Sartre said: Hell is other people… but he never tried to customize a tabber widget.
Wow… it’s been a while, eh? Where have I been?
I’ve been bending time and space with my mind.
Yes… I’m exhausted, thanks for asking.
Moving this blog only took me twenty-seven times longer than I thought it would.
The amount of time. And energy. And thought… that I’ve spent on details like my social-media icons? Has been appropriate for full-scale nuclear warfare. Or what to wear to a high-school reunion.
Those icons? Down below, in the sidebar? I picked them for YOU–you people who read my blog. Because I love you.
You’re ALL I think about.
It took me roughly 97 hours to get them to line up and have an orange border.
So I REALLY hope you like them.
My single, greatest talent is intense, paralyzing focus on one individual thing…
To the absolute exclusion of everything else.
Which is great— if you are the project du jour. But terrible and irritating if you are anyone else who might need something from me.
I am the very definition of all or nothing… I haven’t written anything, I haven’t read a book, I haven’t gone dancing, I haven’t put away Christmas stuff. I haven’t vacuumed.
I have skipped out on every single commitment and obligation that I could possibly bail on, without ending up homeless or in jail.
I have brought a level of dedication and intensity to trivial details that is alarming and unbalanced.
I have spent every free minute on minutiae so tiny, no one else will even notice. Pounding my keyboard in frustration. Adjusting the blog’s sidebars, infinitesimally, one-way and the other.
Hunched over my desk in the middle of the night… Like the Howard Hughes of blogging—locked in my office, snarling at anyone who knocks on the door… refusing to cut my fingernails and eating nothing but ice.
You can see the magic and wonder of the sidebar, right? How amazing! How different!
I know! You probably don’t even recognize this blog!
See how I rearranged it by a quarter of an inch? See? See?
It only took me three weeks!
I have NO idea what else I did!! The sidebar and widgets were some kind of time-sucking black hole of formatting… I didn’t even do any of the other things I wanted!
But it’s fine… I’m pretty sure the sidebar is the key to my success. And now that I’ve gotten it all squared away, I can just sit back and let the advertisers roll in.
Bring it.
Somehow? After ALL that time in a test site? I didn’t even get my big changes made.
It took me all these weeks to simply duplicate the appearance of my old blog. All this time to JUST translate it onto the template of WordPress.org
Why? Because all my time was devoted to waffling and confusion and panic and avoidance and changing my mind.
That shit takes time, people.
Also, to further delay any progress… and to exponentially intensify my confusion— I tried to learn HTML. Because when you feel terribly overwhelmed and too busy, and like you are juggling nineteen more things than you are capable of?
You should try to do one more thing.
You should also try to make that thing way outside your comfort zone. And try to make sure it doesn’t apply to anything else in your life. And absolutely make sure it’s not something you’re going to practice, so you won’t actually remember any of it a few months from now.
Since I am compulsive. And controlling– I WANT to know everything there is to know about my blog and how it works. But I forgot how I don’t actually want to LEARN it.
I just want to absorb the coding-skills to do fancy stuff, through some process of osmosis. Preferably overnight.
This is a gulf I have struggled to cross before… Pretty much anytime something is difficult.
I did learn some stuff. Absolutely. If nothing else, that decoder program looks awesome. But there is no way I have the time or interest to actually practice it.
Kind of like taking Intro to Russian… For fun. And then never going to Russia or making any Russian friends. Interesting? Sure. But only as a conversational topic at cocktail parties, where you can impress strangers with your obscure toasts and warm hats.
На здоровье!
So what did that magic decoder program get me? This:
Clearly, I’m not setting the world on fire with my web-design skills.
If at some point in your life? You want to feel like you are NOT really as smart as your parents promised you were? Try it for yourself.
Also? As far as I can tell? HTML is not even the language WordPress is built with.
I believe WordPress is actually built with Sanskrit.
Encoded Sanskrit.
So I googled—how to learn Sanskrit to work with WordPress software.
And google was all like— WordPress was written in PHP for use with MySQL.
And I was like— wow. AWESOME! I will Get. Right. On. That.
But? I didn’t. Instead, my panic and overwhelmedness just overflowed… And I was like—you know what? I’m so tired. I just don’t care anymore.
If it explodes on takeoff, I can STOP working on it, and that will be just as good.
So? If you’re here? It means it didn’t blow up. And that I am somewhere on the other end of your computer… passed out on the floor. Surrounded by champagne bottles and notes to myself to: Figure out why lightbox gallery won’t scroll. And: Reduce space between meta data and end of post in home-page view.
And: Ask my readers—for the LOVE OF GOD. Please subscribe.
The link to subscribe via email is RIGHT THERE at the bottom of this post… It comes with free glitter, my undying gratitude, and a place to stay, if you’re ever in the Philadelphia area.
February 6, 2013 @ 5:32 pm
Your journey into the abyss of WP blog backend is awesome to behold. Totally impressed that you plowed on/in and created the gorgeous blog you did. My business partner and I have been wrestling with very similar wants/needs/roadblocks with our WP.com blog but neither nearly bold enough to roll up our sleeves, not just yet anyway. Thanks for going there and telling the tale. And a wonderful blog. Come visit us in Brooklyn!
February 6, 2013 @ 6:01 pm
I am torn on recommending the experience to people… now that I’ve made it here (more or less) I love it. I’m so happy to be able to spend all my time fidgeting with details, and being in charge of how many pixels deep the comments indent themselves…
However? Getting here? Was not fun. I should have made some tech-minded friends, prior to the switch… the kind of people who say it’s not that hard… And? I have to say that at times I wonder HOW important it is to consider the depth of your comment reply indentation… do I really have NOTHING better to do with my time? Would that time have been better spent actually writing content? Maybe…
Your blog is lovely… you Brooklynites have all the good stuff to post about.
February 9, 2013 @ 3:45 pm
Lookin’ good! I tip my hat to you for going .org!!
February 9, 2013 @ 8:21 pm
Hey thanks!! Now that I’m getting settled in, I really like it. The stress was BAD… but now I think it was worth it.
Hope you and family are well!! I’m sure he looks completely different since your post!!
April 3, 2013 @ 3:03 pm
Just found your blog by way of Houzz. Love it, love you. Love this post. I am a web developer, my blog is in WP.org, and I do know the technology… and yet, its still painful.
April 3, 2013 @ 6:05 pm
I did a little dance, when I read your comment… something about having an actual tech person acknowledge that it’s not a process made out of fairy dust.
Although? At the same time? ALL my personal-favorite posts I’ve written have been about my experiences blogging. Not at all something I would have predicted… that I would have so much to say about it!!
So good to “meet” you!
p.s.- I helped a friend set up a blog in wp.com last weekend, and I walked away being reminded I was SO GLAD I moved!!
June 4, 2013 @ 4:31 pm
Brilliant blog. Just spent the last 30 minutes reading posts. I’m in the process of designing a new theme myself. I need to get out of my cookie-cutter WordPress.org theme. It’s cramping my style. I can’t even get that Tabber widget to load, let alone cutomize it. I’m promising myself I’ll have it refreshed by mid-July. Wish me luck.
On another note, my wife and I are also Philly people. We live in South Jersey. AND I’m old enough to remember the Five Spot. I used to hang out there all the time back in my early twenties.. like ten years ago.
June 6, 2013 @ 4:00 pm
All kidding aside, the tabber-widget drove me insane. At the time it seemed necessary. Why? I cannot say… (and now I wonder if anyone even uses it.) If I could do it again, I would spend the time elsewhere… like reading about how to fix my nine-million tags.
p.s.- You remember the Five Spot!! It’s like a mythical creature…
June 25, 2013 @ 9:22 am
At first, with part one, I had hope I could do this.
I can’t do this.
Happy for you, though. xo
July 16, 2013 @ 3:28 pm
I have built a couple of websites in WordPress, but find I’m way too challenged by html. I told the web host that just because I can drive a car, it doesn’t mean I should HAVE to know how to build one. There should be no reason I have to learn a new language just to build a website so I’m going back to Citymax. They speak WYSIWYG and that’s what I’m really good at!
August 7, 2013 @ 1:39 pm
YOU JUST DESCRIBED MY LIFE. I am in the middle of re-designing my site (after I spend 4+ days switching to wordpress.org) and it is taking forever! I have completely lost all track of reality :). I followed your link at the bottom weeks ago and tried working with a themify basic theme – and now I am switching gears again. Seriously. I need this to be over!
I LOVE your site and how perfectly perfect it is. So much thought has gone into it. I have one question – what do you use for your email subscribe widget? I have tried everything and can’t find one that I like.
Thank you!!
Ginny
August 7, 2013 @ 1:53 pm
Along a similar note – which theme from Themify are you using? I thought “Basic” was perfect, but I had a hard time customizing the size. Just wondering! Thanks!
August 9, 2013 @ 9:59 am
Hey!! GOOD JOB surviving the transfer.
I’m using Elemin. (With a good bit of customization.)
Jetpack is my email subscription… I’ve been totally happy with it, although I don’t do anything fancy like newsletters that you might want something like Mail Chimp for.
August 20, 2013 @ 3:23 pm
THANK YOU! I JUST finished my new design – and it is EXACTLY like you described. And, I am mentioning you today in my blog – because everyone needs to read your posts!
September 4, 2013 @ 2:46 am
hahahaha! And then there’s that moment when you realize that none of your links in all of your past posts work anymore and that you’re going to have to go through every. single. post. to fix them. It’s then that your OMG, I actually did this turns into OMG, what the heck did I do. Well… I might have said actually said hell! Love your site!
September 4, 2013 @ 1:36 pm
That MIGHT be your link structure… I had a similar issue when I realized that ALL my incoming links were broken.
I pretty much had twelve heart attacks. I nearly did not survive to find out it could be fixed.
September 4, 2013 @ 2:33 pm
By the way, there is absolutely no reason that you shouldn’t be making money. You’re blog is awesome and one of the best out there. I’ve been blogging for years and have never pursued it until just now. It took me forever, it seemed, to get approved for google adsense – but I made it through the first step this morning. If you decide to try it, let me know – I’ll send you some of the things that I think helped me!
October 6, 2013 @ 10:44 am
I’ve spent most of Friday and Saturday, no wait it’s now Sunday, shit, reading your blog. We’re renovating a long-faced split-entry that to me is still just a raised ranch and have many of the same personality qualities that you two have BUT at the same time also work together at “renovating” my medical practice which involves much of the same horrible stuff but also more humans in the mix. Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I should probably start my blogs all over and combine all 3 into one. But the medical practice stuff was so painful and yet not well documented from a blog standpoint plus who the hell cares about how you move your medical practice into the world of Obamacare and EMR’s? Those doing it have NO TIME to read a blog much less make one. But just imagine if you and Paul were doing that at work and your husband was the GM of your medical office and sometimes works like 72 hours straight to fix something at work while you sit at home looking at the exposed studs and insulation wondering when he’ll be able to get back to this. Yes, I have a very good therapist. I hope you do as well. If only we had on the house to do… sigh.
http://www.renovatemyranch.blogspot.com is the house that is going way to slowly. http://www.embersgarden.blogspot.com is the garden where I have more control and need less of his help so it’s therapeutic. http://www.drrebeccaknight.com old practice webpage. http://www.femdoc.com is my wordpress page for analyzing the stupid shit that comes out daily as medical media hype and almost always fails to truly educate us but just tries to scare the shit out of people. And can you tell I’m as ADHD as you are OCD?
October 6, 2013 @ 10:52 am
I had to post your blog on my blog and plus I forgot to check the boxes so I know if you comment back. AND I should have put a blog in the website not my practice. It’s just when you say “your website” I automatically think the one with my name as the location…. I love your blog!!!! It has made me feel so much better about the madness that is our life. We are so much like both of you except we’re a blend of ADHD/OCD. Ok my husband is totally like you with the hyperfocus but sorry that’s not only OCD that’s actually more ADD. So you’re really ADD with hyperfocus. The ADD impulsiveness is what got you in the house in the first place. Not all ADD is just ping ponging around in space never landing on anything. In fact, many of us become much more OCD like and get paralysis from analysis because we so do not want to make a decision that we later regret like the wrong tile for the bathroom. So sorry for the psychoanalysis I just can’t help it, and anyway, I am joking about you being much much crazier, you’ve just exposed more of your craziness than I have and you are also better at writing. I need to work on that. So far no one really reads what I’m writing and it’s more of a diary of sorts. And as you can tell by comments I tend to write like I talk and perhaps I ramble. Your style is entertaining and conscise. LOVE IT! Someone to emulate!
January 30, 2016 @ 11:36 pm
Why didn’t I see this post a couple of months ago before I signed up for Russian 100? Had I seen this post, I might have thought twice and signed up for something easier, like Theoretical Physics 500, or to be the model in an experimental art project where someone sets my hair on fire and people watch me run around like, oh say, a person with their hair on fire.