ten pounds of turkey. Another fella was very excited to be making philly cheese steak sandwiches, he told his girlfriend they would need “a lot” of meat. While in the deli line I debated wheter or not I’d have salami sandwiches for lunch this week, or if tuna sounded better. I tried to find the “canned meat” isle but failed and decided the universe is forcing me to be creative this week.

Self check-out is a gift from the technology gods. The robot voice generally treats me with respect and evokes a sense of pride when she calls me a “valued customer”. I do miss human interaction at times, but these days most people don’t want to make small talk. My cashier last week wouldn’t even look me in the eyes. I did not speak through my entire shopping experience, that’s probably a bad thing. Either way, the super market is a place of wonder and surprise, I’m eager to see what’s in store for me next week!

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