This May Be the Biggest Mistake I've Ever Made...

And I've made a few.

Pushing the car out of the garage in neutral to save on gas.  Then realizing the driveway was just enough of a slope to send it on it's merry way down to make love with a stone wall.

Realizing that dry grass burns.  And how.

Assessing the full potential of marijuana while standing knee deep in snow with a mouth full of mouthwash.

But this may top even the scorch-fest of the summer of '75.

It's called Facebook.

I wanted to set up an account under my writer's name a few years ago.  I had had an account many years earlier under an anonymous name, set up because I really wasn't sure social media was for me.  It wasn't.  After a few evenings of staring at pictures taken by people I used to know, I shut down and left it alone.  It just wasn't that interesting to know what had been cooked the evening prior or where we had gone on vacation.  Isn't that what conversations are for?  Anyway, Facebook, because of security abuses, has gotten more sophisticated and I found out I couldn't have a page under an alias.   Makes sense, so I set up my page and then set up the subsequent page to promote a book I had written.  Then I walked away.  The book needed work.  Lots of work.  So I concentrated on making it legible to people who didn't get the inside jokes and were quickly alienated. 

A few weeks ago, after having survived the winter well enough and not once resorting to whiskey and heroin (well, certainly not heroin, anyway) I thought I'd post some sample chapters and went back onto the Facebook page.  I started with my home page.  There were three invitations from friends that I decided initially to ignore.  Then I changed my mind.  They were all nice people I was friends with and liked and admired.  I thought it would be rude to ignore them so I accepted their invitations, figuring that would be that.

And that it wasn't.  Invitations came cascading in.  Well, they came in.  Cascading, when one accepts my very limited social circle.  For normal folks, it would range from trickle to pathetic but it was a cascade for me.  I was overwhelmed.  Now I honestly don't know what to do.  I'm a Facebook user when I really just meant to be an anonymous curmudgeon.  I'm slipping down a dangerously slippery slope and I have to say it is at times, not altogether unpleasant.  I'm glad to see friends I was in a comedy troupe with years ago are alive, well and happy.  But why am I looking at what they had for dinner last night?  Am I becoming "one of them???"

I'll hang out of Fbook for a while longer and see what happens, but if I start habitually checking to see pictures of the kids, the cats, the collection of mummified bats during the day, I'm shutting down and going away.

At least I hope I will.

Bunny on.