Well, last week pretty much destroyed my attempt to write more often. I won't get into specifics because I don't want to be one of those bloggers who uses their platform for whining, but let me hit the highlights for you:
Apparently there's at least one, and perhaps more, people on the LTUE convention committee who have a problem with me. This likely stems from earlier in the year, when I pointed out that their last-minute Covid policies were transphobic.
The one whose name I know is a Track Lead, and apparently this person finds me so troubling that they decided they would rather not do their job than deal with me. I just can't tell you how special that makes me feel.
I was also upset that I had been excluded from speaking at the Second Amendment Foundation's Gun Rights Policy Conference, but it appears they're just running behind schedule and this afternoon I received my invitation to speak. I'm relieved to hear this, because last year I blew the deadline for making a video for the virtual conference due to family drama just sucking all the energy out of me, and I was worried I'd accidentally burned a professional relationship which I cherish.
Speaking of family drama, there's less of it these days but it's still around. I'm not going to talk about it; suffice it to say that my family knows how to push my buttons, likely because they programmed those buttons in the first place.
My beloved dog Daisy (who I haven't talked about here) has been diagnosed with a Stage 5 heart murmur and congestive heart failure, so I am acutely aware of the sand running out of her particular hourglass. She's been such a ray of sunshine for me that her death is going to absolutely wreck me. She still has a good quality of life at the moment, thank goodness, and she remains a happy pupper. But she's getting's worse.
 |
| Daisy, fresh from the doggie salon last Christmas |
Two very good and very close friends of mine nuked their friendship with each other. I'm furious with both of them, not only because I expected better of them, but also because I got dragged into this drama when it was none of my business. This meant I was caught in the splash zone and became collateral damage. Maybe in any other week I could have handled this, but not last week.
So take all of that, and add to it the constant bitching and politicking and micro-drama that happens on Facebook, and it all became toxic for me. I'm taking a break from Facebook right now -- I disabled my account, so if you noticed I wasn't there it wasn't because I blocked you -- and while I will probably be back eventually, it's not going to be soon.
I was startled to realize just how many times a day I would click on Facebook, often without being aware I was doing it. That sounds like addiction, folks, or at the very least a bad habit, and it explains why I was having trouble getting things done. I'm not going to claim that "I quit Facebook and suddenly I'm a hundred times more productive"; that's so simplistic as to be ridiculous. However, this does explain where a lot of my time was disappearing and why I felt I could never get anything done. My plan is to break the habit and develop better time management skills, and then return to Facebook in a much more limited capacity. Perhaps I'll only use it to post links to here, the Assorted Calibers Podcast, and Blue Collar Prepping.
