blocked from Facebook | Bertram's Blog

Disappearing

September 16, 2020 — Pat Bertram

My contractor keeps disappearing on me, but now I’m wondering if perhaps it is I who am disappearing, maybe becoming so faint and indistinct that I am fading away.

Although diets don’t work for me and never have, I’ve been concerned about my knees, so I’ve been on a diet this whole year with an occasional day off to see if it would reset my metabolism (otherwise, my body gets more and more efficient, and I end up gaining weight when I should be losing). I have lost but a pound, which is absurd for the amount of effort I’ve put in, so I’m thinking that instead of losing weight, I’ve been losing substance, making it difficult for others to see me or consider my needs.

For example, today at the grocery store, I stood at the counter while two employees talked and talked and talked and talked. Finally, I asked if there was anyone who could check out my groceries, and one woman said, “Yes. Right here.” Meaning that she would help me at the counter where I was standing. But she continued to yap until I very pointedly cleared my throat. She gave me a dirty look and finally started ringing up groceries. (And people wonder why I don’t mind self-checkout. Too bad it’s not available at the local store.)

It’s not just in person that I’m disappearing. I also seem to be disappearing from the electronic world. First, there was Facebook and their blocking my blog (they said it was spam). I can still look in on the site occasionally, can still post discussions to my writing group, can still post promos for my books on my author page, but beyond that, they have disappeared me.

Even this blog is playing the disappearing game. As I mentioned before, the blog platform is discontinuing the editor box (like the box where you write an email) I’ve always used. The new editor is way more complicated, though I have learned to use it and even like a couple of the features. But it was not my choice. If I hadn’t given in and become familiar with the new editor, I would have disappeared from the blogging world too.

And then there is my phone. Apparently, my email providers will no longer accept my use of the third-party app that came with my aged phone. So . . . poof. More disappearance. I won’t be getting email notifications on my phone any more, but I don’t think that will be a problem. I’ll just wait until I go online with my computer and check the emails then.

As if all that isn’t enough, my bank disappeared my password. Again, not a problem. It’s something they do periodically and I changed it, but it does seem suspicious that the disappearance would occur just when I am disappearing elsewhere.

The only solution seems to be for me to figure out what sort of diet will allow me to lose weight and at the same time add back the substance I lost so that I don’t fade into the background any more.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Posted in blogging, internet, life. Tags: being ignored by grocery store clerks, blocked from Facebook, diets don't work for me, I feel like I am disappearing, third party email apps for smart phone, trying to diet, WordPress Block Editor. 9 Comments »

Online Housecleaning

May 5, 2020 — Pat Bertram

When Facebook blocked my blog URL from their site, it made me rethink a lot of what I’ve been doing online. Not writing this blog, of course — that is a given. But other things, such as keeping friends on Facebook that I don’t know simply because we are authors or because it wouldn’t be politic to remove them. I figure my current boycott of the site — if FB doesn’t want my blog, they don’t get any part of me — would be a good time to quietly unfriend those folks I don’t know or don’t want to know.

When I first came online, all the marketing hints for authors mentioned how important FB was, so I did my best to work the site. At one time, I had the maximum number of friends allowable, but as the years passed, and I realized none of these people had any interest in me, I started removing those who annoyed me. From 5,000 to 200. That’s a lot of annoyance! A few of those 200 I keep only because . . . well, I don’t really know why except that I know them. When . . . if . . . I ever return, I might remove some of them too.

After cleaning up FB, I turned my attention to Twitter. Twitter has never been a favorite of mine, so mostly all I do there is have my blog URL posted automatically to the site. Although a writer friend once walked me through all the ways Twitter can help an author, none of those ideas ever worked for me. Twitter seems to work only if you have more that 10,000 followers, and I fall vastly short of that number. I did go through and do some housekeeping, though, such as unfollowing people that I follow but who no longer follow me.

Finally, I did something I never thought I would do, I removed some problematic blog posts. As I explained in my post Repercussions, shortly after my first two novels were published, I had a text conversation with my sister, who had just finished reading the books. I asked her if it was strange reading a $&X scene written by her sister. (Just so you know, I am not averse to using the word, I’m just trying to hide it from google.) I posted the conversation on my blog because I was so tickled with her observations.

A couple of months later, on the list of search engine terms people use to find my blog, I noticed a lot of incestual queries. There was no mistaking the meaning of the terms. They were explicit.

Not one to sneer at a gift from the writing gods, even such a sleezy gift as this, I wrote a blog: “$&X With $ister Tips — Writing Tips, That Is.” (The more views a site gets, the higher it’s ranked by search engines, and so the more views it gets.) It was actually a good post, talking about how to make the scenes motivated and a part of the story rather than simply adding prurient interest.

As uncomfortable as the whole incest thing made me, it never occurred to me to remove the posts. Ever since the quarantine, though, the number of views on those posts have skyrocketed, and the comments increasingly frightening.

Since this is a time of reworking my online presence — what is left of it — I finally trashed those particular blogs.

It feels good, all this online housecleaning. Refreshing.

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Posted in blogging, internet. Tags: authors on facebook, authors on twitter, blocked from Facebook, facebook friends, quarantine, removing blog posts, unfollowing on twitter, unfriending. 6 Comments »

And So Ends April

May 1, 2020 — Pat Bertram

And so ends April. May should be even more interesting for me (a hint of irony there) since I have read all my emergency books, have watched all the DVDs I once borrowed from a friend, and now I am more or less banned from Facebook. (Any links to my blog are blocked, and all previous posts have disappeared.) I can check in and make a few comments, but that’s about it. Oh, wait — I can also post links to my books on Amazon. So, I can’t post links to my blog, which is not spam, but I can post links to my books, which can be considered spam. What a bizarre situation!

For the past twelve years, Facebook was a safe place for me to hang out with people, to chat a bit, and make new friends, but now, not only am I isolated in real time, I am isolated in e-time too. I considered fighting the ban, but I think I’ll wait. It would probably do me more good to stay away from the inane and sometimes downright nasty remarks people make about those who don’t agree with them, and I have had my fill. I’ve also had my fill of following the progression of The Bob, and especially I have had my fill of trying to make sense of all the stories that don’t add up. But still, not checking in with Facebook and the friends I’ve made all over the world will be make a huge hole in my life.

Adding to the complication, my knee is acting up again. It had been mostly healed, but clambering up and down the very steep threshold to my backdoor (I had to see what the workers were doing!) has exacerbated the injury. I’ve been babying the knee again, going in and out the front door (where there’s a ramp) and it’s doing better, but still not well enough to go tramping around town.

When the garage is done, they will build a walkway from the back door of the house to the pedestrian door of the garage, and when they do so, they will eliminate that treacherously deep step. Until then, not being able to use the back door just adds to the complications of my life. (Though admittedly, by comparison, this is a very tiny complication.)

So, to recap what May is beginning to look like: no books. No movies. No connecting with friends off line. (Although the governor has removed some of the restrictions, seniors are still locked down.) No connecting with friends online. And no walking.

With any luck, the workers will be back on Monday or Tuesday, but for now, there’s just me. And me. And me. And not much else.

As I said, May should be interesting.