WordPress.com recently announced a return to their old hosting plans. They basically force upgraded everyone with a paid account a while ago; imagine Netflix introduced 4K and then made everyone pay a little more for it, whether they wanted it or not.

The WP.com upgrade “broke” a little bit of The Stop Button actually. The support experience wasn’t great, ending with “well, if you had a supported theme we could help.” There are something like eight supported themes now. There must be a million WordPress themes out there by now—at least hundreds of thousands.

But there were benefits. Plug-ins, mostly. And I suppose I could run Google Analytics but why. The plug-ins allowed for redirections, which meant I could finally retire superseded posts. The redirection plug-in I’m using is actually a 404 redirect plug-in, so I’m finally able to see all the old links still coming into the site. Going back to the Sandvox days. But also a bunch of old colloquial posts, long since gone. I don’t see the content, just the titles, back when I didn’t just number colloquial posts. I can’t even remember if they were on The Stop Button or if somehow I redirected a separate, just those posts blog. Nine years ago is a lot of time on the Internet; heck, I didn’t even remember I stopped blogging about comics and just talked about them on the Comics Fondle Podcast. I mean, I remembered real quick, but it’s not something I keep in active memory. Or even actively in passive memory.

One of my fears of colloquial blogging is repeating the same anecdote. I’ve got a lot of repeat gimmicks on here, starting with the “anyways,” but there are plenty more. Semi-colons and em-dashes galore could be the site’s subtitle. But telling the same bit about how a novel is a house and a short story is a room, or about how I was supposed to collect anything written for my MFA-era Word Count project, not write deliberately for it. One of the nicest things about media blogging is the endless stream of impetus.

Though I suppose if I did anecdotes in media responses, I’d be in danger of repeating them there. I do not, however, and have no plans to start.

But I have a bunch of plans for the rest of the year; scheduling plans. I’ve already started the new “Swamp Thing” show, and I’ve got the next rerun picked. I’ve decided on a movie emphasis, and I’ve got a big comic one picked out. They’ll alternate Mondays.

I’d thought about a new colloquial column on Mondays, and dreading the thought of it gave me an excellent idea for the movies. It’s still related to my constant attempts to recover the feel of “old-time blogging,” but it’s not as on-the-nose as a column would’ve been.

Thanks to running plug-ins, I’ve spent a handful of months rejiggering the site. The final significant change came in the last couple days. I’m not riding the stats, but I check them enough to balance exertion and outcome. The more automated processes, the better.

I don’t have any writing projects planned for the fall outside blogging. For a while, it seemed like I might. Instead, I’ve found the best modern portable typewriter setup—a Macally Bluetooth keyboard with a slot for devices; no trackpad for distractions; you can do a standing iPad setup the way Steve Jobs intended. All I’m using it for is blogging. It’s swell.

I just found out comments haven’t been working. Probably since I “upgraded” to the new WordPress plan. Quotation marks because comments not working is just the latest item on the list of fails related to the new Pro subscription. Besides being able to install plugins—I broke the site with one already, obviously—there’s nothing better to the plan. The site’s worse for the upgrade, but what else am I going to do… use Blogger?s

I could have remained on the previous plan, presumably in perpetuity, but they’d keep reminding me to upgrade since they’ve discontinued the previous plan. Realistically, I had to upgrade. They (WordPress.com) were sure I was going to love it. It immediately broke parts of the site, and they told me it wasn’t happening, but eventually, the ticket got to someone who said, yes, what you’re seeing is real; it happens in a small percentage of cases. But there’s still a visual error they can’t fix because I’m not on one of the eight themes they’re apparently supporting. WordPress, which gave bloggers the choice of tens of thousands of themes, now has limited themes. And none of them are for blogs. They’re all for competing with Squarespace.

But the site looks good on my iPhone, so I’m okay with it. Whenever I test something, I try it on the iPhone. Maybe I’d test it on the desktop if the unfixable visual error weren’t occurring.

Lots has happened lately. Lots in the world-at-large, lots in the world at-small. Lots to encourage more escapism—hence reading five different comic series instead of one—and I’d had some of the plans before anything had happened. I was just sick of waiting on projects, like the WordPress.com upgrade. I was just sick of waiting to do it. Might as well get it over with; what’s the most it could break? The pages, as it turns out. Most of the pages. Not the posts. Ugh. Some of them.

One fun thing the upgrade allows is monitoring 404 errors, which I highly recommend if you’re able. There’s lots of stuff missing from the site—the Batman: Year 100 reread is because someone (or some bot) used a sixteen-year-old link (to a .html file). I’d been meaning to read that one for ages, and it’s inspired me to add a Batman to the regular schedule; like the book says, always start with Batman.

I do appreciate having a detached project (about escapism), however; even if most of it feels like fixing something I paid extra money for WordPress to break. Don’t even get me started on it breaking MarsEdit integration. However, I figured out that fix before even finding the post providing instructions on circumventing the “upgrade” at the app’s site.

If Wombo Dream would just add custom image sizes, I’d be cooking with gas.

I’ve overextended myself on reading and writing projects this year. It was inevitable. The first change was to adjust my movie watchlist for 2022. It doesn’t account for screeners or blogathons, which are not scheduled (albeit with deadlines and embargoes), and are more fun. Even when an ancient watch list item is good, the run-up to watching it is still rote.

I’m also adjusting the Love and Rockets read-through. Instead of two issues a week, it’s going to at least one issue a week. I read those issues three times each and like having dwell time in between.

My prose reading is also in danger, but it’s the thing I want to maintain most, so I’m doing something with it. But, unfortunately, my first idea, a dedicated read day, does not work.

Finally, Selected Declarations is getting out on hiatus. At least the idea of doing it weekly. It’s too indeterminate a space; it’s too many words to free write without writing about free writing.

I have an idea for what I can do with it, but I’m also not particularly enthused with that idea, so it might not be a thing.

2022 was supposed to be freer headspace, but there’s just not enough room. 2022 is taking up too much on its own. I do love escaping into Love and Rockets though. I could probably get away with a double read on each issue, but I like doing the third just to enjoy.

One of the most influential classes I took at MFA school was Systems of Writing; at the time, it helped me balance writing constraints with generative word blathering. Since then, it’s helped me think about approaching various projects. They’re fun to figure out, but then in practice, it’s just going off a watch list I made in 2019 or earlier and checking items off. Even when something’s pretty good, I’m upset it’s not better, especially if it was something I hyped in my youth.

The podcasting is almost entirely fun. Like, “Free Spirit” was a chore, and I pulled a muscle on the exercise bike watching it, but I’d have been biking anyway. Otherwise, those projects are just fun. Selected Declarations isn’t fun, especially since I keep forgetting it. Unlike finding my keys, there’s no endorphin rush after I post it either. I just wonder how I’ll get another one done in a week.

I’m also getting closer to finishing my offline project—turning the guest room slash computer room into a home office, storage, and cat recreation room. It’s been a slog, but it’s also nice not feeling crowded.

Of course, the home office refresh was waiting on Apple to ship Universal Control, so it had better work when it arrives next week.

And so ends this eleven-week attempt at a “lifestyle” post… maybe next time, it’ll run twelve.

My initial impulse for this post was a lengthy history of my personal “let people like what they like” realization, but it’s a real downer. The point was going to be it’s better to write about things you like or talk about things you like and enjoy. It’s immaterial whether you’re standing on the “what you like is what you think is good” hill or not. We serve mai tais from eleven on; mojitos start at one.

We just watched “Wayward Pines.” It is not good. I did not like it. We did watch all of it, and there were better and worse things about it. But I didn’t look forward to it.

Just over half the Halloween movies we’re doing commentaries for on the 709 Meridian pod are slogs. I was worried it was something about being tired, but there are just some things I don’t get interested talking about. There are only so many Joe Chappelle jokes because the joke’s always on the viewer. Doing the podcast is great, but it’s also the point, so goals for next season are figuring out how to have more fun slogging through a bad movie.

On the Onesies podcast, we’ve run into failed late eighties sitcoms not being particularly charming when it comes to… well, characterizations in general. There’s nothing it does well. So there’s a slog to it as well.

Also, I’ll note, there is no slog in Los Bros read-through (well, the porno comic was a rough starter) or Empire of the Summer Moon. Summer Moon’s beyond depressing; we’ve just gotten to the point the Kiowas are trying to decide to fight to the death or surrender, and it seems like extinction is the likely choice. But I’m still engaged with the prose reading goal.

What a day to be navel-gazing. Yikes. It’s February 28, 2022. 2022 is a really shitty year for even more people than usual. I’m pretty sure my writing constraint with Selected Declarations requires I post this post even after realizing it’s a weird time to be posting it.

Shit.

Something similar happened with the last regular blogging as writing practice attempt in 2016.

There’s a really sad pragmatism deep thought to be had right now. Though the way the Internet virtualizes the incorporeal is a very sad story. But the emotions, whether outrage or empathy, are real, incorporeal or not.

In writing class—undergrad, right after 9/11—the instructor came in after the U.S. had done something—invaded maybe—and asked if we wanted to write about it. I was the only one who did, and, unfortunately, all my hot takes probably turned out to be true, but it also would’ve given me a real space to write about it. Though, maybe, undergrad writing did?

Now might be a better time to write, not post, than vice versa. But the writing constraint must go on?

Since the nineties, I’ve been a big fan of movie recommendation engines; my video store had a system called “Clair V.” It was a touchscreen interface; I think you logged in with your phone number. They got the initial data set from customers; I remember filling out worksheets with movie ratings.

Lots of semi-colons in that paragraph.

Since the early aughts, I’ve been using Movielens, a non-commercial engine run out of the University of Minnesota. Despite my lava-hot takes, it’s always been very solid for me. Unfortunately, my dataset isn’t the movie log I kept from 1998 to 2004, which is lost to time. I emailed it to someone once, but it’s not in the Gmail sent folder, so I’m out of luck.

Movielens has an “unusual likes” and “unusual dislikes” section. My unusual dislikes include some Christopher Nolan, District 9 (no shit), and X2; amongst others, not worth listing. However, my unusual likes list contains all fantastic films. On these hills, I stand: Critical Care, Bright Victory, The Funhouse, One Night Stand, August, The Faculty, Purple Violets, and Interrupted Melody.

But Movielens isn’t great for discovery. My top picks haven’t changed much for years. I just haven’t gotten around to watching The 400 Blows again or Ran. I wish I could, but the problem with watch and read lists is they just keep growing.

Starting last year, I’ve also been using Criticker. It’s a little bit different, assigning you cohorts based on your ratings, so while Movielens says I’ll give Licorice Pizza ★½ because Movielens knows The Master sucks, Criticker says I’ll give it ★★★★. Because I’m a cishet white guy who loves Magnolia so I’m in that cohort.

A long time ago, I had a friend who thought the machine learning movie recommendation engines were a fundamentally flawed concept because tastes are too individualized. The last twenty years have proven that sentiment wholly inaccurate, of course, thanks to the Internet and various communities building up around x, y, or z. We’re all basic in one group or another; it’s just a matter of finding that group.

Though there are still times I’ll throw Movielens for a spin. Not as often as Criticker, which didn’t think I’d like The Rider.

One of my very back burner projects is developing a methodology for watch lists based on initial success, critical responses, critical re-evaluation, and legacy. I’m not sure why; I’ll obviously never have time to watch everything, but it seems fun as a project. Though, even in the earliest planning stages, it’d be absurdly United States-centric, just because of available data.

I suppose this post could be an immediate precursor to a Licorice Pizza post.

It isn’t. The next items on the watch list are a Pacino and Pfeiffer duet of Scarface and Frankie and Johnny. Movielens and Criticker are sure I’ll like one of them.

I’m thinking about headspace today. I rushed to write the last three posts for “Wayward Pines: Season One” so they’d be cleared out if we started “Season Two” tonight. We did. More on it soon, but it’s a marked, bewildering improvement. Though the lead acting is also better. And evil Wesley Crusher’s good.

In addition to “Wayward Pines,” I’m keeping up with a handful of new shows, one catalog show (“Free Spirit,” for my just launched new podcast, bringing the active number up to three), the New Love comic, the Empire of the Summer Moon book; I don’t think anything else. I mean, obviously something like Ginseng Roots. I just opened the latest issue’s box (including the charming storage box), but I’ve got no plans to read it anytime soon. I mean, maybe next week. But I’m also running into my 2022 movie watch list being a little more ambitious than I’d have liked it to be. Though it’s also only February, I want to get through it so I can, I don’t know, do something else.

I picked way too many long movies.

I’ve also got these Selected Declaration posts, which are—wait, did I forget something else I’m keeping current on. Something super obvious? Okay, no, I don’t think so.

Other than the exercise, which is daily and often rather time-consuming. At-home workouts when working from home are great and all, but when you exercise for forty-five minutes, it’s always rushed. I’ve meant to split my workouts, pre-work, then lunch, but it hasn’t happened yet. Or it’s happened but only once, and my memory’s hazy.

I’m way too media consumption goal-oriented in 2022. It’s distressing to have so many projects but for time to still drag along. We’ve got snow right now, intermittently; snow and anti-maskers. Swell combination. What a time to eat healthily.

I think I hate first-person writing because of how often I use the word “I” while writing them. Five lines, all starting with “I.” Hate it.

Is SD going to become something I’m loathed to write while still managing to forget it every week? Another missed chance to ass it to the calendar. Instead, it’s about remembering to do a mental dump; it’d help if the dumping helped, but blogging is a hobby, not a wellness activity. It’s entertaining and enjoyable, just not soothing.

Though I have just been falling behind on the book. I’m keeping on target with New Love (got to love how Jaime needs two reads and Beto needs three), and nothing else has an actual deadline.

These big blogging projects usually fizzle out eventually, sometimes for terrible reasons. Not hyperbolically terrible, actually terrible. I wanted to keep 2022 looser. It’s still loose, but the movie list is just way too daunting. Who has the time to watch Branagh’s Hamlet?

I don’t know if I’m having a bad day, but I’m definitely having a disappointing and frustrating day, so I’m trying to relax. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to actually relax and still write this post, so I’m hoping the post manages to chill me out a bit.

Because I should’ve written the post yesterday when I realized I’d forgotten to do it on Monday. Despite having a detailed to-do list, I never put writing Selected Declarations on it. I have no idea why. But I’ve observed the behavior. Haven’t corrected it, just observed it.

I figured I’d wait until today because there might be something interesting to talk about. There’s not. Hence the aforementioned disappointment. It’s more disappointing than the disappointing I had prepared for, which is probably why everything’s frustrating too.

Otherwise, I didn’t have much to talk about.

I’m reading Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History, by S.C. Gwynne, which turns out to be the true story The Searchers is based on. The Searchers is based on a novel I’ve never read, but the story in Summer Moon is historical. It’s a great, compelling, depressing, and distressing read. I imagine it’ll get pulled from libraries someday because it’s all about how barbaric white Christians were in the frontier days, which is the depressing part. The distressing part is how little we’ve changed. At least they learned things back then.

I did have an anecdote about the book and its subject. In undergrad, I wrote a paper on the Comanches for a Native American History class, curious because of The Searchers. Somehow I missed this entire story, making me feel bad about my A.

But what very clearly has not happened, six weeks in 2022, is writing Selected Declarations being a thing I remember to do without prodding. It’s still not too much of a time investment to not keep doing it, but I question what I’ll have after fifty-two of these posts, except the word count. While I admit there are times in life I wish I could’ve blathered cohesively enough to hit a word count, right now isn’t one of them. The blog is very much not one of them.

And not this kind of writing.

Back in writing school, when I did word count stuff, I did incidental writing and then word count writing. There was intentionality to the word count writing. Not actually in line with the way we were doing it, but I needed to get used to getting words out.

Now I’m always ready to crank out four hundred words. I’m permanently set to verbose, regardless of subject.

So, maybe next week will be a good Selected Declarations. There are another forty-six. Anything’s possible?

I just turned back on WordPress’s publicize posts feature for Twitter, which I turned off when I started working on all the catalog posts for podcasts and blog collections. That project took about a month. I intended to do it gradually but steadily, five posts a day, but I started doing them in bulk as I fell behind.

And I didn’t want oodles of “old” posts going live on Twitter. Especially since I’m not tweeting a lot lately. The timeline would just be this episode of that podcast, then that episode of this podcast, ad nauseam. With the same art for most of the posts.

Then if I posted the eBook posts in bulk, it’d look like desperate self-promotion.

The eBook collections themselves may be desperate self-promotion. I tell myself they’re part of the hobby. And they have made money. Hopefully never enough money I have to report it, but it’d be nice to cover WordPress.com expenses. Because WordAds don’t cut it. Or they do every three or four years. Or more. I don’t want to check how long I was accruing the check I finally got a month ago.

The other night, I had occasion to tell someone (IRL) about the blog, and when I explained it was “just a hobby,” I had this odd twinge of aughts shame. Have blogs caught on with MFA students, or didn’t it ever happen? MFA, AWP, etc., are mutually exclusive from blogging because blogging’s not about writing; it’s about creating content. Also, there’s something inherently egotistical about blogging, whereas there are probably millions of worth reading MFA short stories stored in boxes, on floppy disks, forgotten Dropbox folders, Notes apps, and so on. Hundreds of thousands.

Fifty thousand. I’m comfortable saying there are fifty thousand worth reading short stories out there in the world not being read. But this post will be read. Might not be finished, but it will be read.

Just had the wonderful moment realizing I’ve got more in common with Stephen King re: digital fronting than I’m comfortable with. Though I did once say, my Leo only came out online.

If I’m remembering astrological babble I didn’t just impolitely ignore, which basically was the first thirty-six years. Though there’s a lot less of it lately. Recycled generalities can’t really predict a mundane but profound social apocalypse. Mundane, with the asterisk, it’s only mundane from a particular level of privilege. It’s actually a super-duper low one if you’re just white and cis. Like. Disney+ basically turned us into the WALL-E people.

Anyway.

Twitter crossposting is back on. So now I can self-promote better. Get those… eleven hits a month?

Maybe I won’t turn it back on. Good grief.

Or maybe I should just do the passive posting and retweeting thing.

I think I’m going to work on setting that system back up.

I don't know how well I can touch type on this iPad keyboard. Not particularly well based on the number of red squigglies. I forgot to write a Selected Declarations earlier, and now I'm getting the word count in before going to bed, up much later than I ought to be but also… I mean, I can count a nap as meditating and feel good about that classification.

Missing a Selected Declarations post is intentionally low stress. Just make sure to do it later. The goal is the total for the year. I don't want too many rules for it, too many constraints, too many reasons to give up on it. Though I'm still not sure what first-person journaling is supposed to be doing for my writing. It's just a kind of writing I don't do anymore.

Not sure if there's anything more to get from it, but I guess I'll find out.

In other words, I'm still underwhelmed. Of all my blogging projects for 2022, this one is the least, and I'm including making new posts for old podcast episodes, which I already had from when the episodes were released; I just thought I should clean them out. So now I'm recreating. I find that project more amusing at this point. I'll also acknowledge I'm middle-of-the-night spite-writing to get in a word count.

I'm not sure there's an enthusiastic way to free write on that subject.

I did have a topic idea. One with a couple points even.

Maybe there's space left for it. I finished reading Louisa May Alcott's Little Women the other day. I bought a copy in late 2019 or early 2020. I've meant to get back reading, but it's been a pain. Another 2022 reject off to a finer start than Selected Declarations.

I was going to read Little Women before I started writing the unmentionable book project. Not for any specific reason, just something to get the writer synapses firing. Alas, the book did not get written, and Little Women remained unread.

Until this month.

And it turns out it was just what I would've wanted. Alcott's got excellent summary and transition devices. Totally could've aped those in drafting until I cracked them. And reading did almost immediately get me thinking bout writing. After two days of reading, I was taking notes on a writing project.

Haven't made many notes about it since, but the initial interest is the big thing.

I haven't had it for years.

So, if I had written the book, Little Women would've been perfect. Though I'd have wanted to do the imperfect conclusion better than clotting did in Part Two of the novel.

I started reading a paperback and finished with an ebook. With focus mode turned on and no distractions, the ebook on the phone was better reading.

It doesn’t feel right to do a Stop Button Martin Luther King Jr. Day post, so the week’s Selected Declaration will be early. I don’t not have a relevant post; I just don’t have the confidence in it. I’d have to draft, consider, read, reread. I’d take it seriously. And it’s too late for The Stop Button to be serious writing. There was a point where I was going to add cats somehow. Maybe not for a long moment, but it was a to-do item. Less about the site getting cat-hits and more about those darn cats contributing.

It’s been a way too productive day, involving milk paint and… well, okay, I did sleep until almost noon, but I got some dishes done too. I also figured out a combination of long-term to-do structure and text management system in Craft. I was listening to the “Connected” podcast (so it’s bold for blogs, blog column titles, and applications, then quotation marks for podcasts).

I don’t do a Stop Button style guide because there’s so little consistency over the years. There’s no consistency other than italics for film titles and probably bold for comics. Worse, I think there are blog posts where I make remarks deciding on style choices and very much have not. So a consistent style guide is too much. It’s also obnoxious. It would be obnoxious to make one and not in a funny way.

I’m excited about this new system. It’s a stovetop analogy, four burners, then simmer, where active material goes. It’s a living document, as it were. Yuck.

But having it organized in documents and subdocuments means widgets and shortcuts on all the devices. And maybe even keyboard shortcuts. It’s very weird using a good computer during the workday after years of being stuck on a Dell. Gets me way too interested in productivity. Especially since my goal with Craft is to have the perfect bullet journal without having actual paper or digital skeuomorphism. I don’t have the fine motor to doodle up a paper bullet journal; I want the rush of completion and accessible writing space… Experience over interface.

Of course, I’ve only been using this new system for three hours, and most of my daily Craft usage is the calendar.

I’m still taking it as an accomplishment for a lazy Saturday. It’s been a while since I’ve had a free Saturday off. Usually, there’s a reason I’m taking it off, task or travel. So just a Saturday off? Albeit one in the middle of a pandemic where I don’t want to go get the paint additive I need because I’m profiling antique malls as anti-mask and so have to delay parts of my home office project until a new kind of paint arrives in the mail. But a Saturday off.

It also might just be neighborhood kids playing.