Leaving Facebook Behind

Discretion

   [dih-skresh-uhn]

Noun

1.

The power or right to decide or act according to one's own judgment; freedom of judgment or choice: It is entirely within my discretion whether I will go or stay.

“I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway.  I would prefer to, I assure you—it would make life easier.  But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists.”

-Phillip Roth-

0519 hrs, Sunday. 

I have allowed the Mutt Brigade their Morning Frolic in bed this morning, while I indulge my leg-dangle, smoke and coffee thing.

 Winston joins us; he’s in the mood for a thorough rub-and-scritch before leaving to take on his day job.

With the dumbasses Scooter and Clancy flanking us in the half light of dawn, I contemplate this gathering of cats and dogs, all snoozing or getting a massage, in thrall with Daddy, in a peaceful détente with each other.

The only sound emanating from under a distant pillow is Goofy biting his nails.  I can’t decide how to describe the noise he’s making: Cracking walnuts? Crushing bits of plastic with pliers? Seeds popping out of a Bogard?

I must take The Walrus for a pedicure come Monday.  He is surprisingly sensitive about anyone handling his paws.  Since he announces his displeasure by sinking his canines into the fleshy part of the abuser’s hand, the delicate matter is best left to the professionals.

Once, before he was mine, his A.K.A name still Augustus, four seasoned vet techs attempted to trim his thick claws.  They muzzled him and placed him on the stainless steel table, three of them holding him down.  When the fourth tech grabbed his hind leg, Augustus wrenched free from the lockhold, somehow managed to throw the muzzle; and bit the guy so deeply, he needed stiches and a tetanus booster.

The $15 paid to the animal hospital is the best deal going, my view. 

As consolation and final note, the Goof is very remorseful when he bites someone, sinking into a mournful funk, which continues long afterward.

Plenty ‘nuff dither.  On to the message for the day:  I’m taking my monographs off Facebook: heretoafterward, they will only appear on my blog, www.corkyssoapbox.blogspot.com

Corky’s Soapbox will henceforth be my agora of choice.

As I put the finishing touches to yesterday’s monograph, I realized that posting a sexual harassment incident may have been a step too far in total disclosure.  I was, once again, blowing my anonymity in the public domain.

I see that many of us who are one of us are doing comparable blowing all the livelong day on FB.  How stand y’all on the eleventh tradition?  Are we living up to ‘maintaining our personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films’?

Certainly, when the last version of the Traditions was formed, no one had yet thought to include even television in the wording.

Now, the world has raced past that broad medium into a universal Ethernet of communication.  The intent of the Eleventh Tradition is to insure that if any one of us goes back out, that it doesn’t carry a negative message to the alcoholic still suffering from the disease.  Not so?

Well, then, as we bare all on our many postings, comments and shares; who the hell knows us as drunks and what the hell are they to think when a familiar ‘friend’ returns to self-destruction?

I realize that by putting the same exposure on a blog, there is hardly much of an improvement, but at least there is some measure of discretion; where on FB, there is absolutely none.

Now, don’t misunderstand me here (hahahahaha! Lol! Lmao! WTF?!!!), I’ll be back every day, to inject my barbed wit by posting, comment or share to the backsides of any of you who expose your flank.

“Ooooohh Ceeesco!”  “Ooooohh Pancho!”  “Lez went!!”

See you in the funny papers.