update
Dear Pans,
You didn’t ask, but I feel like I owe you an explanation for the delay. It’s a tale of two parts.
Part one—work.
Your boy needed the cash, especially after my nest egg was scattered to mere shards of a broken Petromax mantle. At 45, I’m supposed to be coasting, but instead, I’m back to square one—forced to start all over. Snap back to reality, ope, there goes gravity. Like a snail, I had to formulate a plot.
Selling my ass wasn’t an option. It’s not even a viable consideration, because I hold myself to a standard and I wouldn’t wish buyer’s remorse on anyone. The very thought is an affront to god, to decency, to the art of the deal, and above all, to the almighty Taste. After a few days of plotting whether to etch a sketch my throat with a razor, which obviously I didn't—thank you very much "inner conscience"—I strategically placed a couple of phone calls, just like this fantastically written, and clever Simpsons gag, begging a couple of producers I know for anything and everything. I’ve managed to land a gig, then another, and another, and another—totaling about one hundred days of work.
And there I was, fully committed, drowning in the commercial slop, deep end of the slop swamp of "content"—whatever that even means—just cutting like a hamster on a wheel, destined for nowhere. Cut. Deliver. Collect the check so that I can get back to THIS.
Part two—design.
Wordpress, you fuck! You deceitful old fuck! I fucking hated the WordPress site. In fact, hate isn’t quite the right word, because hate takes effort. I didn’t hate it—I just fucking dreaded it. Really dreaded it. Like, really, really dreaded it. More than Kay dreaded Michael’s descent into darkness. Every time I looked at that site, it felt like it was actively trying to break me. It made me doubt everything. My talent. My purpose. My very reason for being. And I couldn’t escape it. Every. Fucking. Damn. Day.
Within minutes of signing up, I was trading curses with myself. All I wanted was basic text formatting and publishing tools, not to crack the code of a user interface version of a Rubik's cube. How do I adjust the margins? How do I set line height? What the fuck is this new "block" editor? What's wrong with the standard editor? What the fuck happened to the standard editor? What’s the fucking purpose of this fuckity fuck of a fucking "block" editor? Who’s in the Saudi group? When was the last time you saw Bin Laden? Arrggghhh!!! I just want to write! If I want to move "blocks" I'll fucking play Tetris. Fuck you Wordpress! I was endlessly searching for the basic tools that should’ve been right there instead of writing and it made me feel just fucking dumb.
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| "Coding, like poetry, should be short and concise." – Santosh Kalwar |
I’ve written more about this maddening odyssey here, if you care to dive in. But to cut through the bullshit—I torched the site and found my salvation in Bear. A simple, peaceful refuge on the web that still remembers the beauty of plain text and markup—and where the noise of the internet can go fuck itself. No gimmicks. No distractions. Just pure, uncluttered focus.
I’ll wrap up this update by saying I’m all ears. Take a look around, read up, and reach out. Tell me what works, what doesn’t, what hits you, what pisses you off. I’ll listen. Well, at least I’ll pretend to. But seriously, your thoughts mean a lot, and I do mean a lot.
Thanks for reading,
V.