Wednesday, June 9, 2021

Murrtle Forges On


Back when I was working downtown, I got to recognize this one old lady who always crossed the street at 6th and Clay. She'd get a jump on it, if you could call inching headlong a "jump," poking her walker out just past the parked cars before her Walk light came on, to take some of the distance out. Then it was full speed ahead, a gritty, determined, thoroughly terrifying clank-and-shuffle in front of three lanes of temporarily halted cars, and anyone could calculate that she wasn't going to make it to the sidewalk before the light went green again. Not even, really, close. We didn't know who would be barreling down that last lane hoping to turn left and catch the next light before it turned. She bore down on those last few yards with a scowl that could stall out an Oldsmobile, and that alone gave her enough edge to live to see another day's trudge. It was the stuff of nightmares.

Let's call her Murrtle, because if she's no longer with us, she probably came back as my blog.

Something must be done about my blog because there are only so many days left it's going to be able to get all the way across the street without being creamed by the march of progress. Anyone can sense there's a problem just because, well, look at it: it's written on parchment and the wallpaper is clearly from an old-lady dress. It's a cranky old template from the early days of Google blogging and I have to dust the screen with pounce and set my signet to the seal before I can post anything.

It's old.

And when stuff gets old, it quits working as well. Things give out. I mentioned recently that Feedburner, the doodad in charge of my blog subscriptions, was about to quit visiting the Home because it can tell I don't remember it anymore; and shoot, it's old enough to retire, itself. The same year Feedburner came into being, a ton of babies were born who have now graduated from high school, bought up the company, and dropped enough on their houses to send a thousand people each to a homeless camp.

It's old.

I don't need a lot out of my blog. I used to think I could keep or gain an audience by keeping the quality of my (cough) content up. I don't want it to depend on some gizmo somewhere that I use but don't understand.

But I am terrified of starting a new blog site. What if all my archives disappear? And why do I care? I don't know. I spent over fifty years of my life thinking of mysef as a writer, but not actually writing. Since I retired, I've been spraying words all over the place. I've scattered essays in legitimate publications that people have heard of. Right here at Murrmurrs, I've written over 1300 posts averaging about 600 words each. Even if you take out "flang" and "poop," that's a lot of words. I'm about to finish my sixth novel. I've got three other books written that aren't novels. I. Am. Not. Blocked.

At the same time, I have no plans for the afterlife. I don't expect any of the atoms I've been using to recognize each other after I'm done with them, and even if I merely live on in memory, it won't be for long. In fact, I don't think any of our kind will be around for too much longer. I'm finding it easy to give away my possessions. I'm not hanging onto things. So I don't know why I care that the words I've hammered together live on.

But I do.

37 comments:

  1. Oh, Murr.... I hope that you find a way to keep your blog -- and your archives. I enjoy reading your take on things, even if/when I don't agree. And your commenters, too, always seem to have something interesting to say. I don't follow too many blogs, and most of the ones that I DO follow, I can't comment on because they have it set up that you MUST have a Google account to do so. Google has its fingers in too many pies, if you ask me.

    I, too, think that when we're dead, we're dead. No afterlife. God/Heaven are just Santa Claus for grown-ups. Because it's fucking scary to contemplate one's own death, especially when you don't have a metaphysical belief system in place. Hence my high levels of free-floating anxiety. It's also scary to contemplate that humans are quite likely on their way out, and comparatively soon. I read a scientist (can't remember who) who said that we were already past the point of no return with climate change 20 years ago. All this canvas bag/electric cars/recycling is just too little, too late. At this point, it is just theater designed to give us the impression that we can do something, so we don't all panic. Too late, dude: I've been panicking for years now, and I'm only getting worse.

    In case your blog does suddenly just go poof, I want to tell you how much I enjoy these twice-weekly visits. Much love to you, Dave, (and to Studley!)

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    1. Oh, thank you! Back atcha! I'm not much prone to anxiety myself but I am certainly not unfamiliar with it. (I'm not a fan.) I suspect, though, that if you queried believers and non-believers, you might discover that believers carry more fear freight. I'm only guessing though, and everything comes down to the individual.

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    2. I’m with you on the hereafter, Mim. I’ve been darn close a bunch of times and all I had was a feeling of relief. I suspect that death is like being under anesthesia. I remember being on the table and then being back on the table after what seemed no amount of time, but was in fact an hour or so. Just a finger snap. As far as our species survival goes, I suspect that humanity will soldier on, but quite possibly not in the fashion that we’ve become accustomed to. Humans have already survived several species level bottlenecks. Genetics shows this. There apparently were events that reduced our population to such small numbers that we all end up with one common ancestor.

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    3. Get her on the phone, will you? We need to talk.

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  2. I've been a fan of Murrmurrs for 5 or so years and I am very happy about THAT! I hope you don't disappear anytime soon. Thank you for writing and publishing.

    P.S. You reminded me of the movie "A Fish Called Wanda" where the old lady tottering across the street caused so much hilarity.

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    1. I SAW that movie, but it was so long ago that I do not remember that scene. That was WAY back when Jamie-Lee Curtis was still called "The Bod." I now have to Google what happened on the episode I watched LAST NIGHT of Ozark. I don't know if shows got more complicated, or my mind just doesn't hold all this stuff as well. Of course... there may be alcohol involved as well.....

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    2. All of the above. I don't remember that scene either. BTW Jamie Lee Curtis totally earned that nickname.

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  3. Is Blogger kaput, or do you only have to adopt a new format? ‘Cause, if the latter, I can testify that all your archives come with you as long as you stick to the same application. It’s been reassuring to return again and again to the new content on the familiar old background. This time, it might be worth slogging through 48 hours on hold to reach a live Google Support Foreigner to walk you through the steps to change. I’m pretty sure there’s a bunch of us who would gladly take a shift on hold for you, if that were possible. I’d even take the graveyard shift, she said cleverly.

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    1. That may very well be the case, Nance. I used to post on LiveJournal, but haven't for several years although I still comment, so my "journal" is still extant. A few years into it, the Russian mob took it over and "improved" things to make it look more like FaceBook. However. If one wanted to keep their old format, one could. But if you ever decided to change it, you could never go back. I kept my old look. It still works, and even though I no longer post. I like to know it is still there. I had some good times on it, before people started falling away from it and gravitating to Dreamwidth or FaceBook.

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    2. Well, so far Blogger is still pumping away, it's just the Feedburner that is slipping down the alley. I just worry that other things will rattle loose. As far as that nice familiar background--I like it, but even when I trip over another blog with the same template, I find myself thinking: "Old fart." I'll bet agents do too, not that ANY OF THEM ARE LOOKING AT MY STUFF.

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    3. Murr, I wouldn't worry overmuch about Feedburner. It's just a newsfeed service that people can use to automatically have new posts for various blogs on one feed. They can ALSO just bookmark it, FFS! That's what I do. I have a special section in my bookmarks for blogs I like to visit. I think a newsfeed would drive me up a wall, as I would feel that it's just another thing I have to attend to on a daily basis. The blogs I follow generally only post one or two times a week, so it's not onerous to just check them when they usually post. Fuck Feedburner! When something else starts caving in to entropy... then maybe start looking elsewhere.

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    4. Goody. I aspire to not being onerous!

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  4. If you simply want to keep your posts for yourself, you could always copy/paste them into Word documents and store them on your computer. Actually, that would also allow you to copy/paste them back into a new blog if you wanted them for public consumption again.

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    1. That would be a project! Yeah, I do have the original documents in alphabetical order.

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    2. There is a button in my Settings that says 'Save blog' and it saves your posts to your computer. In case of the Blogapocalypse you'd at least have that...

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  5. https://support.google.com/blogger/community?hl=en

    Maybe there is help here. You CAN'T go away!!!

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  6. Had to take my shoes off to figure it out, but that is a lot of words! A few times those words made me involuntarily spray down my keyboard with various liquids (beer, coffee, etc.). I am surprised these words don't live on forever on the internet. What's to stop them?

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    1. I think they probably do. I'm just afraid to change anything--see forthcoming post!--in case something horrible happens.

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  7. Are you using the back-up feature regularly? It creates a file that (supposedly) contains all your blog content at the time it's made. I don't know how useful it would actually be if you had to re-upload everything to a new blog, but at least the data will be there.

    Your blog still seems to work fine to me. It doesn't matter that it doesn't look fancy. My own blog is based on the simplest template Goggle/Blooger had available when I started it, because I didn't want a lot of clutter distracting from the content. Blogs with a lot of fancy stuff tend to load slowly and glitchily. Yours doesn't have that problem.

    I can't make any suggestions about Feedburner since I have no idea what it is.

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    1. You and me both, brother. Hey, we two--we go back a long way!

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  8. Your archives won't disappear, they'll just tag along like always. I think. If you keep the same blog name they'll be there.

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    1. I do note that you said "I think."

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    2. When I changed my blog from the original blue background to the current look, everything came along. They're just harder to find now. Have to click on that three lines "menu" in the top left corner. I'd love to change back to the original, but don't remember how.

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  9. I made the switch to Wordpress a few years ago and they had a one or two step process to import all posts from my Blogger site.

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    1. Oh YAY! Did your archives show up on your new template or did they remain the way they were? In this case, on parchment?

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  10. I’ve only been reading your musings, murmurs and pontifications for three months and look forward to seeing them pop up in my inbox. Please continue. Oh, and now that we are vaccinated what about that meet and greet beer, neighbor?

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  11. Lord God Awmighty! DO NOT GO AWAYS! I bookmarked ya because I don't even know what the feetburner is, and having had ancestors who were caught up in the Spanish Inquisition, which no one expected apparently, I don't want it! When I am feeling blue-ish, which lately is fairly often, I just go back and read reams of your old posts. Better than the drugs and drink which I don't do. So hang in there Toots, you and Dave and the Windowsons are integral to my mental health.

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    1. That is the very nicest thing to say. Thank you. I have no intention of stopping this blog. I just hope the archives don't disappear out of a software snit.

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  12. If your blog should disappear, the implosion would cause gravity waves detectable in the next galaxy. You (and your crew) are priceless. VIVE L'MURR!

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  13. From a quick look at Blogspot and Feedburner, it looks like Blogspot will be around for quite a while, and Feedburner will still do RSS, just not e-mail. Do a lot of people follow you through e-mail, or is it mostly through RSS? There are a lot of e-mail list servers out there, but unfortunately all that I found charge real money for any but the smallest of lists.

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  14. Blog on, my friend. I love reading what you write, and hope to do so for a long time forward.

    If it's a choice, though, I would rather have my interest than you fade away.

    And for the platform to fade before either is just unfair.

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