What makes you happy ?

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I was debating a site move. Someone left a snide comment that because this was on the web I could do what I wanted then move on and reinvent myself. I am changing domains, I do intend to blog less contentiously, I do intend to blog better but I’m not doing it to reinvent myself.

This blog started in it’s current form in January 2004. Between then and now my family has changed, we went through bankruptcy, my mental health went from up to down many times and has now settled somewhere closer to the norm, I have aged and now see certain things in a different light, much of my anger and frustration has waned (though it will return of that I am sure) and none of this is reinvention. It’s how things are and things change. This domain is now wrapped around memories and choices which I made at the time and they were right at the time – but much like the haircuts we get, the clothes we wear, the foods we eat and maybe even the music we like our tastes over time change. We are no different than we were 5 years ago because we are still the same person but we are very different on the inside. Just because it is on the net does not mean it has to stay on the net. Just because there is digital evidence at archive.org does not mean you should be able to come back to a site to see the same state. I’m not ashamed of what was here, I would defend what I said at the time, my family all know and have read whatever they wish it’s just that I will feel more comfortable without it around me – in precisely the same way that I left ‘podz’ behind.

In around 2001 I met some people from uk.people.bodyart for the first time. We all shared an interest in bodyart but if we were all to meet up again then while our interest maybe close to the same level our participation would have dropped (I’d not let Martin pierce my hand again for instance…) But we aren’t reinventing ourselves – we are just changing as people do.

I get some comments on really old posts and when I go back to read the post I most of the time have no clue what on earth I was on when I wrote whatever the post was. It reads like it was written by a stranger – and given what has happened between then and now maybe I would be.

Am I doing it because of work? Nope. If you have read this blog for a long time you will have seen the post frequency fall and just recently it fell a lot more. That happened incidentally. The recent part – yes there was a reason and no it was not work.

Anyway…… all the posts and pages here were made private. I’m not deleting it, but it’s just for me should I choose (which is like those embarrassing photos we all have but won’t throw away but won’t show). Some posts are back published – those I like or whose comments are well worth reading ( I apologise for the feed doing what it did). Some other posts will follow because I know they exist I just can’t find them yet. The new domain is bought (today, so there is no history to google…) and when there is a theme I’ll drop back to this post and edit the link in.

There were:
3,150 posts.
10,148 comments.
2,063 different nicknames represented in the comments.

Post 3152 will not happen.

Thanks for putting up with me here :)

Up late playing Stardust HD (currently around 43000 on the highscore list) and I see Matt has posted – along with his birthday – that he may change his domain name.
Last week I put robots.txt onto 3 domains with a view to moving to them – well one of them anyway. Yahoo and Live have dropped the domains already. Archive.org has also forgotten. Ask has no answer (so to speak) but Google just will not let go. Now I can login to webmastertools – this domain is registered there – and get it going that way, but that tells Google I own the domain. It’s like they will trade the knowledge of ownership for the purging of it’s database (or at least the hiding which is pretty much the same). It’s no big deal but one of the domains had some ranting posts on so if I choose to use that domain I’d rather information did not show up. But yes, I’m looking at dumping everything here, the whole lot and starting from Hello World again.
It’s got nothing to do with what I do, my girls, people that read this – after all, I can’t change what you have read and think can I? It’s something in me, something I’m debating.

I use the mouse a lot. My typing technique is poor. I spend a lot of time doing both of them. This is not good and has not been for a while. When I’m out with the dog some of the field gates we walk though are extremely heavy things made of tubular steel. One day I caught my hand across the knuckles as it closed and the knuckle of the right middle finger caught the brunt. So combine that with the first 2 and it became time to change.

This week the mouse is unemployed. I’m just using the Wacom tablet for all things mouse. And I’m again trying to learn to type. I’ve got some way to go on that. And when I’m working I’m using MacBreakZ to make me stop. This is all very good but the side-effect is it’s taking so much longer. I’m hoping it gets faster.

Out shopping today I was wondering which of the many things that affect older people will I dislike the most. There’s the vision thing, hearing, teeth, a fondness for shopping bags on wheels…. all things quite visible when out and about (especially on pension day). So I’m pondering.
Vision – I wear glasses anyway so that’s out. Teeth – don’t they just go anyway? Hearing – it’s not hearing that’s my problem right now, it’s listening and given I don’t listen much then hearing I’m not fussed about. But these are fixable anyway. What’s really going to annoy me is speed.

There is A and there is B. I move between them as quickly as I can and more often than not curse silently (most of the time it’s silent) when people get in my way. The only people that pass me are those that are running.
Get there, get it, get back, get on with whatever was left. Don’t slow people realise just how much more can be fitted into a day if they parted the air a bit quicker?

Having to go slowly will annoy the hell out of me.

New chair, new desk and their heights relative to each other are changed. Monitors arranged differently and their height changed. I’m sitting here working and it’s hard work – it all feels wrong. Posture, reach to the mouse and kb, eye movements between kb and monitor. There is nothing that feels right, nothing at all. So I’m writing this so I remember to write when I do feel okay with it all. Hopefully not too far away.

… and amazingly tired. So tired I can’t think straight. So I’m not about to start typing much now.

I’m sitting on the stairs earlier and this guy asks me what I would like to be if I could be anything for a day.
He laughed at my answer.

If you don’t read Pearls before Swine you really should start.
This one works for me on a few levels: The strip last sunday

Something subtle changed somewhere this week.
J said that when she saw me asleep one morning she realised I’d turned into a man. Getting away from the obvious jokes, what have I been since I was a teenager? Is there a term for the stage I’ve been in? Maybe it’s a mental attitude from me, or her or even both of us. Maybe it’s the extra grey – she called me a Silver Surfer !! Maybe it’s the work I’ve done and what I do now that means I’ve not been forced into being ‘serious’ from 9-5 Mon-Fri.
When does a girl become a woman? At the same time as a boy becomes  man? When do I go buy slippers? When do I pass Marks & Spencers and think “My that jacket and corduroy trouser combo looks hot!”

Weird this getting older stuff.

Thing is, when will I feel old? Does that matter? Probably not.

Mortality is a constant theme in my head and has been for ages. I have no idea why and even if there was some psychologist available to talk to I doubt I’d avail myself (and I’d get different answers depending on whether they like Freud / Jung / Whoever which effectively nullifies all of them) and tonight I wondered about emails. If you knew the time you’d go then you’d do all the ‘loved ones’ stuff wouldn’t you? But what about people you’ve never met, or met once or twice but who live too far way, or those who are close but you never quite get time to see? Would I email anyone? Yes, of course I would. I’d also drop into irc and tell the team that they might want to close support for a while.
But who to email. I could say here but then the last email doesn’t become that last email does it? Because they’d email me to ask what I’d say, and then I’d have to answer them and have to explain all the stuff I wrote and because it wouldn’t be the last email it wouldn’t make sense, it wouldn’t have the finality, it wouldn’t have the thoughts hanging even though all you wanted to do was tie loose strings because it would generate new strings and it would get ever so messy. It’s not a “I must have the last word” thing, but that certain things are best left unsaid until the answer cannot be said, cannot be heard. Which is hard on the person who wants, needs, cries to give that answer but then how otherwise do you say what you want? It seems so easy to get the answer “Well just say it” but it can’t be done. It makes the stable unstable. Like I said, it gets messy.

I want to say things to certain people. Nice things. I’d like to, I really would. And I never will. Same for all of us I suppose.