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.

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, ...

My Plantation Sown With Sorrow

I recently found this academic paper while going through things in my home. It is a book review of Dorothy West's novel, The Wedding. It was written sometime between 1994-97 when I was working with the Dean of Empire State College, James H. Case , who served as my mentor. I do not know how to put footnotes in Blogger so I will be using asterisks with an associated number which can be found at the end of the piece. Two days ago I closed Dorothy West's book, The Wedding, and fell straight to sleep. I had a dream. I was out shopping but had an appointment with E's therapist later in the day. I was supposed to meet E there. I called twice to say I would be late and finally arrived when the session was over. When I arrive, E and the therapist are friendly. The therapist tells us of a party we might be interested in going to later that very evening. E and I agree to go. We arrived at the party and I immediately split to go sit with the gay men and begin to yuck it up...

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...

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