it's about dang time

well, it's happened: I hate the design of this blog now.

It was awesome and fun at first - so kicky and daring! THen, it got comfortable, Then....it got boring. Much like many relationships, the action between me and it has soured over time. It's been around for almost 6 years. That's time enough. This dissatisfaction is brought on, not truly shockingly, because I read around. Oh yes, I do - I read sites that are fresh, simple, inviting, not clogged up with links and crap, and I like that better than what I have now.

Then I read sites that TRY to be fresh, simple, inviting, blahblahblah, and once you get to a certain level it becomes clear that *WHAM*! They're only there because the author Has A Book and Needs A 'Blog' to be accessible to the masses, and you know what? That is bullshiat of the very highest order and a smack in the face of all of us who rode that awesome wave of personal bloggerism a few years ago to great effect and many a new-forged friendship. It's like falling for someone only to find they're paid to look good instead of just being naturally attractive and alluring, you know??

Fine. I get it. I know most of you who were hanging ten on a gnarly rip of writing 5 years ago have hung up the board and, and the rare occasion, maybe dip a toe into the shallow waters of Facebook to get your word on, so perhaps my protectiveness of our goofy kind of bloggery is terribly Quixote-ish, but I can't help wanting to shoo off the (sexyfake) interlopers from what was once a rich territory of content, argument, friendship, and exploration.

Now, mind both of you, I have friends of long-standing who are wonderful authors and who have blogs too, and those blogs mention the books, but for real you'd never really KNOW they were book writers because 1) their 'real 'blog is terribly engaging and fun and 2) the whole advert thing is wicked understated and 3) they don't go around posting pictures of themselves and their families in the World's Most Attractive Light and pretend they did it themselves (as one site I just went to did and offended me terribly. Perhaps I am just cranky). Authors with blogs who SAY they are and don't go all nuts with the marketing slick as goose shit angle have their charm and attraction. They keep it humble, and I like that and thus will support them and their quirky writerly ways. Those other ones? With the 'hey I'll give you a peek of my awesome life because it's always photographed in long light with multiple softboxes while we, who are in color-matched clothing, pretend to play LEGO' way? Get the fark off my street. Yo head too big for our sidewalks.

Long and short, and this goes out to those people that I KNOW will understand - I miss our bloggy days, I really do. They were fun, right? Sure seemed like it.

And I tell myself that maybe I don't like blogging so much anymore because I hate the look of this place now and am ready to shed it like a 90's hairdo, but it's really more that somehow our community got stolen and there's nobody much around anymore and even IF I'd started writing just to Write, it's not enough to shout into the wind anymore.

I can do that on real paper, and with a great deal more vitriol and spunk than I do here.

So, I don't know. Would a fresh coat of paint and a new outlook refresh this dark little corner, or is it as futile as wallpapering a condemned home?

If the former, then I'm looking for new ideas for this place, and if the latter, I guess I'll see you on Facebook (but NOT PINTEREST, NEVER!!!!! [for reasons only my own]).

Also, let's get together soon, it's been too long since we've seen one another.

Also, also- I'm not ever quitting writing, but it'd be so much more fun if You wrote too. Facelift or not, I expect I'll be tapping feebly at the keys of NAY for many more years, because my handwriting now sucks and I can't hold a pen long enough to write a whole journal entry. Typing all this MentalDross out is the wave of the future!

I do not have a diagnosed motor insufficiency, BTW. I just haven't handwritten anything in so long that it hurts to write more than a paragraph or two. Thought you ought to know...

Tiff out.