Whew. This has been an ordeal.
You might notice that the blog looks a little different today. That’s because I’ve just ported it over from Squarespace to a hosted Worpress site. Why? Honestly, I like almost everything about Squarespace, but it has one ridiculous and utterly fatal flaw: Its editor has no autosave function.
It’s actually worse than that, because not only does it not autosave, but when you manually save, it takes you out of the post. You save. You go back to the post which is now a “draft.” You click “edit.” And then you can start writing again. This has been an issue for years and when I contact their support team, I get the same answer every time: “Yeah, that seems like something we should have. I’ll make a note of it.”
And then, two weeks ago, I had a Very Big Day and wrote a long post about it. There was no hint of an error, but I decided to save anyway just to be safe. When I did, I received a notification that I had to be logged in to save and the page refreshed, wiping out everything I’d written.
I contacted support one more time, more out of habit than any conviction it would do any good, and, receiving the same answer, decided it was time to move on. So, off to WordPress because I figured with all of the plugins available, surely there would be autosave and a “save draft” that doesn’t take you out of what you’re doing. I won’t lie: This was not an easy transition. It’s been two weeks of frustration punctuated by bursts of success that kept me going through it.
So, where were we? What now?
Well, let’s start with a couple of weeks ago. I won’t try to recreate what I wrote then and try to keep it a little shorter: A friend from high school passed. I drove to his funeral and got to catch up with a lot of mutual friends I’d lost touch with, some of whom I’m sure I will again, and some of whom I’ll try to keep closer this time.
To be honest, seeing some of these folks was the reason for attending. That part was great. Even under the circumstances, it was a good thing to have been there. I will say this, though: If/when I go, please don’t hold a funeral for me in a church. I suspect both my friends and the church will be grateful for that.
To make it a little more complicated, I was actually prepping for a procedure while I was there. I had an MRI scheduled the next morning and needed to watch my diet. I watched it a little too closely, neither eating nor drinking the entire time I was at the event. By the end of it, when I was about to leave, I became terribly dizzy due to it being nearly 100 degrees and being horribly dehydrated. My sister and friends took care of me, getting me some fruit and a soda, so I was fine to make the three-hour drive, but still…that wasn’t clever and it caused them needless worry.
The procedure itself went swimmingly for an 8:30 AM Sunday morning MRI. I was in the tube for 20 minutes, but they let me choose my own music. Poor guys had never even heard of Polyphia. When they hauled me out, one of the techs said “Progressive metal? Huh.” Highlight of my day.
Anyway, there was a lot more that happened throughout the whole weekend, but those were the highlights. That’s probably enough for now about that time. As a fun coda, the doctor’s office called me yesterday and the receptionist told me that the doctor would want to do a biopsy and she’d tell me more about it in two weeks at my next appointment. If you’re trying to make sure someone has a great weekend, telling them that they’re going to have to have a nasty little procedure but not telling you why is a great way to do it.
So, I guess that’s it for tonight. I’ve been working all day trying to get this site looking good enough. It feels like LiveJournal but with all kinds of extra steps, which is not without its appeal, but also kind of a pain. I hope things are good in your neck of the woods. It’s really rough out there, so try to cut yourself some slack.
-RK