Well, she’s not on Facebook or Instagram, that’s for darn sure.
Because I deactivated both of those accounts about six weeks ago.
I probably need to write some kind of essay about why I finally pulled the plug on those accounts (deactivated but not deleted), how the “poke-and-scroll” impulse was making me nutz, how the past year of pandemic-induced solitude had magnified that impulse at the same time it reset my internal clock, etc. etc.
It’s complicated, but I have to say that I really do feel a whole lot more coherent without those nagging temptations, and I don’t really miss the illusion of “social” contact at all.
Too many times over the past year, I have described my use of Facebook (in particular, social media in general) the same way that I felt about vodka and Scotch in the last couple of years before I quit drinking (in November of 1987; 34 years if I’m still breathing come Thanksgiving).
Now I have gone ‘cold turkey’ and that experience echoes: when I first quit drinking and started going to AA meetings, I told myself “I’ll give this 30 days…” At 30 days, I figured I could go 60, and somewhere between 60 and 90 days I became DDFL – your Designated Driver For Life.
It’s been about two months since I shut those accounts down, and it feels like it did between 60-90 days when I quit drinking – like I could be a social-media avoiding lifer.
If I had any ambition left, I would be making some kind of concerted effort to round up those Facebook friends that I really want to stay in touch with and encourage them to sign up for the “Weekly Digest” that I set up for this site years ago. Maybe I’ll get to that yet.
In the meantime, the one thing I did with any consistency over the past year was post frequent photos of my Covid Kitty, the gender-neutrally named female cat called “Buster.”
Some people who have asked about my Facebook disappearance tell me they miss the #DailyBuster (even tough the posts were not exactly daily). I haven’t made a lot of new pictures of her over the past couple of months, but I did make one this past Sunday, so… there it is, atop this post.
If you want more, sign up for the Digest. Maybe I’ll rename it “The Daily Buster” – regardless of the frequency, and keep posting picture of the cat here from time to time.