FaceBook Is Eating My Brain....

Oh, I remember when we first met. I was in my middle years, feeling like I'd done it all, seen it all... and then, there you were. The Internet.

You made me feel like a kid again - a kid struggling to understand long-division, true, but once I mastered AOL, it was love at first password. You had me at: "You've Got Mail."

Some said it was just an infatuation, a passing fad; but I knew our love was here to stay.

Still, the relationship has gone through some changes. AOL gave way to Yahoo; Yahoo melted into MySpace... and then FaceBook captured my heart.

At first I felt like I was cheating on MySpace. But Facebook just seemed to really understand my needs, what I really wanted from a social networking site. Namely, a vehicle for posting minute-by-minute updates on every move I make, every breath I take, every thought -- profound or inane -- that skitters through my addled brain.

I also desperately needed a way to keep in touch with 2,534 of my closest friends. Because I really need to know your Disney princess name.

I love FaceBook. It's brought me back in contact with friends I haven't seen or spoken to in a coon's age. But I am beginning to think I may need an intervention.

It's bad enough that I feel compelled to come up with something moderately witty before noon for my status message. A little sad that I've actually started to post a new status message late at night, only to think, "Wait... most of my friends are in bed. I'd better wait or they might miss it."

But it's the GAMES... those freaking games!

I'm not a gamer, never was in the "real" world. No D&D, no marathon Risk games, none of that. And for years the only thing I ever played on the computer was Solitaire, which, in the computer gaming world, is really lame. Kind of like playing Spin the Bottle when everybody else is playing Howard Stern's Orgy-Mania. (It's like Twister, only dirtier. Yes, I made that up.)

But then a FB friend kept sending me sheep. Chickens, cows, orange trees. I caved into peer pressure, and thought, I'll just try it. What harm can it do?

So I began my first farm in Farm Town. I thought it was just a little innocent fun, and I could stop any time I wanted to. But by the time I expanded my farm the third time and made a spreadsheet to calculate the optimal profit per field, I began to suspect I had a problem.

I hit rock bottom the night Farm Town went down for six hours and I couldn't get to my farm. My crops, I wailed, beating on the computer screen. My crops! I've got pumpkins coming in, you have to let me harvest!

I thought about finding a twelve-step program, but I was too busy plowing, planting and harvesting.

Then it happened. I reached Level 24. My farm could expand no more. I bought my mansion, my greenhouse, my river. There was nothing left to do in Farm Town.

I wandered the web searching for another fix, trying to recapture the thrill of that first level-up. YoVille. FarmVille. Mafia Wars. Sorority Life.

Sorority Life is my dirty little secret. The game is the pinnacle of crass materialism and anti-feminist smut based on the idea that women will climb all over each other in stilletto heels for a chance at a Guicci bag and a dozen cookies, slapping each other silly the whole time. Because they do. I'm so ashamed of myself.

But I have 402 sisters now, as well as 148 Hummer stretch limos, 74 lifetime tans and one yacht. And it pisses me off way more than is seemly when a rival smacks me upside of my head and steals $70,000 from me.

First thing in the morning, I log into FaceBook and head straight for Sorority Life, to bank my earnings, send Juicy Couture dresses to all my sisters, and make sure I haven't been put on the Burn List.....

Then it's off to Mafia Wars, where I check my properties for break-ins and send my family members wire taps, sawed-off shotguns and stolen Rembrandt paintings.

Then to YoVille, to feed my cybercat, punch the clock at the Widget Factory, and shop for a new dining room set. If I have time, I dance with a few friends before rushing off to Farm Town.

Once the flowers are watered at my Farm Town estate, I run over to FarmVille, where I have to milk the cows, collect eggs and harvest all the eggplants.

I've also got my own amusement park in Rollercoaster Kingdom, where it seems i do nothing but feed my employees.....

It's all becoming a big blur, more a job than my job.

What I fear is that one morning, I'm going to send Juicy Couture dresses to my goodfellas, throw grenades at my sheep and try to milk my sisters.

Someone stop me, before I farm again.