Facebook deleted

Jack Deatherage

(7/2022) Other than checking the family's "direct messages" via the DW's Facebook account I've managed to disengage from that "collective". The warnings from Facebook had been coming in hot and heavy (for more than a year) that I needed to go back through nearly ten years of once acceptable postings and censor them to satisfy the collective's new definition of "community standards". I, of course, ignored the warnings and the collective began "jailing" me for old posts it now found "in violation" blah blah blah.

Meh. The days and weeks I wasn't allowed to post new content, or respond to others' content, became time to do other things. I read more, spent more time watching YouTube videos (adding gardening, cooking and food preservation channels to the daily fare of conservative and libertarian news/commentary channels). My haphazard ransacking of the state's public libraries became an almost weekly routine as I sifted through a variety of subjects that interest me.

Then came the notice that I had to provide Facebook with a mobile phone number, capable of receiving text, to prove who I am or I would be locked out of my account until I complied! That fired me up for a minute, though it took a coupla weeks for me to decide what I'd do. Buying a mobile phone, just to surrender it's number to a collective, was not an option! However, deleting my account was.

I warned everyone on my "friends" list to "take" any pictures or web links I'd posted over the years that might be of value to them before I deleted my account. Boy, that set the kettle to boiling! Though I suspect it also caused more than a few people to sigh in relief. How people felt about my exit from the collective didn't matter as much as rooting through the hundreds of photos I'd posted over the years. Reclaiming those that were important to me took several days.

The day before I was to be "locked out" of my account I deleted the entire thing. Almost immediately I started hearing from friends and relatives- "You need to open a new account!" "Facebook sucks without you!" "I bet $10 you wouldn't delete your account! Thanks a lot." "I rarely check my email. You need to come back to Facebook!"

Wow. I don't think quitting tobacco and alcohol created such a stir among my drug addicted friends. And, just as my drug addict friends quickly adapted to life without me, so have my Facebook friends. I, on the other hand, have yet to settle down with some new addiction.

Only needing a few minutes a day to check the DW's Facebook messages my mind was freed (Gods! how the DW abhors that expression!) to wander about without a focus- other than the library. The library being central to feeding my curiosity, and supplying answers to questions I've yet to conceive, it's little wonder a new focus began to coalesce there.

Librarian Penny, who replaced Librarian Sue- in both branch duties and as my go-to librarian, suggested I put together a container gardening lecture based on a survivalist perspective. Once again I found myself marveling that I'm asked to speak on something I'm interested in, but should be the last person taking up such a public task.

On the other hand! Ransacking the state's public libraries is fun. So off I went happily requesting and skimming container gardening books. Of course those books led me to micro-gardening, which caused me to search YouTube for how-to videos. All of which required me to create a lecture outline, the last two pages of which would be lists of library and local garden resources lecture attendees could take away.

The outline morphed into a little booklet that Penny suggested I should offer to anyone that shows up for my garden lecture. (I figure maybe three people will attend. Penny thinks closer to ten. I'm skeptical there are that many people willing to waste an hour or so listening to me babble about plastic containers, potting soil and potato peels.)

Where did the booklet idea come from? It's probably one of those distractions that have kept me from writing a novel composed of the short stories I began 40 years ago?

A coupla visits to The Walters Art Museum's exhibit on the history of writing/bookbinding put it in my head to create a book of my own. It's only taken ten years of that idea percolating, and my recently stumbling upon a video explaining how to use the "booklet" feature of modern day home computer printers, to get me to the point of hand stitching a booklet together. (The DW headed off a trip to a craft shop for bookbinding supplies by rooting through the piles of boxes that contain leather crafting tools to find cutting boards, needles and thread. Darn! Distraction foiled again!)

Still, just learning how to organize a booklet and get it printed has been a great distraction for preventing my writing a story! I'm on the fifth attempt to get the container gardening booklet to turn out the way I want it. I'm sure it isn't the last "correction".

Distracted or not, I's jazzed enough about having taken a couple baby steps toward some as yet unfocused goal that I contacted the offspring to let him know I'm on track to creating the short story booklets we had discussed some years ago. His first question was whether or not I planned to go public with the story books. When I told him they'd be for family and friends only he jumped onboard with the idea. (He's been building stories in his head that spin off of a series of novels that fascinate him and he worries about copyright.)

First Sister also jumped at the chance to create some pictures for the little books. She's after me to send her text she can turn into a picture. So far I'm still focused on the July garden lecture at the L and getting the booklet sorted out for that. I asked if she had a copy of a drawing she'd sent me years ago. I figured I could add it to the lecture booklet. She allowed she remembered the drawing, but didn't think she had a copy. "I'll redraw it for you."

Great! Adding the new drawing to the booklet will be another distraction! Gods! Am I good at not having to create stories or what!

Oh. I just came up with another excuse not to write. I need more potting soil so I can get some micro-greens going for the lecture, as well as plant some summer and winter squash for my own survival garden. Though getting into the habit of eating such foods is more of a trial than trying to write cogently. Still, eating canned, dried or frozen foods I grew and put up seems a better bet than counting on the economy not going to hell and leaving the store shelves bare- either deliberately, or through incompetence.

When is my library lecture? Darn if I know. Librarian Penny and the DW are supposed to alert me the day before. A better bet would be the morning of!