Lesson Learned: Always go off the record

Over the years I have pledged to give up chocolate, caffeine, procrastination and my otherwise lazy life style. None of these have ever been (nor will ever be) effective. The problem is I never have anyone to share in my misery and hold me accountable. In order to give myself even a slight chance of success in the Great Disconnected Challenge of 2009, I knew I had to sucker someone else into doing it with me. So I mentioned the idea to my friend jj, a huge facebook junkie thinking that she would never bite on the idea and I could let all this foolishness die. Much to my surprise, she LIKED the idea. Was EXCITED about it. Before I knew it, I was desperately trying to back out.

Unfortunately, I made the proposal over gchat and as I tried to back out she used our chat archive against me. Let this be a lesson: ALWAYS go off the record. gchat archives are the one thing keeping me from having a glorious political career. Well, gchat archives and facebook photos. That of course leads to the chicken and the egg question of the 21st century: do people only take photos of me when I have a red solo cup in my hand or do I always have a red solo cup in my hand? If only I could answer such questions.
Anyway, point is jj, instead of being horrified by the idea, loves it and is now "forcing" me into holding up my end of the bargain. On the surface, this looks like a good idea for both of us. I am studying for the bar and she is writing a novel. We don't need to be on facebook or gchat. In fact, being off would be good for our productivity. Right?

As the clock ticks closer to midnight, my regret grows. I am gchatting, AIMing, and facebooking like a crazy person. I want to think about what I will miss the most but I can't think straight. I find myself frantically looking through status updates, quiz results and photo albums of people I don't give two shits about but will some how miss so much over the next thirty one days. As I panic, jj keeps facebook chatting me about how "excited" she is. She is excited and I want to throw up. But then again she makes homemade tortillas, eats food she grows herself and knows how to sew; whereas I eat Frosted Mini Wheats I bought at a liquor store as I watch replays of the World's Strongest Man competition pantless.

At midnight, I signed off, knowing in my heart of hearts, that I would be signing on well before August 1st. I know they (and by they I mean Dr. Drew) say that the first day is always the hardest but even my Dr. Drew's doctor hotness cannot reassure me today. You might be able to take the girl out of facebook, but you'll never be able to take the facebook out of the girl.

Day One