MacDara Conroy, pieced together

A list, in no particular order, of Things That Must Be Done:

Fix categories: I’ve got far too many categories in both of my blogs, and now that I have tag functionality (see below) most of them are completely unnecessary. Five or six catch-all categories is all I really need, so these will be condensed forthwith.

Set up tags: Now that I’ve upgraded to MT 4, I can haz tags! I’ve already used a handy script to convert my jury-rigged entry keyword tags into tags proper; now I need to code up templates for the tag archives so I can actually use them.

Fix comments: Comments, when I turn them on, are basically working. But since MT 4 added a new ‘Comment Preview’ thingy to the process, posting any comment will lead you to a broken page — because, obviously, I haven’t coded said ‘Comment Preview’ template yet. So that Must Be Done. Aside from all that, I want to spruce up the comments with a TypeKey option and whatnot, eventually, but for now I’ll be happy that they’re just working.

Update my status: My status sidebar on the main page is fine, if a little unwieldy. It could benefit from better functionality: my latest listening via Last.fm perhaps, or live(ish) location info from my Dopplr account. Anything to make it a bit more dynamic.

Fix archive pages: I haven’t decided if my monthly, category (and soon-to-come tag) archive pages should include the full entries or just links to them. I’m inclined to go with the latter, so my templates will need some minor tweaking.

Update non-blog pages: Most of the non-blog pages of this site have been either orphaned or lost after my clean install of MT 4, so that must be rectified. I’ve got almost everything saved elsewhere, so it won’t be a problem. This also provides me a good opportunity to change things up a little.

Update feeds: My RSS and Atom feed templates are broken in MT 4, which is not good. They should be up and running again now, using the default templates as a stop-gap, but they really require a proper going over, so I’m adding them to the ‘To Do’ pile.

I’m on a Twitter break. Or Twitter strike. Whatever. Either way you shake it, since yesterday my updates have been disappearing from the timeline shortly after I post them — and if they’re not in the timeline, then what’s the point?

Here’s a screengrab of the missing culprits, via a self-Twitter-search:

As you can see, they haven’t completely vanished. But they’re effectively lost to the web ether — out of context, out of sight and out of mind.

At least the Twitter boffins are aware of the problem and are working to resolve it, but until then I’ll keep my thoughts to myself. Or maybe I’ll write here instead. Hey, there’s an idea!

No sooner had I posted my last entry than my host’s server decided to throw a wobbly, rendering my Movable Type installation unusable.

A fresh start with a clean install of MT 4 failed to solve the problem (which I still have no explanation for) so my blog was effectively stranded. However my host’s move to brand new servers a couple of weeks ago finally did the trick.

There’s still a bit of housekeeping left to do, as Movable Type has changed significantly since the last time I upgraded. I’ll get around to that sometime soon. No promises, mind.

Nine years ago on this very date, I took my first steps into the world of personal publishing by starting my own website, a horrible mess of black and orange (well it was 1999) which eventually morphed into what you see before you today. Nine years! Jesus. That’s a long time. And what do I have to show for it?

Well not a lot, going by the lack of activity here (unless you count the Twitter updates, which would be cheating). But I’ll have you know that my real life has been far more eventful.

For starters, I’ve actually had a proper job for two years now, laying out newspaper pages and correcting people’s spelling and grammar. It’s not nearly as glamorous as it sounds, really. But it’s a good start for a career in the media (knock on wood).

Getting the job, of course, meant I could afford to finally leave the nest and get a place of my own, which I did in January this year. I’m now happily ensconced in a one-bedroom apartment in The Liberties, overlooking what remains of the old city wall. I’ve got a nice landlord, too. He was kind enough to drop by with his spare key by when I locked myself out that one time.

And I’m not here on my own. Benitha came over in February, spent a few frustrating weeks getting her immigration status sorted, and a few more months getting used to life in Dublin, which is a big change for a South African girl.

Some things she was prepared for from previous experience, like being able to walk through the city centre after sunset without fear of being shot in the head. Others came as a surprise, such as the long summer days (sunlight till 10pm was a surprise) and the humidity (on a par with tropical KwaZulu-Natal, where she grew up). But I think she likes it here. And more importantly, we’re not sick of each other just yet.

Travel-wise, May saw us traipsing to deepest Somerset for the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival, the most striking memory of which is watching J Mascis pose for a photo with a giant ice cream cone. And last month we went to Paris — where we saw some amazing sights, gawked at some terrible art, and ate some pretty good food — before a short break at Disneyland, where even my unfortunate tumble[1] couldn’t spoil all the fun. Oh, and our hotel room was enormous. As in ‘Am I sure they gave us the right one?’ enormous.

And that’s the highlights, more or less. I’m sure something else will come to mind tomorrow and I’ll kick myself for not remembering it, but if I kept holding out for such things, you wouldn’t be reading any of this.

Which brings me to the reason why I sat down tonight to write this thing in the first place. An hour or so ago I found myself at the Wayback Machine looking up something completely unrelated, and got suddenly curious to see how much of my own site had been archived. Quite a bit of it, it seems.

I clicked on the page with the earliest date, and immediately jumped back almost six years to meet my 22-year-old self. There I was, graduating from college, already wistful about my undergraduate days, and unsure about how to get where I wanted to go. But boy, did I ever have a lot to say.

I must have been blogging daily back then, maybe more. I was so un-self-conscious about it, too. I just blogged what I was thinking, I didn’t give much consideration to what went before or what was to come after, and it was all the better for it. And I wrote so well, too. So the question immediately came to mind: Why don’t I write like that anymore?

Why don’t I write at all?

I could give a whole list of excuses to answer that question, but the truth is that I really don’t know. Somewhere along the way I must have got the notion that I couldn’t just blog about random stuff, that everything had to be specific. But that put the pressure on, and pressure does not equal fun. And when something’s no longer fun, why do it?

So the gaps between entries grew wider and wider, while the (completely self-imposed) pressure to turn out finely-crafted articles led to inevitable procrastination. Soon enough, the windows of opportunity flew past. And there’s no point in writing about something that happened months ago, even when I did occasionally have the motivation to try, so why bother? I was so full of good intentions, but good intentions are worthless without acting on them; I’ve got a text file full of abandoned drafts and half-formed thoughts to prove it.

I said two years ago that blogging is ‘just what I do’. But I haven’t been doing it, have I? Quite the opposite: I’ve had blogger’s block.

However, looking back at my younger blogging self has made me realise what I’ve been wasting. No, I tell a lie: I’ve known what I’ve been wasting for a long time now. I’ve just been too embarrassed to admit it.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is, bollocks to all the pretensions that hindered me from doing what I used to do so well. This place was at its best when I wasn’t trying to be perfect. I’m glad I’ve realised that now.

I started blogging six years ago today. One could argue that I stopped over a year ago, seeing as I’ve only posted to the Macrolog four times since I marked last year’s anniversary.

However, though I’m not as prolific as I once was, to say the least, I haven’t given it up (even if my Twitter stream does get more attention) and I don’t forsee doing so any time soon. As I said last year, it’s just what I do.

Now, if only I had the time or motivation to do it more often…