what do you do?

never, ever write that you will be back somewhere ’shortly’, because inevitably you will be completely unable to log onto your blog for over a week if you do.

i transferred from my old desktop to my laptop full-time, but lost a lot of settings and the ability to log on in the process. it was dark, dark times. but i’m baaaaaaack!

i have nothing to talk about, mind you, but at least i made it.

see you all when i DO have something more to say, which i am definitely not saying will be shortly.

today i have mostly been yelling “unnngh!” in frustration, being put on hold with talktalk and messing around with PCs. so tomorrow i’ll actually have to do some of that… oh, what’s it called? oh yes: WORK.

but! after that i plan to see to emails and catch up with friends and maybe even live to blog again. no promises, though…

update: in case you were wondering, this is the info you need. i can’t make sense of it all (yet) but i will… i’m so stubborn that not being competent in the behind-the-scenes side of blogging is killing me: i want to do it aaaaall! (from design to coding, to writing seriously: i’m a control freak).

i want a bit of a newer, fresher, easier-to-update look for this blog — and i also want to learn more HTML, some CSS and get more up to date with wordpress.

all of which is my excuse for the fact that this blog may go through a funny-looking, awkward stage (or two). bear with me - i’ll keep on blogging, and things should get good-looking again one day.

and if not, well - change keeps life interesting, doesn’t it?!

some unrelated ways you can maybe help me (well, it *is* my blog…):

1. i’m doing a project kinda thing (you know you love it when i get specific!) about women, men, gender, technology and the internet. if you have any relevant info or see any sites i should know about relating to any/all of the above, please email me a link. i’m collating everything here, so you can see what i have so far.

2. i’m putting together another secret project to do with blogging, and i also need help with that: i need you to recommend great blog posts (specific posts if possible, rather than just great blogs - and they can be your own posts!) one proviso: they need to be relatively clean. i haven’t set up a place to collate these yet, but i will in due course. (don’t you love the saying “in due course”? it sounds official yet could mean anything. i use it to mean “soon… probably”.)

3. and in non-tech related news… on my way back from america last year, i had a fantastic meal on the plane (i know!) of chicken and sweet potatoes in a chipotle sauce. which was serendipitous as i’d just watched rachel ray cook with chipotles… but i can’t find them in the UK. do we have a different name for them, or are they just not available? i have the recipe, i just need the chipotles… help!

*hey, that’s my second beatles-lyric title this week. will i make it three?

no, i will not.

today has not been good, to say the least. i need to deal with some stuff that’s stressful and not conducive to a happy holiday, and i’ve felt anxious and tearful. in fact, i’ve had to keep reminding myself of my favourite mantra: “no-one has died… no-one’s going to prison”.

so i’ve been in need of inspiration, to say the least. thanks to my friend keris, i have it. through her blog, i found alex beauchamp’s sites (there are many, going back many years, to peruse - for an online girl like me, this is as good as finding your favourite new author’s back catalogue available free).

today i found the perfect piece of writing to comfort me on alex’s girl at play blog. it’s not about what i’m going through today, but it is about something i can relate to. i’ve experienced the fear and self-doubt she describes, and worried i wasn’t talented or healthy enough to move forward with my life.

i’ve sometimes done things wrong, to protect myself. i’ve pretended i was okay when i wasn’t, tried to fool myself that i wanted things i didn’t, used the wrong techniques to motivate myself, and lived in fear of failure. often i still do.

none of this is relevant to my problems today - and yet it is all relevant. i can’t help feeling that being really clear about your goals, trusting the universe to provide and believing in yourself brings good into your life. whereas living like everything will always end in disaster - aka: my modus operandi - doesn’t. i rarely feel happy; instead i feel smug when things go as badly as i’d predicted. it’s a comfort, but a very small one.

so i’m forced - no, i choose - to ask myself the hard questions from now on. for me, the hard questions are: what do i want to do? (never mind what people think); what is right for me? (never mind what people think) and what will make me feel good? (never mind what people think).

i wonder what might happen if instead of expecting the worst, i expected the best.

what if i do the things i really want to do, go after the things i really want from life, refuse to take on projects that bore me or aren’t worthy of me? (that was hard to type, but it’s true: some things - and even some people - are not worthy of my time, and the better stuff will never come my way if i don’t stand up, speak out and move on).

i’ve always known this, but now i have an example. in alex, i have proof that following your heart, refusing to compromise on happiness, and being true to your creativity can be the best move you could ever make.

in the darkness, i see a chink of light.

i smell hope.

i feel inspired.

it might be an oddly threatening letter from five years ago.

too funny!

lately i’ve been fascinated by diablo cody. i love her punk/goth/rock style, the fact that she’s my age and an oscar-winning screenwriter, and that she is witty and brash and cool; cool enough to blog about how dorky she sometimes feels, which just makes me like her more.

i found her fascinating before juno won its mucho awards, or before i read her book. i’m interested in her life, in how she got where she is today, and the fact that she changed her name to the spanish for “devil”.

but i was in no hurry at all to actually watch juno. partly because everyone kept talking about how witty and edgy and brilliant it is, and it always gets my back up when everyone tells me how much i’ll love something. and partly because i felt a sense of ownership, like: ”i knew about this movie months ago! i know so much about it i don’t even need to see it!”

but mostly it was ‘cos of the whole pregnancy-plot thing. as i once blogged for the guardian, hollywood has trouble handling unwanted pregnancies.

of course, i watched it in the end.

(more…)

i was trying to sign into my email account dianeshipleyworks, but for some reason i keep getting an error message.

then i saw what i’d typed by mistake: dianeshipleyrocks.

i had some trouble with my desktop PC.

my alphasmart portable word-processing device decided to stop transferring files to my PC.

i started craving the convenience and flexibility of a laptop.

i earned some money.

i found out laptops were tax deductible.

i saw some special offers on laptops.

i started reading martha beck’s 4-day win (thanks for the tip, keris - it’s great!) and bought into her concept of small and large rewards.

i set myself a goal: to do an awareness meditation for 5 minutes every day, for 4 days straight.

i successfully completed my goal.

can you guess what i bought last night?

if you can’t, you must be even more dazed and confused than i feel after working almost all weekend… when i can think in paragraphs again i’ll fill you in on my university interview: hopefully soon.