Divorcing Facebook

Leaving Facebook, deactivating my profile, feels like a relief. All of the people I was friends with are wonderful people in their own right. I truly cherish them all. But some of them I honestly believe I will never hear from again not because we are not friends but because Facebook has trained people out of communication. If Facebook is not there it will never occur to some to write a letter or send an email or FaceTime me. It's scary. What I found to be troublesome was how much FB pressured people to know this person, or join this group or to get involved with things outside of your group of friends. On the surface that looks all community-like, harmless and chummy but the fact of the matter is those other places on Facebook and those other people I may know are really fucked up places to be with really fucked up people who take angry and hate to a new level. Those other places is where crazy lives. I dipped my toe into a local group in my community run by Yucatecans. I thought to myself this should be good because it it run by locals and surely everyone will be nice and polite. It was filled with racist, angry, impossible to have a civil conversation with, types of people. I don't need to get into arguments with people I don't know, don't know me, about subjects no one cares about. Twenty minutes of that toxicity could have made Mother Theresa spit.

My little world is a place where people listen and share a few jokes. Where we learn and teach, where we apologize if we say something stupid or insensitive. Where all topics of interest can be explored beyond: you're wrong and I don't agree with you so I'm going to block you and call you names before I go. Facebook seems like a troll factory.

There are a few people I know who actually send me stuff in the mail. I just went out and purchased a fancier grade of paper-- colored-- for letter writing with my new printer. I feel excited about getting back to the slower method of communication. I feel determined to write to people. To people who won't be expecting a letter from me but who will hold that letter in their hand and cherish it. No one cherishes a FB post. No one saves a post to reread later. Only a FB algorithm decides what might be memorable to me and oddly, it never is. Sometimes I don't even know why I wrote something because it wasn't memorable in the first place-- it wasn't important. One time Facebook reminded me of the time I changed my screen to black and asked me if I wanted to share that memory --a picture of the color black.

Let me talk about Mark Zuckerberg for a moment. I'm not one to dog someone for their looks but I have never seen a picture of him where he came across as someone I'd feel comfortable around. He looks dishonest and sinister. For something to have begun on a college campus that now finds itself in congressional hearings strikes me as Big, Fat and Stinky. His fingers (his need to have his fingers) in so many water sources makes me uncomfortable. I don't support racists, I didn't support Trump, I don't frequent establishments and spend my money in places that don't treat me well and I can't support a platform that produces so much hate and makes it practically impossible to use the platform without constant intrusions to buy something, look at something, go somewhere, do this, do that all designed to take me away from my friends and my own life. I'm not given the choice to control what I'm subjected to and that feels abusive to me. I feel abused on Facebook. Facebook feels abusive to me.

There are no ads on my blog for a reason. I don't want to see that shit anywhere else why would I subject others to the very thing I detest? It's quiet over here and I like it like that. No bells and whistles. All you have to do is read and you don't even have to do that if you are not inclined.

My email is posted in the 'about me' up above by my picture. If you send me your address and of course your name, I will write you a nice letter from Mexico. Doesn't matter where you live, I'll write to you anyway. This offer is good for the first 10 people to respond. Please write LETTER in the subject line.

Yes, I'm serious.

Something Bigger Than Thomas: A Native Son

There was a moment in time when I witnessed my father vulnerable. He had rented a car and parked it outside my apartment in Brooklyn. He was not feeling well and had asked to stay with me and my then boyfriend, Eric. He slept for days on end and I really don't have any recollection of talking to him while he was with us. This is important to this narrative because I have always lamented the fact that I seem to have spent relatively little time with my father. I have snapshot memories of being with him - here and there, here and there. I am a teenager and he drives me into San Francisco, hands me money while he waits in the car, and I go in and buy some shoes. There are the times we drove the few blocks necessary to get to Baskin Robbins for ice cream over on University Avenue a few blocks up from his home in Palo Alto. There were lots of family reunions but I don't have any memories of being alone with my father, having a conversation or discussing anything. He did however ca...

Diane Tose 1942-2020

In part, Diane’s passing marks the end of an era. The end of a time in history when the work in HIV research was experimental and run by mavericks. Diane was a ‘maverick’ in the truest sense of the word. We all were no matter the discipline we worked in. We were trailblazers. Diane was a complex woman. If you didn’t come to know her she was just a tall British woman who put the fear of God in you. She was pragmatic, demanding, and proudly British, even though she confided in me that she felt much more American than British. Diane liked things just so. An inch either way would be enough for her to voice a strong opinion. Opinionated women can often be alarming, but in Diane I found a heroine. I admired and looked up to Diane. She was no-nonsense. I can remember her calling patients into her office for pelvic examinations with a loudly overheard: Let’s have a look-see, or a get those feet up in the stirrups. I am sure that had she been a man she’d have been reported into oblivion, ...

Mnemonics For Antiquity: Part Two

A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty and the importance of turning around three times before lying down --Robert Benchley The bottom line in a Christian life is obedience And most people don't even like the word --Charles Stanley Obedience is detachment from the self. This is the most radical detachment of all. But what is the self? The self is the principle of reason and responsibility in us, it is what makes us men --Bede Griffiths In part one of this essay I explored a theme which runs through the apocalyptic film genre, which often parallels the Old Testament. We looked at Greek mythology as a precursor to the Old Testament, canons in literature and cycles which are not always seen in a lifetime. I also explored what it means to be human. What I have begun to notice in the Old Testament is how much of it parallels the societies we have built for ourselves, going along with our faith, never no...

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