A Compulsion Story with a Clown Car

Letting Twitter and Facebook go was harder than I thought it would be. Point of fact, my using and reading had become a compulsion. I thought if I just kept on top of things they wouldn’t spin out of control.

By “on top” I mean trolling and shaming Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump, tweet-bellowing at Texas Governor and turdblossom Greg Abbott. Never mind that they and other Swamp denizens wear their wretchedness like shame-proof Kevlar.

The dumb old clown car of 2016 life just kept on rolling, and speak of wretched, I was. I’m an easy crier, but it leaves my eyes a mess. Gritty, sore, and damn any light over .5 watts. Every other day, my psyche was in full Chernobyl, and my eyes were like little round gravel vampires living in my face.

I yanked the clown car off the road. I deactivated my Twitter and Facebook accounts, and had my wonderful husband change the passwords. Facebook accounts never really go away unless you delete them, but Twitter flatlines after a month.

When you go through the process of deactivating Facebook, it tries to keep you. It pops up the people you interact with most often (it showed me my friends with babies and toddlers), and says, “They’ll miss you.” Oh damn, Facebook, did you just play with my feelings?

I chose “other” as my reason for leaving, because it’s the only option that doesn’t toss a solution at you like a well-meaning person that is about to get yelled at for not accepting “No, really, for the fifth time I’ve got this,” in a high C through locked teeth for an answer.

Then, Facebook insisted I had to put words in the box next to “other.” I typed, “I’m sad, fuck off,” hit enter, and Facebook let my page go to sleep.

Let’s see how I’m feeling in a week. Considering that the last time I left Twitter cold turkey my blood pressure dropped from “you need medicine” to “hey, lookin’ goooood,” I’m kinda excited. Getting rid of two time sucks ought to be ten times as good for my body as getting rid of one.

That ability to fly could be mere days away.

Being a White Jerk, or How Not to Be a Crap Editor

Have you heard of Pantsuit Nation? It was founded on Facebook, pre-election, when it was expected that Hillary would win and PSN would be where the celebration would happen.
I was already planning this post about how Pantsuit Nation founder Libby Chamberlain is repeating the abuse already heaped on women, LGTBQ people, and POC during the psychic wars of the presidential campaigns when I found out Harry Lewis has covered it well at Huffington Post:

“Around that time, things started to get weird. Chamberlain filed to trademark the name and reportedly told smaller satellite groups around the country that they had to stop using the moniker. A project by two women of color known as the Safety Pin Box was removed from the site under the pretense that it was seeking commercial gain and lambasted by white commenters…What had once been a space of solidarity started to feel like a branding machine.”

I Never Thought I’d Subscribe to Teen Vogue

‘Cause really, so many reasons to raise all the middle fingers to fashion, however, unlike so many “real” magazines, Teen Vogue has clapped back hard at Trump. For this, they got my dollars.

Dear Bill Gates…

…comparing Donald #putinspet Trump to JFK is to ignore the bigotry, the misogyny, the crimes.

You are normalizing a person who wouldn’t rent to black people, who sexually assaulted women, who has stolen hundreds of millions of dollars, who knew Russia was undermining our elections.

Normalizing a person who admires a dictator who kills journalists, jails political rivals and gay rights activists is messed up as hell, Bill Gates.

 

…With a Kitten

I’m trying to do my business on the throne in the small office (the one that has the shower), and it’s taking longer than it should because I’m also holding my kitten, Umbra.

She climbed up on me and I started to hold her without thinking about it, and now I have a kitten snuggled up on me in my left hand and my phone in the right.

I blog in the bathroom since I gave up Twitter and Facebook. I’ve traded compulsive, addicted reading and collecting FOMO points for awkward blogging.

 

Kitchen, 5 Months Later

I’ve been renovating my kitchen for a year now. Hanging the cabinets came to a screaming, sobbing halt in July because a belt sander caught the heel of my left hand and chewed a hunk of skin off.

(The doctor in the ER was a complete assface. I had to go to urgent care a week later to get proper treatment.)

I had the belt sander accident because I was tired, rushing, and not wearing gloves.

I went into surgery to relieve the carpal tunnel in my right hand a couple days later. I hid the torn heel under a bandage.

I finally went back to the kitchen last night, after a half-dozen fits and starts and mis-drilled hole, and got two more cabinets (of 14) up on the wall.

I enjoy using power tools immensely. More than that, I’m excited to be moving forward again.

I really miss having counters.

There’s a picture of the cabinets here because I got up to get potato salad.

Who Doesn’t Laugh

Cheeto Trump and Hannibal Lecter never laugh.

They’re both psychos. But one has charisma. (Hint: not the Orange Combover Putin Puppet.) One is fictional, the other got destroyed in the popular vote by Hillary Clinton. (Hint: the real person is the one HRC waxed.)

It’s seriously creepy that Annoying Orange doesn’t laugh. It’s a sign of a person to be avoided.

Laugh Tonic

Pretty much like everyone else who values, well, values, I’ve been depressed/horrified (horpresstified?) since the election of Putin’s Pet, and the cabinet picks that have followed.

Watching a couple episodes of the near-future sci-fi anthology Black Mirror. Did. Not. Help.

I use a program called Freedom to save me from the addiction of the refresh button on Facebook, and from wallowing in the 140 characters at a time swamp of Twitter.

But even with the expulsion of Twitter and the hobbling of Facebook, today I was still in a trench of gloom. I was leaving the house to go to the Y, and told my daughter (through her bedroom door) I was going. She said okay sleepily. I told her she also had a package and she was insta-perky: “Oh boy!”

She went from drowsy to excited so fast I laughed. Which made her laugh. Which rocketed me out of my gloom trench and into happiness so fast that I could see how low I’d been, which made me want to cry.

(Warning to new readers: I’m a crier. If you like criers, I’m one of the best. I cry when I’m sad, when I’m angry, and when I’m frustrated. I leak for almost any occasion.)

Tonight, I pretty much made Twitter impossible to get back into, which gave me the kind of relief that standing up to a bad situation does.

Since you can’t see my relief, have a picture of my kitten, Umbra.

 

Breaking Up with Twitface Because Buckets

Hi, it’s me. I missed long-form blogging, I think I’m funny, I want to help people, and here I am. I used to write a lot on Livejournal, but I completely lost my energy to do it because Twitter sipped it out of me 140 characters at a time.

I broke up with Twitter because the stupid was raising my blood pressure. (Absolutely true: I was on the verge of needing meds. I quit Twitter, and three months later my bp was stunningly healthy again.)

My rebound was Facebook. I went back to writing long stuff. I reconnected with pals. But, Facebook was always letting me know I stacked up compared to friends and peers. Nothing sharpens the fear of inferiority like having a thing you engage with willingly quantifying your every move. (Like your assface ex constantly chattering about who they find hot, and it’s people who are nothing like you.)

I kind of bounced back to Twitter, just to promote things, swear to higher power. Friends with dubious benefits. Then, the bigoted, misogynistic orange election shitshow hit, and it was like a sober person trying to hang with junkie friends. I only did one line of snark and I was using again. (Incidentally, #Imwithher #notmypresident.)

And I started waking up screaming. I stopped being able to sleep. I mindlessly FB’d and Twatted, waiting for the random endorphin rush to hit. Sometimes it was trolling the goblin-elect, sometimes it was a heap of ❤️ for something I wrote. I started to melt down completely at random. I was scaring my husband and daughter.

I wasn’t drawing, wasn’t working on my slate of fun cool things, wasn’t moving forward with the home renovation (which just had its first birthday!) I wasn’t doing anything but dogpaddling in the pool of angrybadswamp, with the water leaking into my mouth. I was overcome with a feeling of helplessness, and I was starting to think about dying.

That’s bad. You should know that.

Really, Facebook and Twitter are terrible people you used to be friends with, and they did a favor for you once, and you’re afraid of a dramasplosion if you say no. So you avoid them until you can’t. But Twitface’s not design to be ignored or nodded at in a noncommittal way. They’re designed to keep you scrolling, to feed you ads, because free things cost, and you pay with your attention.

It’s like this: that bad friend talks you into a ride, then asks if you’ll pick someone else up. Their friend’s a little high, they’re wearing a Make America Great for Nazis hat, and they smoke, is that okay? Oops, they need to run an errand, c’mon. Before you know it, you’re out in the country, pulling up to a mobile home with Home Depot buckets for steps and fucking yikes.

And just fuck that. I’m not giving up on activism, I was doing a lot via Twitter and FB, but I need some fresh damn water.

Watch this space.