How Did I Get Here?

I have been a blogger since 2004, but my two other blogs (they're still there) had fallen by the wayside in favor of Facebook, which was quick and easy to use and linked me up with old friends and family, as well as new friends. 

The beauty of Facebook is that it gives you a friend list, so you know who's likely to see what you post.  It's conversational, so it gives you a warm cozy feeling when you send something out into the world and get sometimes immediate responses.

The drawbacks of Facebook (and Twitter, Instagram, etc.) are myriad.  Here are the primary ones, from my perspective (in no particular order): 

• There's no "save" button, so you can't draft something and come back later to review, rethink, or revise prior to publishing.
• Ads, ads, and more ads.
• Facebook employs thousands of people to read every tiny bit of your content and decide if it fits their narrative or not, whether you want them to or not.
• Artificial Intelligence "bots" that can and do take down content if it doesn't meet "community standards."  I recently had a cake recipe, of all things, taken down by a bot, and had to dispute it with their admins to get it reinstated.  
• Facebook Jail.

My ambivalent relationship with Facebook tipped me into the "do not like" column yesterday when I private group I was a member of disappeared without notice.  

*Blink*  

Gone.  

It seemed like another Facebook take down, and I did not take it well.*

BUT... I didn't jump back onto Facebook to rant, rave, stomp my foot, or shake my fist at the world.

I waited.  And I thought.  A lot.  

I decided I wanted a place where I could freely express my thoughts without a built-in unit of the thought police to decide whether my content fits the parameters of their "community standards."  A community of my own, where I set my own standards.  A place where I didn't have to accept a cocktail full of somebody else's codswallop.

And here I am, starting a new blog like I did with my first one -- not knowing who'll find me, not installing a site meter to obsessively follow to make sure people like me, no blog roll (for now), just sending myself out into the universe.

I'll still go on Facebook to post happy thoughts, funny memes, photographs, and participate in the groups I really enjoy -- Eatapeta, Hotdogchicagosociety, Fox Valley Whiskey Society, I Love Photography, and the like.  

But you'll find my more thoughtful side right here.

And so it begins.

*To be fair, it turns out that one of the group's myriad moderators had taken down about 2,000 members of the group on his own initiative.  The admins have taken back control, and has no more moderators, but the damage to the integrity of the group has certainly shaken them to their cores.