When I started this post a very long time ago* the title was Another Day, Another Technological Disaster, & the problem was this was so overwhelmingly true that I couldn’t force myself to stay that extra hour or two facing & interacting with a technological device & write you a blog post. I was** maniacally focussed on finishing DIARY for the 3rd or 4th time*** & by the end of too many hours arguing with myself about word choice, paragraph placement, & whether or not the book really needs that scene where grzzgleffskuurzot xxyshooblahvungdorp???†, I couldn’t do the computer thing another MINUTE. Besides, I probably needed to gallop the dog again.††
Contributing to, or rather the very very final straw to the whole tech-mayhem thing, remember I told you that Facebook wouldn’t let me in? I was locked out, with no apparent option beyond looking at that infuriating chained-up cartoon box forever. I did have two nice people, in response to that blog post asking if anyone knew a live human being who worked at FB, email to say that they did. One person’s contact either didn’t get their query or I didn’t receive their reply††, & the other one offered what looked like a reasonable suggestion but it had no effect on the chained box. I sent it on to Blogdad & he said . . . erm, well, I didn’t actually follow what he said, but the idea was that the suggestion was for a less-locked-up, banned, exiled, dungeoned, repelled by fierce warrior-mages with serrated enchanted swords with my name etched on them, etc, situation than mine.
Meanwhile, back at my poor Contact-Robin email . . .
FACEBOOK, WHICH HAD LOCKED ME OUT, STARTED SENDING ME FRIEND UPDATES. Which I don’t want, can’t remember why they’d be on my FB page anyway, since I don’t think I ever used FB much????, but I can’t get to, because if I click on one of these infernal affronts, I run smack-dab into the [VERY BAD LANGUAGE] chained-up [********] box again. & WHY HAVE THEY STARTED SENDING ME THESE OUT OF THE SLOBBERING DOODAH BLUE IN APPARENT RESPONSE TO FACEBOOK REFUSING TO GIVE ME ANY ACCESS TO MY ACCOUNT??? Upon the realisation that I’m to be hammered by updates I can’t turn off I realio trulio flipped out††† &, because I am a sane, responsible, mature adult human being, my excellent answer to this was to stop ever going to the web site/blog/public email box at all. ‡
So a few extra apologies to anyone who has written to me in the last x weeks, because I haven’t seen it. I had actually made a stab‡‡ at keeping up with my writing-to-the-writer email when I, which is to say Blogdad, launched The Flying Piano a few centuries ago or whenever. Sigh . . . ‡‡‡
HOWEVER. I HAVE NEWS. AMAZING NEWS!!!!! To begin with, I have a guest. Orli. My over-achieving librarian friend. Her skill set includes being technologically overachieving & while I have found I may sometimes be able to tease her into having a bit of her holiday as a holiday by reminding her of all those books I’ve suggested she read§ which just happen to be available on my shelves, mostly she hangs around saying, What can I DOOOOOO to help?§§ She’s been hearing me screaming (remotely) about FB since this revolting Grand Guignol racket began, so she brought her vorpal blade with her§§§ & said I AM GOING TO RESCUE YOU FROM FACEBOOK.
& she has. She’s actually tried to explain to me what she did, but it flew over my head like an eagle over a somewhat dim tortoise, & NEVER MIND. The thing is, she got in.¥ & the note saying I WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH FACEBOOK but you can find me on The Flying Piano, is pinned up, with the disturbingly recent selfie, but yeah, sorry, that really is pretty much what I look like ¥¥. However, if I’m going to tell people to come find me on The Flying Piano I had better be there, hadn’t I?
So, hi. I hope I’m back. At least occasionally. ¥¥¥
* * *
* I don’t want to look back & see just how long
** All right, still am
*** This is the LAST TIME. This time I mean it. YES. I think I’ve already told you that I sent it to Merrilee after I finished it the first time & so she’s read it & confirms it’s a book. Which removes the immediate killer weight of DO I NEED A DAY JOB (when I’m too old for anyone to hire me)? Usually I don’t want anyone to read anything till it’s as FINISHED as I can make it but I wanted earlier input on DIARY. I’m assuming I’ll revert to type with the next book.^
^ Sigh. For almost twenty-five years I did have an early reader. Peter. Siiiiiigh. Well, I want—am planning+—to go on writing++. I will remember how to do it without help. SIIIIIIIIIGH.
+ Including that Genghis & I need to eat. Writers don’t have pension plans. Also I buy too many books#, rose-bushes, little noodgy things aka tchotchkes, silly t shirts like the one I am wearing today which says IT’S WEIRD BEING THE SAME AGE AS OLD PEOPLE, jigsaw puzzles, etc.
# Shock horror! Film at eleven!!=
= I lie. No film.% At eleven or any other time. But I am planning some day to video Genghis cruising the ground floor of this house%% for the dog treats I hide on shelves & in corners & under throw rugs & in keyholes%%% & buried in dog beds%%%% every day after (his) lunch. I will do this as soon as I am capable of using some video thingy on some current piece of technological disaster without me screaming or it blowing up. See main blog post. If I ever get back there.
% It has been gruesome enough scwurdgling$ a new photo for various internet purposes UGGGH. But that’s kind of what this post is about. I seem to be getting off track?$$
$ SCWURDGLE. A verb pertaining to someone who for professional reasons has been strongly advised they must have a photo of themselves on line, who must then & therefore produce one. This painful, loathsome & embarrassing process is henceforth to be known as SCWURDGLING. & if the sound perhaps resembles attempting to poke a banana cream pie through a sieve without harming the pie, well, yeah.
$$ REALLY???? SHOCK HORROR.
%% henceforth to be known as Wildrose
%%% I think I’ve told you Wildrose is a standard double-front Scottish Victorian. It has most of its original doors, which have standard Victorian skeleton-key keyholes. Which are big enough to wedge a bit of dog biscuit or chicken jerky in.
%%% There are a RIDICULOUS number of dog beds. This is partly from having had three dogs & two houses in a previous life, but even so.
++ There had better not be any outcries of Shock horror here. Ahem.
† You see the problem.
†† German Wire Haired Pointer ENERGY LEVELS!! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!^
^ He’s coming up eight years old. Shouldn’t he be thinking about slowing down a little???+
+ Manifestly. No. Arrrgh. I also have to hang some photos of him here. I WILL. I WILL. Just as soon as I am capable of using some photo thingy on some current piece of technological disaster without me screaming or it blowing up. THE POINT I WAS ABOUT TO MAKE is that he’s liver-coloured, which in a GWHP means the dark spotted brown has an overlay of longer harsher white hairs, & there are definitely more of the white ones on his muzzle & his tail than there were three years ago when I brought him home. If he wanted to promise to LIVE FOREVER I’d grin & bear the energy level better.# But I need him to have a nice mellow middle age so I can bring home a puppy or puppies to get the next generation going without killing myself keeping up with insane GWHP energy levels & simultaneously insane all-standard-puppy energy levels. I do not want to go through the dogless thing again. It was bad enough when I still had a husband. I think I’ve already told you, three & a half years ago I nearly fell in Pav’s grave & stayed there.##
# Give up an excuse to GRUMBLE?? Naaaaaaah.
## Well, I was determined to dig it myself. &, you know, ME & grief. Plus solitary Covid lockdown. Really not a good mixture.
†† See: Another Day, Another Technological Disaster, & yes this most emphatically includes Outlook
††† You can still see the marks on the ceiling
‡ Which is now several hundred doodahs longer what with one thing & another, including all the come-ons from people who want to provide blog posts, for a fee of course, or to improve my web rating, for a fee of course, or blah blah blah BLAH for a fee of course. Why does decaying-faecal-matter Outlook block or spamify, for example, emails from friends who are even on my contact list, but let this phishing rubbish through????
‡‡ A stab like maybe attacking a brick wall with a quill pen
‡‡‡ Will I ever return to this state of grace? Of answering at least some of my book mail? We live in hope.^ But, like, don’t count on it, like don’t count on that quill pen making much headway on the brick wall.
^ What do you mean we, white person?
§ The recommendation list is much worse the other way round. She’s a fast reader. I am not.
§§ Librarians are a race apart. This helpfulness thing.
§§§ I have no idea how she got it through airport security. I suppose they’re not set up for vorpal blades.
¥ Clearly there are things you can only do on site, or Blogdad would already have done them. The only reason I may persevere in trying to understand what she’s telling me is so I can tell Blogdad. I think a better idea is to ask them to talk to each other while I do a nice jigsaw puzzle. Or take Genghis for a walk.
¥¥ I’m seventy-one years old!^ What do you expect! & hey, great wallpaper. I had to do MASSIVE not to say crushing^^ renovations on Wildrose, some of which I hope to spin fascinating blog posts out of at some point in the future, & most of it went pretty well. Definitely including giant pink cabbage roses on the walls of my bedroom.
^ Readers of the old blog may remember I start calling myself my new age the summer before I actually turn that age, so I can enjoy my birthday when it happens. I officially turn 71 in November.
^^ Yeah. Say crushing. See: plan to keep writing & need to eat.
¥¥¥ I also still have to fill out the poor sparse new web site too. AAAAAAAAUGH. Not today.^
^ After I turn DIARY in for the 1,000,000th time. Promise.