a micro blog

So I’ve got tennis elbow. And now a tennis elbow strap to hold the tendon in place.

But at least I know what’s wrong and how to fix it. Sure, it’d have been nicer to know earlier and whatever instead of having to increase my running exercise in ninety plus heat but I didn’t want to go to the doctor until the second shot kicked in so it’s on me.

I wonder if I could write a 134 word sentence. Maybe with some historical events or lineage or the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, something I was way too good at doing. Never met anyone else who did it so it’s weird to find the internet full of similar poor bastards but it’s good to be good at something.

Digging the new Ulysses theme.

I just changed my Ulysses theme to more match a Simpletext theme. Simpletext has three themes (six with light and dark). Ulysses has, you know, hundreds of themes. They’re user-submitted and free, whereas Simpletext—despite being an entirely fine plain text editor for multiple platforms and good for distraction-free writing—was three bucks. Good investment to realize I need to shake it up in Ulysses. I’ve been doing something gimmicky with it for ages so as to bake-in some nostalgia to the cheery computer days of yore, when I not only didn’t realize the world was garbage, I was actively taught it was not.

Simpletext does have a much better stat counter thing going on than Ulysses. Ulysses it’s either a window or a filling ring; Simpletext it’s an artful counter.

We’re watching “Hacks,” which is excellent and just goes to show how much “Watchmen” wasted its cast—imagine an even good show with Regina King and Jean Smart. Anyway, Smart’s great on “Hacks.” And the writing is very post-“Fleabag” but also very eighties, referring back to Smart’s character’s comedy career post-popular sitcom. It’s not what I was expecting (I thought Smart was down on her luck not an empress), but it’s much better in that Rocky Balboa cultural figure commentary. Because it’s not real cultural figures, it’s TV-land or movie-land cultural figures, who are better and a lot simpler and a lot more interesting. Because in real life Rocky would have been a Trump supporter and instead he lives in a universe where Trump doesn’t exist.

What was I saying?

Last night I was thinking I should try shooting for thirty-four words then doing threads. Except thirty-four words is just too few. It’s basically three sentences.

I sometimes go down a rabbit hole with old Stop Button posts where I run stats on them but looking at sentence length has never been my thing. Grade level was a big thing. Until it was the exact opposite. Writing for snobs is a garbage idea because what percentage of snobs aren’t garbage people. More bad ideas I had in my late teens in the late nineties. It’s the whole thing.

I also like marathon sentences. Marathon paragraphs. Marathon reading. Not marathon running.

Maybe the 134 isn’t bad. There’s time for an intro and then a lost subject then a rushed conclusion. Just like anything.

Someone bought approximately twenty-seven ebook Stop Button collections. In the last day, more than have sold in the three months I’ve been actively making collections.

Unfortunately, I have a prime suspect and it’s going to be a thing.

But I could be wrong. I probably am wrong, which means I managed to find a dedicated new reader amongst the Kindle crowd, something I never, ever considered a possibility. I thought it’d take me years to make back the Vellum registration.

The idea for Kindle collections wasn’t even mine. It was podcast co-host Matt’s idea; I was doing the “shift-to-self-hosting” (complete disaster, don’t do it, though Linode’s low fine for an amateur) and he suggested blog collections. I went trying to make a new blog thing instead.

I was wrong.

And now for something completely different. Only not exactly. It’s something completely different but also completely the same. I’m trying out a different writing app. Simpletext, which is just the writing screen—limited theme options—and optional words and character statistics counting up. The fonts aren’t great (and there aren’t custom ones). But it’s very simple, it’s very clean, and it’s something I’m trying in a desperate attempt to keep the microblogging going.

At least for today. I’m also realizing I’m running out of steam at seventy words in most of these posts, which isn’t great because seventy words is just over halfway to the requisite word count. Might have to change the word count.

Today’s big development is putting my watch list in Apple Numbers and making it slow with the cell equations.

It oddly hasn’t been a doozy of a way. Even with skipping lunch. Even with the train being late for the first time ever. Even with dramatic emails. I was more thrown to discover Walmart sells Last Temptation of Christ than anything else. Everything else—except the train—was predictable. Or at least not unpredictable.

My expectation of life events juicing me up on microblogging also—possibly predictably—did not work out. I really don’t want to put off the microblog thing until the fall; there’s already enough stuff I’m putting off to the fall. I’m expecting a momentous July—at the least a schedule changing one—so I’m not doing a lot of planning for it but….

I just can’t get the microblogging to stick. It’s simply not writing I enjoy writing. Bummer.

My morning routine is simple. The alarm goes off, I tell Alexa to stop and give me more time, then either get up before that time is up or end up asking for more time. Raise the shade in the bedroom for glorious Sol light, feed the ingrate cats who have been yowling since at least five (the alarm goes off at six), make coffee, check the email.

This morning however I awoke to an email from my oldest but no longer friend. Sort of.

They used the comment system on The Stop Button and phrased it like a passive aggressive customer comment, which is amazing since they once convinced me I wouldn’t be able to handle a Rhetoric class.

I’ve been waiting literal years for a kiss-off opportunity; now, Fredo, it’s arrived.

I added writing a microblog post to my to do list and it didn’t work out. I mean, I’m doing it, but I’m doing it right before bed. Maybe my best early microblogging time was when I was running out to get coffee before work. The rhythm, the rhythm I’ve been struggling to find, is not happening. I’m not sure why exactly. I have suspicions and I’m not sure what to do about them. Dwell on them. Consider them.

I also missed another one of my potential writing times because I sort of forgot I meant to try it as a writing time. It was hot out and I was more concerned with the walk than typing on my phone and walking.

Not to mention I dropped the phone on my run yesterday. Oops.

I’m trying something new with this post—this compliant microblog project post—I’m doing it before another post. For Stop Button. “Loki,” Episode One. Use it as some dental floss, which would then make a regular post something I swish around my mouth and spit out. Change mouth for head and it’s pretty close.

I did not have any success writing any microblog posts today. Lots of file sorting. I’m almost done. NeoFinder is running the cataloging now. I got rid of a lot. I got rid of things I was once like, I’ll never get rid of this. But if you’d told me then about the last six years… Or more the last forty-two; I’m thinking timey-wimey for the “Loki” post. It won’t make the real one, but Hartnett’d be better.

When I was getting ready for bed last night I thought, “Have I done my microblog for the day?”

Nope.

Nope, I had not.

So now I’m back starting from scratch on the thirty-four day uninterrupted run.

July 11. If I can turn it into a habit, at which point I’ll no doubt toss it into Vellum for a very special Stop Button collection and keep going like it’s nothing.

I don’t know why daily writing practice is so hard at this point. It’s been about this hard for years, but I can usually force myself into the rut. Now there isn’t a rut, everything is an even plane, and I don’t think of it as a chore, task, pleasure. Maybe because it’s an inessential. There’s no word count accountability to it anymore.

Sorting out an old school iTunes ate my music library problem, even with a backup, takes a lot of time. I didn’t get much Oregon Trail played today, though the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla DLC probably has more to do with it. Though I did have to fiddle to get the PS4 remote play setup. It was unhappy, but settings could fix it. Settings could not fix the controller interfering with the Magic Trackpad so the Trackpad is temporarily on USB-C.

I’m doing all right with the file sorting (I just remembered I have NeoFinder and can put off dealing with things; I’ve done more than I thought I would).

I’m trying one more thing with the Times Machine setup and waiting on something in the mail tomorrow. I’m maybe closer to done now.

Even after being sans water in Oregon, I failed to realize how much I like being around water. Colorado’s got mountain lakes and drainage canals. Nothing in between. But I’ve also failed to realize how much I like trees. I know I like green versus arid or brown but I’d forgotten the actual tree. I blame summer camp boredom and the great outdoors.

It’s overcast but sunny. A diffused sunny. Not eighty or much past. Kind of perfect.

Sidewalk could be wider.

When we went into lockdown I assumed I’d never miss being outside. I’m not sure I miss it yet—there are still people out here—but I’m surprised how nice it can be. In very small doses. Half hour to close the exercise then out.

Or in, as it were.

Hashtag fitness.

In my hard cleanups I found a nice 50gb disk image of lossless music rips. I’ve got nice AAC copies in the Music library, but I thought—why not. Why not try to bulk add a bunch of duplicates to my Music library?

Because Apple Music is going to screw it all up. Apple Music as in streaming stuff, Apple Music as in Apple Music app. It wiped out most of the files I found and added and the files they’d be replacing. Why? Because Apple Music Match.

Luckily I’ve got a backup because I learned after twenty-three years of this crap—though not of the lossless versions but if I haven’t been missing them they’re just gravy—and I’ve decided I’m busting my music files out of Music.app’s control. Symbolic links FTW.

I know I’m at least trying to be around about the running as regular exercise because it’s so hot out everything looks hot in the bright light. There’s only like one bird chirping. The rest are trying to hide from the heat no doubt.

I’m slower on my warm up thanks to trying to figure out Ulysses for iPhone. It might work out better. I have my regular run course plotted based on elevation. Trying to bake in more relaxing portions.

Wow, it’s hot. My arms are warm. My shoulders are warm. It’s napping in the sun with a lot of sunscreen on warm. So long as you get enough of a breeze. I wonder if anyone’s got their sprinkler going.

Yep. Past time to start.

This posting on warmup isn’t going to work.

I’m losing the daily microblogging enthusiasm. I’ve never been able to do a procedural navel lint investigation of my computer file sorting practices. There was one time I did it with blogging apps, back when Ecto was dying and MarsEdit was very different so I waited a long time to jump ship. I like timed how long it took me to do the same post in each and wrote about it. I don’t even know where. It’s probably long gone. But MarsEdit won and I’ve been with it since.

Except, oddly, for this microblogging thing. I just do Ulysses straight to micro.blog because it’s little writing and I don’t look at the HTML and there aren’t categories. Also I wanted to use Ulysses as the single writing app, including notes. It’s working basically fine.

White male confession time. I listen to some podcasts I wouldn’t admit to in public. Though I did admit to listening to Ben Thompson on the “Studio 60” podcast (though I’m not sure if it made the final cut); but I finally had to stop with the Dithering subscription. However I can’t give even a buck fifty a month to John Gruber anymore. White guys I would eventually throw water on in social settings have to go.

Otherwise I think all of my other subscribed podcasts are solid picks. I even signed up for ATP just because one of the hosts has a good “reclaim woke” monologue so it’s not all Northeastern white gen-xers who are a little too rancid to keep.

Friday’s my podcast day. All day long. So weird it’s standard.

A different podcast I was listening to a few weeks ago talked about “imposter syndrome,” which isn’t what I misunderstood it to be.

At the options exchange, I don’t think I had imposter syndrome. If there were a bunch of people who felt capitalism was deeply revolting, they’ve still never come to surface. I really just was an odd person out.

Maybe less with the history in undergrad. Though it’s hard to tell. Definitely in MFA school. Not in library school but I was already in a library so I knew I could hack it. Since then… yeah, definite imposter syndrome. What’s the solution for imposter syndrome?

My default right now is, “Thanks, I Hate Everything.” I blame “Bob’s Burgers,” but it’s also just… not a lot likable right now. When’s “Ms. Marvel” air?

I’ve yet to recapture the microblogging fever I had last week when I couldn’t stop with the 134-word posts. Rat-a-tat-tat, clinking (versus clacking) away at the iPad keyboard, one after the other.

Been too busy. Been too distracted with work and projects and work and projects and work and projects. Different work, different projects, all mindscape consuming. How isn’t mindscape a word, Apple? Seriously?

Anyway. Headspace. Not enough headspace. I’m carefully sorting through old files and trying to find the best home for them. Sometimes the best home is oblivion. Lots of them are headed to oblivion. I heard comment on a podcast today about back ups not being what they used to be thanks to the cloud. I agree with the comment, yet I continue sorting and backing up.

Does anyone else have the “any and all 1Password updates break the Safari extension” problem? I have to uninstall the app and reinstall to get it to work. Every. Single. Time.

Well, at least twice and I think three times. Because I had to do it again today and it seemed like something I’d done more than the time I finally just decided to do it because I wanted passwords to work. The iCloud Password Keychain or whatever is so piddly compared to 1Password. (Especially since Apple bought its staff 1Password).

But I don’t want to look it up to find out if it’s a widespread bug and I don’t want to email support unless it’s not a widespread bug. Instead I just want to burn through a microblog post on it. Sort of.

I have a project idea I don’t hate.

It’s months from having to do anything about it. But I don’t hate it. And it doesn’t require collaborators. It may be a good idea. Not sure if it’s a good idea or a good idea for a project. Also not sure where the difference would be; though I guess it’s—is it a good idea for me or is it a good idea. I’ve got plenty of good ideas for other people to do.

Whether or not I want to kick something like it off… though it does have further potential too. Like it’s not a bad idea. I almost like it.

Hopefully I’ll forget about it by tomorrow.

But it also hits the right nostalgia button. It might even hit like three of them.

I got a Stream Deck XL. Not because I’m going to stream, rather because its thirty-whatever buttons I hit whenever I want a particular action. I heard it’s no good with Macs—and you need Keyboard Maestro—but it runs Automator apps and it runs AppleScripts so I’m not sure what else I’d want to do with it. It also can open weblinks. It does all I need.

Which means I can get started playing with the icons maybe tomorrow. My projects have thrown me off a little. As did being able to actually complete my run successfully today. My time even got a little better. But my original “let’s sort the hard drive” project has fallen to the wayside, with a OmniGraffle thing instead taking over. Looks too nice on the iMac.

I miss emails. I don’t write a lot of emails anymore. Emails were fun.

Not managing them, sorting them, reading them (confession: I had to force myself to read emails better, my particular skimming technique did not scale). But writing emails. It’s the egoist in me. My Leo only comes out virtually.

Of course, it might just be sitting in the dark on an actual day off, good lady wife suffering through the sawing through metal with me, emails seem more fun to write.

However.

I’m writing on the iPad (with Bluetooth keyboard), not sitting at the desk and clacking away on the mechanical keyboard.

It’s a different writing experience. Something I had to learn way back when, how to write on a laptop versus how to write on a desktop. Laptops just better.

I didn’t sleep well last night. I hurt my arm a couple months ago and I need to deal with it (i.e. go to the doctor) and so I’m intentionally sleeping funny. But I got up around 4:15 to let Shaz out and I never got fully back to sleep, just an uncomfortable seventy-five minutes.

So it’s been a lot of coffee and no Advil, which seems a mistake.

I saw a Twitter ad for Advil either last night or this morning and it was very appropriate; more ads for crap I actually might want—it’s like when I used to use ad credits to run ads for The Stop Button. Who the hell needs to see an ad for a blog… what was the blog aggregator you could buy banners on?\

We’re sitting in the dark because solar panel installation repair of a repair of a repair of a repair. My tinnitus is going off, something I hadn’t realized the air purifier gizmo was covering. I prefer the air purifier. The tinnitus just sounds like something wrong.

I’ve decided on a couple new projects, but they’re more about organizing than producing. They may lead to production. They’re mostly just kind of fun organizing things. Hobby, of course, not interest. Requires a subscription app.

I’m also trying to prep for another wire purge. Prep myself for my disappointment in myself. Going through wires is like going through a combination of nostalgia and dreams, with nothing left but a tangle of disappointment at bad purchase decisions.

Also ordered some more USB C adapters to continue the circle.