Wednesday Full of MisAdventures

I did not eat breakfast until 12:45 p.m. The day started out badly, but I am still hoping for a better ending (it's 1:35 p.m.).

My morning began around 3:15 a.m. when pain woke me. I rose and took my medication. I could not return to sleep because my mind was chewing up a number of topics - local issues, mostly, but I was also irked by a comment on Facebook.

A long-ago blogging friend who no longer blogs remains a friend, but only on Facebook. Yesterday, she wrote about how if Bernie Sanders didn't get the Democrat's nomination, she wasn't going to vote. I responded that not voting was the same as handing over the election to a Republican. (I am not a Republican. Regular readers know that by now.)

Some friend of hers responded back that I needed to put my big girl panties on and vote for Bernie to make sure people who wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton would vote in the election. This pissed me off, to be sure. So last night, I wrote her back and told her to put her glasses on and learn to read, because I never said who I was voting for, only that not voting was handing the election over to the Republicans.

This worried me in the night. I am not into controversy and generally do not argue with people on Facebook, or anywhere else if I can help it.

After worrying a bit, I got back up, and in the dark, I ran the left side of my face into the pole at the foot of the bed (I'm sure that thing has a name, the long poles at the foot of beds. I just don't know what it is.). I woke my husband up as I cursed. My eye started swelling so I had to get an ice pack.

I finally went back to sleep after my husband left for work, but then he called me at 7:20 to tell me there was water standing in the roads in the city, and he had been called out to meetings, and wouldn't be around.

So I got up. And the first thing I did, as I do every morning, was turn on my computer. The next thing I did was block this friend-of-a-friend who had made her snide remark to my very non-descript comment.

And I unfollowed my friend, who remains my friend but I won't see her stuff much in my Facebook feed. Said friend later sent me a private message telling me to ignore the person I blocked, and I thanked her for that. But I so far haven't gone back to her page to "follow" her again so that her stuff is on my page.

And then I looked at my Facebook newsfeed page. It felt negative. I don't want to begin my days like that anymore. I started "unliking" political stuff. I know who I am voting for. I know what I think of each candidate running. I don't need, nor want, to hear the latest buffoon's bumbling speech, or hear more about emails, or listen to someone try to explain Social Democracy. I know what I need to know.

As I pondered doing this, the phone rang. It was 8:30. I wasn't quite with it yet, but had a long chat with a new friend about local issues (Greenfield). Then another friend called, and we talked about her dog. Then the county treasurer's office called to tell me that they'd messed up our tax payments and we should ignore some statement that we haven't received yet and they were fixing whatever they had done wrong, but somehow we still owe them money because of something they did, and we'll get a bill for that later, but no penalty. I still hadn't had breakfast, and my tax paperwork is all at my accountant's office, so I tried very hard to concentrate and understand what they screwed up, but I never did really understand the problem, or why I still owe them money.

By this time it was about 11 a.m. The day was nearly gone, I tell you. I finally showered (I am not sure there is much point in getting dressed if you're still in your PJs past noon, but there you go), and then read the newspaper and ate my breakfast.

Life was much simpler when my only source of information was the two newspapers I subscribe to, TV news (from either CBS or NBC, the only two channels we could receive), and Reader's Digest. The information overload wasn't there. Now, you have 175 channels and people spewing their opinions as if they are all small gods whose voice actually matters.

Your voice doesn't actually matter. Neither does mine. Sorry, but we're all just nobodies. I realize some of you can't take that kind of truth, but there it is anyway. You can spout off and "like" stuff all you want, but it doesn't amount to a cow patty in my pasture field.

However, I am a news hound, so over the years I have sought out the news in its myriad forms, embracing the new and the old, trying to find ways to combine the two. As a journalist, I tried to give credence to other's opinions, to keep a balance, and to respect others. But I am not a journalist right now, I'm a person with a health problem who is trying to heal. I have reached the conclusion that a lot of people are idiots and unintelligent, and many people don't do their jobs, and they do not deserve my respect, much less my time.

We would be a lot better off if half of the information satellites in the sky would suddenly plummet to earth because a sun spot farted or something.

That probably sounds old and crotchety. We are in a new age, a time when information overload is the norm. But I know for certain these new inventions will be the downfall of everything, in the end. And no one centuries from now will know it, and they will repeat it in some form or another. That's because all of our history will be online and lost to the ages, so future generations, however far off, will only wonder about this long gap in civilization's history.

No, I'm not giving up Facebook. I'll still read some newspapers online. But I am pruning my friends list, and "unliking" things so that they no longer show up in my newsfeed. I don't need to see people cursing or sharing sexist crap, and if someone does, boom - they are gone.

I don't want to talk politics anymore. I am sick of it. So I will hide most of that. I am at a time in my life when I don't want, or need, the stress. If you show pictures of abused animals, you're gone. If you show pictures of abused kids, you're gone. I don't need to see that. I know bad exists in the world. I have experienced enough of it myself in various and sundry ways to have no doubt of that, and need no reminders.

My day so far has been bad, but deciding to rid myself of some of the trappings of the crap of the world might ultimately be the best thing I can do to salvage these last hours.