Blogging, Part II

[emma glitch]

If it's not up by Tuesday, I'll post the link here anyway.

[scottydog]

I was just hoping somebody would post at the Heroes Blog. I guess it's kind of ironic that I made a big deal out of him being quiet and then get silence for a response.

As you note, silence can be a most powerful response!

I remember first seeing Poitier in his role as a young rebel in Blackboard Jungle, a movie that made me afraid to attend high school.

[RJDiogenes]

And now it looks so tame.

[emma glitch]

Not going to happen today, as I am probably about to have an anxiety meltdown over a completelt unrelated issue.

[emma glitch]

Had the meltdown, got over it, will put off the blogging until such time as I can learn how to manage my site.

[RJDiogenes]

Sorry about the meltdown. Is there anything we might be able to help with about managing the site?

[emma glitch]

I have to learn how to do stuff like create catagories, make sure that blogs go on the pages I want them on, post my avatar, change fonts, install whatever will allow photos to do the automatic slideshow thing, but at a speed that doesn't make my head spin, post links. Whenever I concentrate on one thing, like posting the avatar, and fail miserably, I get frustrated and give up. The friend who normally helps me is dealing with a crisis of his own right now, and the director of the women's business center who provided some, but not nearly enough, design help, apparently was in it to get his hands on a free copy of WordPress for his own use. My hosting site is BlueHost, and I think I may need to change my almost randomly chosen style. I think that might be my problem on Tumblr as well, or at least one of them.

Also, WP seems to like all photos to be exactly the same size, which makes me crazy. And while my About Me page, which I still haven't rewritten, has text crawling up the side of the photo, I wasn't able to recreate that for the Pizzeria Bianco review, also not rewritten. My usual style is to write a first draft, post it in some kind of edit mode, then punch it up on the rewrite, but I have be in a way better mood to do rewrites. I have done some of my best writing with money worries way worse that what I'm going through now, but the difference is that I was living with hope, not circling the drain with half the federal government dancing in delight at the misery they're causing.

Here's the link, I hope: http://emmaglitch.com/. The name of my blog is Emma Glitch's Reason to Live, the tagline, "because every disabled veteran deserves a fighting change for a good life." That's not meant to exclude other disabled people, just to emphasize something that tends to get lost when folks see a group of elderly men and women, that more women in the group than you might think are veterans, and maybe not as many of the men.

Anyway, the list of things I need to learn keeps growing, and I'm not doing well with it at the moment. Oh yeah, and I have no idea how to access the two email accounts. I have written to both amy@emmaglitch.com and emma@emmaglitch.com, and can't find them. It probably would help if I would just call WP or BH customer service and ask for help, and I'll do that later, when I'm home again, but at the moment, I can hardly talk without bursting into tears.

The one shining spot on my blogsite so far is the beautiful banner, which RJ created for me from a photo I took two years ago, my first digital photo that made me happy to have finally gotten a new camera. Sunrise sidewalk is the route I take every morning when I head out for my walk. I just figured out why the sidewalk is golden: not just because I took it right as the rising sun was cresting the mountains when the sidewalk was damp from rain, but that it was close to the equinox, when the sun rises exactly to the east of the bit of sidewalk that runs exactly east to west. It makes me happy to walk that way, and it feels welcoming, especially when Leo and Jim emerge from their house, the second driveway from the top of the photo, and Leo is happy to see me.

[RJDiogenes]

Aw, I hope you're feeling better now that the shutdown seems to be coming to an end.

I think the site looks great. The only problem I had with it is reading the headings on the right-hand side (Recent Posts, Recent Comments, etc), because the text is so light. But all of the links work and so forth and the design is easy on the eyes. I have no idea why the text won't go next to the picture in the pizza review like it does on the main page. Unfortunately, I'm not much help in answering any of those questions, since I've never worked with a site like that. Do they have help pages that are publicly available that I can access?

And I'm glad you like the banner.

[scottydog]

I wish I was there to help you, emma. I use wordpress on my two heroes blogs and I've gotten pretty good with it. It's so much easier when someone is sitting down next to you and can show you simple little steps that will do exactly what you want done. If you have a specific question about photos, for example, let me know and I can try to take you through it step by step.

RJ is right, your website does look beautiful, and I'm inspired by what you're trying to do. I'm going to spend some time exploring it now.....

[Lupine]

Emma's site really is nice looking.

[emma glitch]

Thanks, RJ and scotty. Yes, I'm feeling better, but I must get myself sorted out financially so that I'm not so vulnerable if we get dragged through another showcase shutdown in a few months. This one hit me at the exact time of year when I'm most likely to sink, due to the extra bills trifecta from hell, and while I'm facing up to the reality that I'm not getting a tutoring job any time soon.

I have received enough information about my SSA/Medicare situation, and have discovered a subculture of 65+ disabled veterans, 100%ers like myself, not receiving Medicare, that I can fend off future VA/SSA scare tactics. I know how to get nonVA emergency issues resolved in my favor, so not making $4640.00 in gross personal income by the end of this year (I've made $60) is no longer a problem. And since enrolling in SS retirement at the age of 70 is a better deal than anytime earlier anyway, hey, I have four and a half more years to make up the six units I'm short! Suddenly the half empty glass is half full!

RJ, the banner grabs attention, just as I envisioned it, and now I need to get on with learning how to organize my site. Scotty, I'm feeling more than a little sheepish that I didn't speak up sooner about WP, but I'll be asking questions, and taking a closer look at the way your site is organized. Until a few months ago, I have tended to be a lurker at other blogs. I think I need to feel comfortable commenting, probably due to the pounding I took as a newbie at mbs, bbs and forums back in 2000. Just realized this minute that that's what some other commenter at HuffPo is trying to lay on me at the moment! He's a cyberbully who apparently has a giant gripe against military women, and goes berzerkoid anytime we get any kind of press. If I can turn dealing with his ridiculous need to tear us down into motivation to speak up, and I know I can, I can get this done!

And thanks, Lupy! I like this "new post" feature.

[RJDiogenes]

The best thing to do with Net morons is to just laugh at them. They are irrelevant.

I'm glad the Social Security thing is not a problem anymore. I was a little worried about that myself.

[Madeliaette]

let me know when you are ready to roll and want to get some added traffic, and i will post a link to your blog 'around the www' for you, Emma.

[RJDiogenes]

Good idea. I will do that, too.

[Madeliaette]

blog stats are up again -
386 Bird Story
248 Yoga Tap
235 San Francisco Music News
(think the Naboo piccies pulled in a ton of new readers, perhaps...)