So I joined tumblr back last November. I started "using" the site right around the cusp of November-to-December. And I have spent 4 months figuring this site out. And I now feel like I finally know what I want from a theme, what I want from a theme for THIS blog and what I want for a theme for THAT OTHER BLOG, how it is I want to divide things up into multiple separate blogs, which blogs I want to make the ask option available for and which not, and so on. I have some idea of whether I want to use the dashboard, and if so, for what. I have some idea of what things I can post and receive notes from people with really awesome usernames, and what things will get notes from people who have usernames I don't want to be associated with. I understand my own feelings towards the idea of password protect, and how it differs from privatizing a single post, the pluses and minuses to each. I understand (in general terms) my emotional attachment to the archive view over all other views. And so on. I feel like I am starting to have some idea not necessarily of what tumblr IS, but at least some idea of what it IS TO ME.
I've mucked about quite a bit. I've taken note of my own emotional reactions to all sorts of things. I've seen how I feel about the concept of having followers - of different sorts, or even any at all. I've seen how it is I feel about having alleged followers who actually never 'like' or 'reblog' a single thing I say, but probably just followed me hoping I would follow back. I wish I could delete such followers. And so I don't really understand the numbers game that other people seem to be playing. And I've had a time or two where nice big round numbers mess with my head, and a I have felt the ways in which losing followers toys with my emotions, even if they _are_ people that I would have deleted, were that possible. I have told 2 people about the existence of this account, and the ways I thought about my postings after telling someone they existed were very different than the ways I thought about them before that. There is someone who is good to me and who puts up with it if I tell him "no, I'm too self-conscious now, I don't want you read it anymore" and who I trust fully not to read this site if I say that. And then I'll take it back, and say he can read it all he likes, if he cares to, and then take _that_ back, and so on. I don't act that way with anyone else, but I know he won't mind if I'm angsty, and that sort of sureity is quite nice. I've also had the experience of being followed by a person who I don't know in real life who actually seems to care about what I say. And that, for a time, made me look at everything I said in terms of how it might be perceived by that other person. Which was just awful. Really just awful, for a bit, while it lasted, but I managed to find ways to get over it. Which was pretty amazing.
I could write so many pages about all of this. But there are almost certainly more important things for me to write about. I might come back to the subject later, to expound upon it more. I certainly find it interesting. But that's because the subject here is not really tumblr, but rather is myself. And how I do go on about myself, you know.
The word "friend" has been redefined in my head over 100 times these past few months. I don't think that's an exaggeration. 4 months is round-abouts 120 days, and I think the word has meant something new almost every day, and sometimes the meaning changes several times over the course of a single day, so I don't think that's an exaggeration.
I've learned about punctuation - not the things I learned in courses on semantics or the philosophy of language, but things relating to my own personal emotional relationship to punctuation.
A lot of things. A lot of things. Always.
So now, as April is on the very horizon, I think I may be ready to start this thing.
Although to do so properly, I might have to learn CSS properly. You know, I've been a hacker in this life, at times, it seems, at least as some may use the term, but I've never been much of a coder. I don't write code, much. I just read it. And so when I was 13 I was able to get unlimited access to a pay-by-the-hour website I was obsessed with for free, just because the security holes were so massive to anyone who could actually read the code. (It wasn't smutty, btw, it was a latest-news-in-the-art-world type of site.) But _writing_ code... I mean that involves such things as debugging. How annoying!
Oh I know they're poorly laid out, sure. But somehow it seems to amuse me, to not edit things. I don't need to explain the train of logic to myself, because it is all so clear. Even years later, I come back upon things I have written and I may not remember them, but I still can see the things that went unsaid, and how one idea relates to another, even though no one else sees it. (There is a time and a place for editing.)
Tomorrow is April. I wonder if by then I'll have cobbled together an acceptable interim theme. The most important thing at the moment for this particular sub-blog is to have a truly massive header that gets in the way of all content. Probably needs to be at least 700 pixels high, if not higher/taller. Not one of those ones that's semi-transparent and stays in place as you scroll, though. No, that would be just awful.
pixelskylines
vaporwave
discoholicmusic
titsay
