Flouncing!

Well, not really flouncing, so much as just leaving OS. I don’t like advertisements. I don’t like ad banners. Whatever product is being touted is certainly not going to have anything to do with what I happen to be writing about (not much of a market for sick old ladies, food banks, gardening or, of course ‘snow-honkers’.)

It was always extremely attractive to me that OS was ad-free. We could write our stuff, read that of others, have great conversations (and some pretty horrid ones too, come to think of it) without having to think about hotel.com, expedia.com, Extenze, etc. Whatever.

I don’t want to see ads. If it weren’t for Mom, there would be no television in my home. I have no magazine subscriptions because I don’t like all the ads. Ditto newspapers. I don’t thumb through mags at doctor’s offices because I don’t want to see advertisements. Except for the rice and oatmeal and flour we bag ourselves from really large bags, every damned can at the food bank is an advertisement. I get enough of that. I would much prefer nothing but “canned button mushrooms” in black on white than a brand name, a logo, and a photograph (I know a canned button mushroom when I see one.) Ditto corn. Green Beans. Beets. I don’t read the grocery-store ads that come in the mail because when I go to the store, I’m paying for what’s on my list regardless of whether or not it is on saIe.

Bottom line, this is a sell-out that I will not be party to.

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I certainly like most of you very much. And I’ll miss your writing and insights into your lives and loves and laughs. But I don’t want to log on to read some favorite blogger’s newest post and be assaulted by a crass, commercial thing just in order to get there.

Because those advertisements aren’t going to be about your writing. They’ll just be taking up space. And no matter how fast I scroll, the ad will still register. That’s an art those hateful ad-people have mastered.

Some of you are, in fact, extremely special to me. You know who you are. And I’ll miss you. Those who know my story understand that OS is a great relief and respite for me. But it can’t be that and also crassly commercialized at the same time. I will not have it so.

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Last Updates:

The garden is lovely. I harvested the first of the cauliflower last Sunday and it was delicious. There will be a grajillion peas. The tomatoes are beginning to turn, and for whatever reason the calla lilies are taller than me this year. The violets continue to bloom into summer, and I’ve no idea what that is about. I do not think the voodoo lily is well.

We have received the results of Ma’s biopsy and while the very rare types of masses themselves are quite benign all of the underlying possible causes are inevitably fatal. Bummer. Hands getting full here.

Food bank running smoothly, though I don’t think anyone is ever going to select that 4-lb. bag of shredded, dried squid someone donated. Just no market for that here.

Barkley, previously weighing 21 lb. 6 oz. weighs 20 lb. 2 oz. now that we have instituted the diet. (He should really weigh about fourteen pounds.) No more tiny cheese-burgers. He is not a happy dog. But it’s for the best.

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I’ll miss OS so much. But I cannot allow anyone to decide for me that something I write must be coupled with the crassness of commercial enterprise I cannot and would not choose. I will not do that.

((((((((((BIG GOODBYE HUG))))))))))),

catamitebastard