"A friend of yours?" "Well, I know the person..." Part I

So there I am, opening Facebook and am presented with many names accompanying pictures that if I think loong and haaard may invite certain recollection. The thing is that all these names/pictures have this cute li'l tab that reads Add as Friend...
Now what's a guy to do? (I'm talking about me... OK?)
Should I just click-click-click away those tabs, making these people "my friends"?

Are they "my friends"?
Am I their "friend"?

Yes, I know them. And I may know some things about them, be it their occupations or certain personality traits, but here comes those questions again: Are they my friends? and Am I theirs?
I have my own understanding of this word: friend.
I have friends, thank God, meaning that I consider them friends. But whether they consider me their friends, you gotta ask them that. I realize that I don't consider myself having many friends, and you know what? It suits me so very fine (NOT having many friends, I mean).
I choose my friends, I am teaching my kids to choose their friends very carefully. And I believe that these friends of mine, either consciously or subconsciously, "choose" to befriend me for whatever reasons.
Why am I teaching my kids to choose their friends? Because there are people out there that I strongly believe will bring harm to my kids should they become friends. I believe that NOT everyone fits to be someone else's friend. The bottom line is there are bad people out there. That is how the world is.
I can live with just a few people whom I can really call friends. And I will not befriend someone whom I think will bring me harm. I grew up being taught that one should not fall into the same hole twice, and there are qualities--good and bad--that everyone possesses; and, because of this I don't mind losing "so-called friends." (Hey, there are 6.6+ billion people in this world, what's losing a "friend" or two?)
I believe in redemption, but it is not for me to give and to prove whether a person has indeed redeemed himself.
Am I a person holding a grudge? I am a cautious person.
So, until there is another cute li'l tab that reads Add as Acquaintance, I'll stick with a few friends I have and believe.

*Fiuuh, that's a lot of F-words...*

Who watches The Watchmen?

Do yourselves a BIG, BIG favor: Read Moore and Gibbon's WATCHMEN the book/the graphic novel/the comics or what-the-heck-ever you wanna call it.
How can you appreciate or catch ALL the multi-layered nuances, the secrets, the depths, the messages, the JOKES that you can find hidden in plain (and not-so-plain) sights in Mr. Gibbons's beautiful artwork if "it is being dragged through the experience at the speed of 24 frames per second"?
I'm not lambasting Mr. Snyder's hard work on the movie, mind you as I haven't seen it but this is about truly experiencing what the creators of the work wanted the readers to get/be indulged in/be aware of.
Watchmen is one BIG complex and multi-layered work/labor of love supplemented with excerpts from imaginary books, journals, articles. Now, how do you get/read those watching the movie.
There are stories within the stories which you can get or learn as you re-read the book, examine each panel, trace each line of dialog, study the facial expressions and gesture, flip to the next pages, then flip back back to the previous one. Watchmen gets you thinking... Now, ain't that fun?
So who reads the WATCHMEN?

Of lying at his feet, foot massage and a cycle

The last few weeks have got me wondering whether life really is a cycle, as at nights I found myself sleeping at my kid's feet; just as I sometimes did when I was still little.
I used to sneak into my parents' bedroom, and I would lay at their feet, until they woke me up for school.
As I was often times asked by my dad to massage his feet, now I find myself massaging my kid's feet--sometimes at nights when I am accompanying him to sleep, and I lay at his feet.
There's no complaint, here.
Simply wondering