Closing an old wound

There was something I wanted to write about on my blog yesterday but, unfortunately, by the time I had a chance to write it, I no longer had the strength to do so. I was too exhausted after everything from the day and could not put down into words all of the things that I wanted to say.

And what I wanted to say was something in the way of an apology, of sorts. I discovered something yesterday and I felt terrible about it. And even today, that regret lingers. But I will deal with that regret in my own way, because I am pretty much on my own with this sort of thing. Nobody cares about it except me.

But I feel the need to come clean about it on my blog, because I have posted about it here on my blog in the past. I am talking about this blog post: An old wound.

I know, WHY am I bringing up something from almost 12 years ago?? Why even bother? Nobody gives a shit. Seriously: NOBODY CARES. Everybody has moved on with their lives – including me. And I don't dwell on the past.

But, life doesn't care about any of that. For almost 12 years, life was throwing fireballs at me. For almost 12 years, something in my conscience twinged and it would not rest. I was reminded of it constantly.  But, as my kids will confirm, and as my friends will acknowledge, I can be very stubborn. I can be very bull-headed. So, for a long, long time, I ignored those constant pings from my conscience. I was so convinced that I hadn't done what I had been accused of. Oh, sure, I could have checked. I could have looked. But I didn't.

And, you know, I really should have.

Well, I have done that now. Yesterday, in fact. I did go back to the chats I had saved all those years ago and I read over them.

But why did I do it now? Why, after all this time, was I trying to see for myself what had really happened?

Because my conscience finally won its battle with me. Yesterday morning, I had been thinking about something that happened a long time ago, and how I had struggled for years to forgive this person: My brother. I had severed ties with him after leaving California on account of what happened in the past. And while I was civil with him at my dad's funeral, and I hugged him and expressed my condolences because he too lost a father, I still kept my distance.

But yesterday, I was thinking about that. And I all of a sudden felt pity and compassion for him. Nowadays, he is being punished for another thing he did to his family, and I thought, It is time to stop holding this grudge. He is going through enough suffering now. He has lost everything. It is time to forgive him.

So, I did. Just like that. I no longer felt anger towards him. I no longer hated him. I felt love and compassion for him.

And it's like my conscience grasped this moment of vulnerability and reminded me of some other thing I had to come to terms with: This thing that happened in 2005. And at first, I was like, Why do I have to go over this again?

Because life was not going to let me forget about it, that's why! He was still in my dreams, in my friends' Twitter or Facebook feeds, in the faces of others that I saw, in books I read and movies I watched. Reminders about it and him were EVERYWHERE.

THAT was why.

So I decided yesterday to put all this to rest. I decided to open those online chats I saved from long ago and see for myself EXACTLY what was said.

And, eventually, I did see it. It was right there, plain as day: I had indeed told a lie. I had lied about being divorced.

As I sat there staring at the words, I tried to remember the person I had been back then. I am not that person anymore – although I still AM cautious about what I share with people I talk to on the Internet. I still do not trust people so easily. I still understand that there are posers and predators on the Internet and that you have to be careful with what you share with strangers on the Internet.

But life was different for me at that particular time. I had just moved to Oregon with my husband and daughter. Before leaving California – which I HAD NOT wanted to do because it meant leaving my family – my marriage was being held together by a thread. And I had no friends or family in Eugene. No connections, resources, job or anything here. I was very vulnerable and, in fact, set on leaving Eugene altogether. (These days, I do at least have friends here and I don't want to leave. But that's all that has changed for me.) Things were not going well. In fact, I was planning to get a divorce. At that particular time, my husband was trying to fix things with us, but I was done (or so I thought!). I no longer loved him. I no longer wanted to be his wife (and I had told him as much in California). In my mind, I was no longer married. In my mind, I was no longer someone's wife.

And that was why I had said as much in that chat. For all intents and purposes, I was planning on getting a divorce. I was planning on filing for a divorce – which I did, eventually. At that time, I saw nothing wrong with saying as much, though. At that time, THAT was my plan. It just took me a while because I did not know about the law in Oregon about how new residents had to wait at least 6 months to do such a thing. And during that time I had to wait, my husband and I separated. I moved out and just hoped that the man I had fallen in love with over the Internet would suddenly appear.

Well, he did -- that one night at the bus station. He and his brother were both there. Neither of them said anything to me. And I had ran right past him, in a hurry to get to a bus. I was in such a rush and didn't recognize him – although I DID see him.

But later, back at home alone, I had realized what had happened. And after that, I never saw him again. There was no more contact with him at all. I tried sending an email but it was ignored. And I pretty much accepted that it was over. It broke my heart, because I had loved him, but, alas! ‘Twas not to be!

So I had to move on. I had to fix things for my daughter, who was hurting from the divorce. She had her own heartbreak to deal with and my heart just ached for her. SOMEBODY had to think about her, and that someone was me. I had to step up for her (and to this day I will never again hope another person not related to her will ever care about her enough the way I do to make her happy). I had to make things right for her again and, ultimately, for me, that meant reconciling with her dad. I had to forget about my own feelings and I had to ignore what I wanted and put her first.

And I have been doing that ever since – until now, that is.

But, anyway, yes, I did realize that I had told that lie. I am not happy with myself for doing such a thing, though I do know why I did it. I understand why I had done that thing. And I also understand, too, that I can't go back in time to change anything. I can't make everything right again.


I know it was a mistake to do that. To say that. And I also learned later on that I should NOT have allowed myself to fall in love with someone until AFTER I was actually free to do so! But I know that you really can't control what your heart feels for people. I know my lying about being available was the wrong thing to do. I know this. I really, honestly thought it was okay to say that I was no longer married because that WAS the direction I was going in! But I should not have said that. I learned that lesson the hard way and much later on in life. And I really, really wish I hadn't ended up feeling anything for him because that pain of losing him is something I will never forget. It was something I suffered with for years, even when he had moved on to other people and saying things. I wish I can go back and stop myself from falling for him, but I can't. To think it was okay to feel ANYTHING for anyone while I was going through that mess was a really stupid thing to do. I shouldn't have, but I did. And I have since been judged harshly and wrongly for that. And I was forgotten about.

And, as it is, I am not able to apologize to him for the lie, either. He and I are on different paths in life. He is living his life and I am living mine. I have no communication with him. So I cannot apologize to him directly. I tried via Twitter, though I doubt that would do much good. I mean, it's been almost 12 years. He has moved on. I have moved on – and I will move on from all of this, now. I am filing this part of my past under "Shit happens." 

But, you know, ever since then, I no longer wear my heart on my sleeve. I no longer trust my feelings to some stranger on the Internet. I will never again allow myself to feel so much love for someone because it only leads to hurt and disappointment. I know the pain and heartbreak of loving someone in that way, and I don't want to go through that again. Or of the loss again.

Not that I ever will, though. These days, I am putting myself first. Seriously, it's time to be a little selfish and pay more attention to my own self for once instead of putting everybody else's needs and wants over my own. That may have been the old Dawn, but the old Dawn is dead. She is not coming back.

I am not posting all this on my blog to get attention. I am not posting this on my blog with a hope of reopening the lines of communication again. No. I don't give a shit about communicating with anyone anymore or divesting my feelings in anyone anymore. I have been through a shitload of crap ever since then and I have hardened myself since then. I don't hope for or expect anything from anyone. At all.

I am posting about this on my blog to come clean. Yes, I lied, and I'm sorry. I do hope he will forgive me and it would be nice to be forgiven but I am not holding out any hope that that will happen. It doesn't matter, though. I had to post this on my blog in order to tell my story and bring closure to this whole mess. Hopefully from now on, I will no longer be reminded about it or him. This will have to be enough to bring all of that to an end. It is all I can do. And I hope that now my conscience is now clean and I will finally be able put all of this permanently to rest from now on.

And by the way: I know how some people may react to this blog post. Despite my conviction that nobody really cares, I know some people may read this and ask questions. Or wonder about the people involved. And I know the one involved will say I am just a delusional fan (which is not true) and that I am just doing this to get attention (also untrue). I know what position I put myself into by posting about this and I know that I may be setting myself up for public ridicule. But I really don't care. I know what happened. This is my story to tell and to share. And as to what people have to say about it? I honestly ... don't give ... a shit.

Letting the haters hate

Earlier this morning, I was doing something that is part of my “morning activities”: I was on Pinterest. So there I was just innocently pinning away and then I started to experience trouble pinning some things. Apparently, some people who I don’t know have blocked me on Pinterest. At first, I joked about it. Seriously, I had a good laugh. “I’m so evil!” I chortled. But I started to wonder why these people blocked me. I didn’t know them and weren’t following them or anything. I guess new people who join Pinterest get an email telling them, “Welcome to Pinterest! Be sure to block Dawn Wilson!” LOL

But, ya know, the whole blocking thing on Pinterest really doesn’t bother me. Like I said, it makes me laugh. I didn’t do anything to these people. I wasn’t mean to them. I didn’t send them spam or anything. So, I dunno. Whateva.

But it doesn’t hurt me. And if those people think it hurts me, then they really need to get a life!

That got me to thinking: There are other things people do on the Internet – specifically, social media – that can be seen as bullying or as being negative. Now, getting your ass torn out in a comment war is one thing. That is not cool. But the whole blocking on Pinterest, unfriending on Facebook and tagging people on Twitter with negative tweets can be used as a way of bullying and hurting others.

Me, I don’t give a shit.

Seriously, haters gonna hate! And you know what? I don’t care. Let me rephrase that: I. Don’t. Care.

I am too busy living my life and doing my own thing to give a flying fuck about people on the Internet deciding to put me on their shit list. Especially when it comes to people I don’t know.

You wanna block me on Pinterest for no reason? Go right ahead!

You wanna unfriend me on Facebook because I hurt your mom’s feelings? Fine!

You wanna point and laugh at my small number of followers on Twitter and tell everybody “don’t buy her books because she hurt me” or “don’t buy her books because she’s a two-faced liar” or “don’t buy her books because she worships the devil”? Have at it!

Meanwhile, I’m gonna be over here not giving a crap!

I am going to continue doing my own thing, just as I have always done my own thing. I will continue to write books because I want to write books. I will continue to pin things on Pinterest because I want to pin things on Pinterest. I will continue to be active on Twitter and Facebook because I WANT to be active on Twiter and Facebook.

And I REALLY don’t care if that bothers someone!

I have the right to live my life. Deal with it.

If people are all gonna be a bunch of crybabies or whiners or haters on the Internet because of something I did or said or shared or…WHATEVER then they can either take it up with me personally and we can work that out or they can waste their time and their life by hating on me and doing silly shit thinking it will hurt MY feelings. And if they choose the latter, then I guess they REALLY need to have more drama in their lives. I guess they HAVE to have something to cry into their pillows about. I guess they want that one Horrible Thing from the past to hold against someone for the rest of their lives. That’s too bad, but I’m not going to disappear because of it.

I am still here. I am still doing my own thing. And regardless of what kind of crap I have to take from people on the Internet, I will ALWAYS be here. I will NOT go away. I will not kill myself over their petty shit. I will not bury myself into a hole and hope the world forgets my shame.

Nope. I’m not going anywhere. I write what I want to write. I don’t do shit to get people’s attention or to get on someone’s nerves or to intentionally hurt another person. (Gotta keep in mind all the pussies out there who can’t take a joke!!) I’m not doing stuff to make up for anything because if I HAVE hurt someone’s feelings AND they actually take the time to talk to me about it instead of holding a grudge FOREVER and spreading hate, then it’s all good. I AM willing to work things out with people. I AM willing to acknowledge if I made a mistake, apologize and make things right with people.

But if instead they choose to do things on the Internet like blocking me or unfriending me or whatever, then they are just wasting their time. None of that shit hurts me at all. So you go right ahead and keep doing your passive-aggressive bullying tactics thinking it’ll make me fall apart into a million pieces. You go right ahead! It’s not going to work! I am going to continue living my life and doing my own thing! And none of that negativity coming from the haters is gonna stop me at all.

Pinterest drama

Over the weekend, something very strange happened while I was on Pinterest. I got an invitation to join a group board – I get a lot of those – but before I accepted the invitation, I checked out the board first. I wanted to have a good look at it first. I ended up liking A LOT of pins on that board and started pinning like crazy. I guess the person who owned the board got offended that I did not accept her invite right away because she ended up blocking me. (It’s too bad; I also checked out her profile and she had some really awesome boards and I wanted to follow her but I couldn’t because she had blocked me.)

I tried to figure out if I had done something wrong. Did I break some kind of Pinterest etiquette rule? Was I in the wrong to FIRST pin from that board before addressing the invitation? I would’ve accepted the invitation but could not do that anymore. Still, I was already following that board, and I was not banned from it, so I was still able to pin from that board.

But, still. I was confused. This was a really bizarre thing to happen. I was trying to figure out if I had done something wrong or if I was being affected by somebody else’s drama.

So I contacted the folks at Pinterest to see if I had committed some kind of goof. I have NEVER run into this problem so the whole thing had me a bit flummoxed. Because it was the weekend, I knew it would be a while before I heard back from TPTB at Pinterest. I contacted a friend of mine who is also on Pinterest and who I follow and I asked her about it. She said it sounded strange to her, too, and she hasn’t run into something like this either despite being on Pinterest for a long time. After that talk, I figured that maybe it was the board owner taking issue and that I had not done anything wrong. It struck me as silly that we would HAVE to accept a group board invitation. I don’t think we should be forced to.

Well, I heard back from Pinterest today. The person said A: The board owner is allowed to block anyone for whatever reason. B: I was not obligated to accept an invitation to join a group board. And C: I was still allowed to pin from that board if I wanted to.

I am so glad I got answers! So apparently the bottom line is that the whole “crisis” was about someone else’s drama. NMP!

I have to admit, though, that I’ve since been wary of group boards. I REALLY don’t want to run into a situation like this again. To be honest, this is the first time since I started using Pinterest years ago that I have run into drama on Pinterest. The BIG thing I have always loved about Pinterest is that it’s been drama-free (up until now, I guess). So many people on there are SO NICE and KIND and UNDERSTANDING. And fellow fangirls get the way we talk and act crazy over pins related to our fandoms. So now I guess the drama will be everywhere, even on Pinterest.

That said, I am now wary of group boards. Unless I know the person IRL or we’ve been Internet buddies for years, I won’t follow anymore group boards. I’m not gonna deal with other people freaking out over me not accepting their invitations to join their group boards. Yeah, I know it means less boards for me to follow, but that’s okay. There are lots more out there.

And now I can just walk away from this whole situation untroubled and keep doing my own thing!

Bookworm and proud of it!

Today, I spent some time reading the local paper while eating lunch. In between bites of my pasta and garlic bread, I read an article about a new website launched by University of Oregon students called “Booklandia.tv.” The “tv” part of the web address instantly turned me off because it was a good indication it meant the site was all about videos. As someone who is profoundly deaf, without hearing aids, I tend to stay away from videos and don’t really visit YouTube much because a great many videos on the Internet are not closed captioned. Unless the video states it includes song lyrics or captioning, I won’t watch it. This is also why I elected not to stream any movies on Netflix, as I heard they were not closed captioned. (Ditto when I had an Amazon Prime membership.) Still, I was curious about this site lauded as a “video channel just for book lovers” since I am myself a booklover.

I didn’t check the site out right away, though. I wanted to read the article first. And there were a couple of things in that article which bothered me.

First, the author of the article claimed that we are living in an era in which “writing, publishing and reading are all in decline.” Really? We are? That’s news to me! One thing I love about living in Eugene is that I am among booklovers. Seriously, every time I go to the library or the bookstore, there are a ton of people there perusing books, buying books, checking books out and READING them. I am curious where the author got her information. I have associated with people who are bigger bookworms than I am. I also often see people leaving the library with stacks of books in their arms or bags filled with books. When I have gone to the annual book sale, there’s people everywhere loading up boxes and bags of books.

Granted, this may not be proof that they actually READ the books, but there is no shortage of booklovers in my neck of the woods. These are my people!

I read for at least an hour every day. I read 2 books at a time: One novel and a nonfiction book. I have 4 bookcases of books in my home, plus 3 boxes of books and a shelf of books in my room. My kids read, too. My son has two bookcases filled with books in his room. My teenaged daughter has a ginormous bookshelf of books in her room. My husband is also a reader. I even keep a couple of books on my nightstand – there for me to read when I have trouble sleeping.

My daughter is a huge reader. She reads every day, particularly in a book. But she also reads on her phone. So I was a little troubled by someone in the article being quoted as saying: “My generation gets kind of a bad rap – ‘Oh,  we’re always on our phones, we’re not reading[.]'” Why would someone assume that just because someone is on their smartphone, they are not reading? My daughter loves to read fanfiction and she often visits a website where she’ll spend hours reading stories. She also reads Creepy Pasta stories. She does this on her smartphone. So just because someone is on their phone, that does not mean that they are not reading!

Reading should not be limited to a book. We read newspapers, too. We read magazines. But in today’s technological era, reading is transitioning to a whole nother mainstream. It’s not that we don’t care about books anymore; it’s just that these days, many people prefer their books available to be read in another medium. People read ebooks on their Nooks or Kindles or Kobo Reader. They read stories and news articles on their smartphones. (I often spend time every morning sitting with my coffee and reading news articles on my phone.)
 
People DO read on their phones. Just because “they’re always on their phones,” this does not mean that they are not reading anything. Smartphones have done for us what the Internet and digital readers have done: They have made more forms of media available to us to read. Yes, perhaps what this person said is an unfortunate myth perpetrated among the older generation who perhaps feel some kind of aversion to this new way of reading, clinging to their print books and bemoaning the loss of a publishing method of yesteryear that was so much more simpler (if not more affordable for the readers), but that is a myth which needs to be dispelled fast because people ARE reading on their phones just as they would be reading on their digital readers. Same thing, different device. And the smartphone allows for a further advantage: Affordable access to short stories or other forms of media. My daughter told me she would not be reading as much on her phone if she had to pay to read all of those stories. As long as they are available to read for free, she is reading them.

Now, all of that said about the article, here’s what I have to say about the website. And I DID visit the website!

The website looks professional and everything seems to be easy to find. They make it easy for visitors to find them on social media like Facebook and Twitter and I didn’t see any poor grammar or misspelled words anywhere on the pages I visited. The site is not cluttered and it provides a handy list of contents readers can use to help find relevant posts easier. Additionally, there’s a search feature which made finding posts on topics a snap.

Now for the videos. As previously mentioned, I am deaf, so I was wary of watching the videos. I wasn’t sure if they would have any captioning or subtitles. (THE best thing about reading, for me, is that you don’t need to hear in order to enjoy a book. A regular book, anyway; I’m not talking about audiobooks or those new forms of digital books I’ve heard about that include videos and sounds.) Still, I was curious, so I clicked on a couple of them. The videos I watched were titled "What's on your nightstand? (Eugene #2)" and "Book That Changed Your Life: "Broken For You"". Fortunately, there was an option to click on “CC” for closed-captioning and I did so. I held my breath, because when I have tried the “CC” option on videos in the past, the captioning was never much accurate. It got maybe two or three words right in a sentence and sometimes words are not even spelled correctly. Sadly, that was the case here, for both of the videos. In the first video, the only part of the captioning that made any sense was “The Chronicles of Narnia.” The captioning in the second video was so confusing that it was almost hilarious. This is from the second video: "We didn't have access to my period" and "scarf things up look good for you" and "I'll nope no what it meant".

Yeah, me neither.

Booklandia.tv seems to be a good concept and a nice home on the Internet as a video channel for booklovers. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be a video channel for deaf booklovers. Maybe it’s time for the deaf community to create a site for booklovers that is a little more deaf-friendly. 

Pinterest grievances

Some time ago, I joined Pinterest. I got interested in it after I noticed the child I was babysitting was using it on her phone. Curious, I asked her about it, then checked it out myself. I liked what I saw so I signed up. Soon I learned people I knew were also using Pinterest so I started following them. I also followed people who shared my interests, as well as boards that I liked. Wasn’t long before it became an addiction for me, and I am happy to report that I curbed that addiction in time. I set up a system of “Pinterest use” where I was not ALWAYS on Pinterest.

Still, it’s a fun site. I have enjoyed using it.

That was, until I followed someone who thought it was okay to spam his followers.

Because my son plays soccer, I set up a soccer board on Pinterest. This is for me to learn more about the sport, pin pictures about it and just anything related to soccer, really. I did the same with baseball because my daughter used to play baseball – and I just love baseball, anyway.

Well, I followed one particular pinner who has a lot of soccer boards on his account. In fact, he wrote an ebook about soccer playing tips. I know this because I saw it advertised as a free download when I read his “About” description. (I read that of everyone who follows me on Pinterest.) Soon after I followed this guy, he sent me a message letting me know he had a FREE ebook about soccer and I could just email him for a copy. That particular message irritated me, first of all because I already KNEW about the free ebook, and if I wanted a copy, I would’ve contacted him about it. Second, it’s outright spam. And spamming people is NOT cool!
 
This dude also used something called a “pinbot” to send me pins he thought I might like. I did not look at these pins. I did the same thing I do when Pinterest sends me such emails: I DELETED THEM.

I don’t want people sending me pins to check out on Pinterest. When my family or friends do it, fine. But with people I barely know? Not so much. It’s really annoying because they do not know me at all, I do not know them, and why the heck do they think it’s okay to send me pins I might like? Let me find it on my own! Even better: Just pin it! I’ll see it in the feed! Y’know?

Despite these grievances with this person, I have not unfollowed him. I ignored him, yes, but he’s got good soccer stuff on his boards I know I’ll want to check out. But if he does spam me again, or uses that “pinbot” thing again, he’s gone. I won’t tolerate that from people I don’t know.

Pinterest has been a pleasant experience thus far and I enjoy using it. I only hope the spamming and the “pinbotting” thing does not come at me from strangers in a flood of emails. I really don’t want to deal with that. I am fine with people commenting on pins -- and, sometimes, I'll even comment, too, if I have something to say. Comments are not the problem. Spam is the problem. And if it gets out of hand, I might contact Pinterest about it or set something up where messages have tighter filters.

P.S. I also find it annoying they changed the way the pins appear when you click on it in the feed. In the past, I clicked on a pin so I could see the WHOLE thing or read it better or watch a clip, and it would come up without the feed changing or anything. Then it closed right back to where it was. Then they changed it. If I click on a pin, it goes to that page. I have to go BACK to get back to the feed but it automatically reloads with NEW pins added when I do that, taking me back to the top to see all the new pins. And thereby losing my place. I can’t go back to where I was. It’s REALLY aggravating! I have started to open pins in new tabs to avoid this but sometimes I forget and lose my place in the feed. And I lose pins, too. I don’t have the TIME for that, people. But that’s just me!  NOTE: They changed it back! YAY!!! Thank you, Pinterest! You rock!

 

Venting on the Internet

I had some time to kill this morning before taking my daughter to school so I logged into Facebook. I went through several posts and noticed that one of my cousins was sharing some quotes on FB quite often. This particular cousin is not on Facebook so much. So I was pleasantly surprised to see so many posts by him. The quotes he shared were good ones and I agreed with many of them.

But then I noticed they seemed to have the same sort of message. This made me stop and wonder if something was up. These suspicions were heightened after I noticed a comment from his mother-in-law to “let it go.” Yes, something was definitely up! Later, I spent some time going through my cousin’s page and found out that something had indeed happened.

And when I realized this, and that he had used these posts as a way of venting, I could only laugh and think, That’s my cousin!

Because I do that, too. If somebody pisses me off on Facebook, I usually post memes or quotes as a way of venting about it. Not too long ago, one of my other cousins decided to be the Facebook police and when she expressed her disapproval over something I shared on MY page, I responded with posting a bunch of quotes along the lines of how it’s MY Facebook page and I’ll share what I want to. I stand by this conviction. (My cousin pretty much saw these posts and promptly unfriended me.) But after I was done with that, I moved on to other things and just let it all go. I am totally over what happened. My cousin can go ahead and take EVERYTHING she sees on Facebook personally but I have moved on because I finished venting about it. (Side note: I have occasionally seen pins on Pinterest echoing these sentiments and I HAVE pinned them because I find them funny and I also agree with them. It’s not because I’m holding a grudge!)

Yes, I know I can talk to people directly rather than posting some meme or some quote. But sometimes, I get too mad at someone, and I DON’T want to talk to them. Posting the meme or the quote is my more innocent and passive way of telling them to fuck off.

Thinking about this, though, with my cousin’s experience and my own experience, I had to marvel over how technology has changed the way we communicate with other people. It’s like “I’m so mad, I’m going to tell you off with a meme!” Or there are other ways people get back at others through the Internet, like with revenge porn.

I try to keep my Facebook page drama-free, but sometimes, I DO need to stand up for myself and let people know that I don’t care for people playing the “Facebook police” with me. I don’t like people posting their hate or judgments on my page – because I ALSO try to keep my page hate-free – but sometimes people think it’s okay to be snarky or expect EVERYONE they know to fit into some old mold they have them shoved into. So sometimes, yeah, we DO need to vent. I’m glad I did because it helped me deal with my anger. (I also privately talked with a sister about it and that helped a lot.) But the next day, I was done with it and moved on. I’m glad my cousin did, because it’s not healthy to bottle things up. And from the looks of it, it seems like he is moving on, too.

When you are on a social media website, you cannot promise to give everybody rainbows and lollipops every single day. Bad things happen. We need to be able to vent and get it all out of our system. The important thing, though, is to finish venting and move on to a new day.

Spring cleaning -- both offline and online

It’s not officially Spring just yet, even though we have been having some beautiful and sunny weather here in Eugene, but I’m already starting to do some “Spring cleaning” around the house. Getting rid of things we don’t want/need, minimizing what we have too much of, and just getting things organized.

And I have noticed that as I have been doing this offline, I am starting to do it online, as well. Today, for example, I unfollowed over a hundred people on Twitter. I unfollowed them because I was either no longer interested in them or what they do, or I was not getting followed back. (Shallow, I know, but I don’t care.) With writers, that’s especially true. If I support a writer, I feel that writer should support me in return. Some awesome authors out there are definitely doing just that, and I give mad props to celebrities I’ve followed who follow back and actually communicate. (Communication is one of the key factors I use on whether or not I follow people on social media.) I understand people are busy and can't really keep up with everybody that follows them on Twitter, so it's nice when they do. But I get it that businesses, sports teams and major newspapers, etc., typically don't just follow everyone back. It's the other writers out there and people I KNOW who I would like a follow back from. (Though I am more patient with people I know in real life.) Anyway, I just felt it was time. So I got some of that done today. I’ll be doing the same thing with my Facebook account as well as other Internet sites that I frequent. It's just time to "clean virtual house."

I find it interesting that I am doing this “Spring cleaning” on the Internet. Granted, sometimes I’ll update sites and make pages a little more current, but that’s something I’ll do every once in a while. Or with just a few sites. Right now, though, I’m definitely “cleaning virtual house” with everything I’m involved with online. I just feel better if everything is more current and just the way I would want it to be.

This just may be a new trend for a lot of people, doing the “Spring cleaning” online as well as offline. It only goes to show just how much of our lives are connected to the Internet and how we’d want everything to reflect our lives a little more accurately.

Five days without Internet

Last weekend, I spent some time trying to finish up a project I’d been working on during the week. I had another on my plate waiting for me to get around to it, but with my very limited time on the computer during this summer, and a hundred other things requiring my attention, completing this one was slow going. I figured I would finish it over the weekend, when my husband would be at home to watch the kids, and then I could upload it and, on Monday get to work on the next one.

That was the plan, anyway!

The good news, I did finish this project (formatting a manuscript for Createspace). The bad news? There was NO Internet! I got online to try to upload it but there was no connection.

Turned out we had no cable, either. Jesse was so upset because our cable was shut off while he was watching SpongeBob and he cried when he missed out on the rest of the show.

What happened was that my husband thought he had paid the cable bill (we have a cable/Internet/phone bundle), but it had been our electric bill he had actually paid. And the funds to pay our Very Expensive cable bill were NOT available. So the cable company shut off our Internet, phone and cable. Without any warning, either! They didn’t even send a reminder. Sheesh!

To be honest, given a choice between having electricity and having cable, I was glad we had electricity! Still, I had things to do that required an Internet connection. For one thing, I have been in the process of editing/revising/updating a manuscript I had to get back to my publisher. For another thing, I had to upload this other book! I have another one waiting (actually, two more) and that one was time-sensitive. So I was pretty darn nervous each day I could not do those things.

Of course, I worried that my email inbox would overflow. This is where my smartphone came in handy. I contacted my publisher through my smartphone to let her know what was up, and I also got some other work done for other books. I managed my email account in the best way I could, but could not get done everything I needed to do to keep it from filling up. But, that’s okay! No biggie! I realize I could’ve gone to the library to use Internet there to handle email, but I’m too paranoid to use library computers for email.

I was also unable to post anything at my picture blog, for some reason, so I could not share the picture of the moon that I took on the night it was orange on account of the fires in California. Again, no biggie. Sometimes I can post on the blogs and sometimes not!

Jennifer, however, had a harder time dealing with no Internet. Surprisingly, she winged not having cable. (The kid has had to live without cable before!) But no Internet was another thing. She and a friend have been emailing each other new passages they write in a fan fiction story they’ve got going on, so no Internet meant no more writing the story! She also creates short story booklets on another site, and when she was inspired to write a new story, she was upset she could not upload it. (I told her to just write her story then she could upload it when we had Internet again.) She also missed out on using tumblr and Pinterest.

Jesse was also not happy he could not use Internet. He likes to play games. Still, the games on my smartphone were enough to satisfy his gaming fix.

I also managed to use Netflix on my smartphone, as well as Pinterest.

So, basically, we DID survive not having Internet, but it was hard. (For those five days, I was practically biting my nails off thinking Mustsendbook.Mustsendbook.Mustsendbook.)

Our Internet was finally turned back on today. (They turned on our cable first. Jesse was happy he got to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles again.) I finally got to send my book back to my publisher. (Yay!) Getting THAT done lifted a HUGE weight off of my shoulders, believe me! And Jennifer was happy she got to do her Internet stuff again today. I am happy I got to do Internet stuff again, too. My email inbox still needs some attention, but I hope I can weed through it over the weekend. (That’s when I get caught up on email!)

This has definitely made us take a closer look at just how we spend our time on the Internet, what we can do when we don’t have it, and, ultimately, WHY it is important to us. What can we do on the Internet that we can’t do on a smartphone or in some other way? Indeed, the Internet does play an important role in our lives, but it’s not the end of the world if we have to do without it for a short time. There are just some things we need a computer with working Internet for that a smartphone will not be able to do for us. (I will say that it is insanely annoying typing on small keys and squinting to read the tiny screen on my smartphone, so blogging on my smartphone is definitely OUT!) Given there are flash drives, there are other solutions if we lose Internet. But it’s still a nice thing to have.

Meeting Internet people

Despite the many stories going about of how some gullible teenager was lured into the arms of some predator she met online or some insane psycho killer hacking up someone who met him to buy something advertised on Craigslist, I am not against meeting in person the people I know through the Internet. I have actually managed to meet a couple of people who I met either through email or through a social media site. No bad experiences YET!

But there HAVE been times when I tried to meet someone in Internet land in real life, but something or other mucks up that encounter. And we never end up meeting in person at all! (Have to wonder if they decided it’s best not to even try again. Or that maybe just knowing each other only through Internet is better. Hmm.)

Well, today, I FINALLY did manage to meet someone I have known online. I have actually communicated with her on and off through Facebook. It helps that she lives in the same neighborhood! (This reminds me of the time I lived in Desert Hot Springs and was going to College of the Desert. I was a member of the online community CollegeClub and was surprised to “meet” on that site a fellow COD student! The bigger surprise was that this dude lived right down the street from me! We did end up meeting in person and it went off nicely but I never saw the guy again and I never got to meet his fiancee, either. Still kept in touch with them both for a while there, though.)

I was actually hoping to meet her yesterday but there was an emergency that came up. One minute, Jesse was sitting on the couch, eating a snack and watching TV. The next, he came running to me with blood on his hand and in his mouth! We could not get him to a dentist that time but we DID stop the bleeding in his mouth. He saw the dentist this morning and we found out what was wrong. Still, I was waaayyyy too nervous to focus on anything else, let alone meeting a new friend, to leave my son’s side and not keep an eye on him. So we decided to meet today.

So, what finally brought about this meeting? She was selling something we’ve actually been thinking of buying for some time. We decided to buy it from her and I’m glad we did because, yay! I finally got to meet her in person! She was really nice and the meeting went well. I look forward to seeing her again sometime or even around the neighborhood.




One of my friends is someone else I met through Facebook, too. She is a friend of a friend. We met through Facebook thanks to my friend and, since she lived in the neighborhood, we met in person, too. We hit it off right away. She is just awesome! She has since been one of my dearest friends.

With some people on the Internet, yes, you DO need to be careful about meeting them in person. I think I would feel more comfortable if I knew them via email or social media first, and for quite some time even then, or if the meeting was entirely for professional purposes and therefore in a public setting. The Internet is certainly one way to reach out to other people in the world and creating new friendships with other people we may have otherwise never have had the chance to know had it not been for an online presence.