That Was the Week That Was

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. 

That's all for now, I think, so I'll finish with the closing lines of one of my favorite TV shows, Midnight Caller, which managed the impressive feat of eliciting a hardboiled 1940s Dashiell Hammett vibe while at the same time being so very 1980s.

Goodnight, America... wherever you are.