pine

I've come to a small turning in the road, metaphorically speaking. I've decided to quit newsblogging on Facebook, possibly permanently.

I am worn down by dealing with so much bad news all the time. When I worked long hours at newspapers, there was always something good in the mix, but now it's getting hard to find. And with the overflowing river of news these days, some days I work longer than I did at the papers, just to get through it and try to understand it all.

But there's more. In the last three months I have lost six people, some I've known for 30+ years, others all my life. A beloved older cousin, a talented and kind aunt, a teacher whom I will continue to learn from every time I open one of her books, two friends who always encouraged me (separately, in different ways) to be creative and innovative, and a third friend who challenged me to be as uniquely myself as she was uniquely herself. None of them were under 50, and all had rich full lives -- but the gaps they leave in the world are enormous, not just for me but for many others. And each death's loss and sadness get added to that which was here before, even if for some it was a relief at the end of long illness.

That's a lot. It would be a lot at any time, but it feels like more, now, because of all the horribleness going on -- ICE, the war with Iran, the Epstein entanglements and the many cruelties of this regime.

Also, nobody's paying me to newsblog. Not one no-longer-available cent. I've been doing it because it feeds my newsjunkieness, the reporter's need to know what's happening and tell others. It also ate my day, usually about six hours of it or more.

Enough.

I will still forward relevant articles (as long as I have arms and hands to type) but I'm not going to do the intense drop down into the zone any more, with multiple subject-categorized posts. I'd like to have a bit more life in my life than can be found behind a keyboard -- and have it be my own life, not one I'm looking at from the sidelines. I'll still write the Substack column, but leave it at that.

I will still be there, as I am here, just not as much every day.

And getting away from the keyboard serves my other life goal, which is to outlive the regime and the Occupant and his ilk (great non-swear-word for them) and have a good life doing it.