Oceanside Nevada
Currently reading: A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher đź“š
Second thought for the day: after a truly craptastic chain of events temporarily banned me from the timeline (some self inflicted, some dropped balls from other people) I’m back. And that is thanks to an email to the micro.blog help desk that was promptly addressed and resolved by @manton. I am still geeking out over getting my issue solved not just by a company founder but while he is on a road trip! I mean, wow, right?
Feeling much better about the future of the country today. It’s not as good as I might have hoped but neither is it as bad as I’d feared. I’d more or less quit listening to pollsters after they told us that fucking guy wouldn’t win and that opinion has only gotten stronger since the recent efforts by the Republicans to flood the zone with polls that made them look stronger than they actually were (shower thought: if your policies are so awesome, why do you need the constant parade of dirty tricks and straight up cheating?).
Then of course, this photo, in which I am constantly reminded that people are endlessly complicated and fascinating.
So, through a combination of inattention (me), bad UI (Hey) and unknown payment snafus (Hover), the former domain for this blog right here (my still current username.com) now points at a Chinese porn and casino link spam site. So that’s great.
Fortunately I still have this older domain that, while I like less, is still mine. Still, finding this out during my push to start engaging with, you know, people again was super triggering and my PTSD and ADD have been partying down ever since. I’m better now that resignation has set in but I’m still not really ok. In true ADD “FIX ALL THE THINGS NOW!” fashion, I decided to revamp my sprawling and chaotic email “solution” from multiple domains all forwarding to one address (because, to cap it all, Gmail has stopped forwarding my mail and , while it is still receiving, it archives it without ever hitting the inbox. Also: google is creepy and it’s long past time I cut that cord). Of course that means updating basically everything so I’m slooooowly going through 1Password and updating the important one and trashing the unimportant or unrecognized. Only 120 some odd items to go!
Email is the absolute worst thing that we still need, IMO.
I’ve struggled with returning to blogging for so long now, whether micro or full bore, heedless and headlong logorrhea. Many reasons. My therapist has been encouraging me so I’m trying. The ongoing Elonpocalypse which alternately horrifies me and fascinates me like a burning tower full of birthday clowns has got me thinking even more about blogs and blogging and the independent web. Trash fire or not, social media killed (or at least severely wounded) blogging not just because it made publishing simple for the common person but because it made discovery and curation of our personal cones of silence trivial. It was easy to surround ourselves in a warm blanket of common opinion, fellow travelers walking down the path alone.
As I was maundering over this, I came across a recent post from a blog that’s been silent for so long I don’t actually recall why I added it to my RSS feed. In the moment it struck a chord for me in a way that’s hard for me to articulate. It seemed fortuitous, the struggle to start over.
The door creaks softly as I push it wide.
It’s not complaining, really, just surprised
That anyone would come. I, mesmerized,
Breathe deeply, lift my chin, and step inside.
The house is still ineffably itself.
The places where we talked, or laughed, or wept,
Abide (albeit cobwebbed and unswept).
And written there atop the mantle-shelf:
Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate.
Ah. This is why I came. It’s getting dark.
It’s time to light the world up with this spark.
To shine. To make some light. Illuminate.
For what has been, and what is yet to come,
Again the door is open. Welcome home