The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

The Broken Blog

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Don’t quote me but I think this blog has been self hosted for 10 years now or will be in a few months.

But don’t go looking for a big anniversary party because technically the posts here extend back to May 2004 which means it is a high school junior.

Or maybe I ought to say it is similar to a junior in that it doesn’t laugh at the same silly tricks that used to work upon it once a time.

There is more truth in that than I want to admit and plenty in saying there are lots of issues here that make me crazy.

The detritus of multiple themes, broken plugins and decades of blogging has left their mark upon it and now there are strange characters and broken links all over.

In theory there might be a simple fix I can use to correct all of the additional characters and garbage that occupy posts but I don’t know what it is.

Nor have I put much time in trying to figure that out. Instead I show up and try to make adjustments, fixes and changes on the fly.

It is better, but not perfect and so the blog stays somewhat broken.

Drunk, As Drunk Can Be

And so we find ourselves more focused on trying to provide solid content than upon the clothes which the content wears.

Somewhere I can hear the groans and exhortation of an old graphic design teacher to focus on the looks so that the reader will find it easy to focus upon the words.

Not a bad suggestion, but I am short on time and lacking the energy/interest I once had.

Or more accurately, it is hard to maintain multiple blogs so one gets most of the attention and the others get some attention.

It is the sad truth but it doesn’t provide the full story.

It doesn’t mean this place is dead or that I won’t go through spots and moments in which it is my primary focus.

This is a reflection of now and now may not be reflective of tomorrow.

Ask the Shmata Queen, she’ll tell you many things, not the least of which is she is crazy about me and still my number one fan, at least when it comes to writing.

More to come, posts and changes, but not today. Stay tuned and keep close.

Playing With Blocks

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I have intentionally avoided using the block editor because I haven’t had time to mess around and try to figure out if it is a useful tool.

But tonight I gave into impulse and started playing with Blocks. I think I kind of like it.

Testing Limits

I really need to figure out how to best use the shaded box like you see below as it offers some real utility. 

The ability to highlight and emphasis parts and pieces can be a great tool for telling a story.

‘Cause love’s such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love (people on streets) dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves under pressure
Under pressure
Pressure

Under Pressure- Queen

I know this post is messy and lacks coherent organization, but I am going to leave it up for a bit because I want to think about it. I want to use it as a live sandbox to play in and learn with.

One Day I’ll Visit

Told SQ that one day I would agree to visit her city and that she could come to mine. 

Would make for some great tales and stories, oh yes it would.  In the interim check out some of my greatest hits.

The Best Cover Letter….Ever

One Slightly Used Pump For Sale

There Are No Coincidences

1 Foolproof Way To Become a Better Writer 

P.S. I know there are some font issues in places and am working on fixing them. When you have 15 years of posts it can take a while to correct.

Please bear with me.

The Love Story Revisited

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There was a time when I would receive emails from a few readers asking for updates about the love story and for information about when the next chapter would be written/shared here.

Been a long while since the last one so I am not certain whether the reader(s) who wanted such news are still around or what the last update they saw was.

I have some ideas about what sort of update to provide and have played around with how to present it but obviously haven’t yet done so.

Some might ask for clarity on whether I am waiting to hear back from the readers or if I intend to share something new here regardless.

It is a reasonable question and one I could answer but probably won’t.

Yeah, that is the kind of mood I am in. 😉

Not a bad one, not by a long shot but I am sort of enjoying the warmth of this particular feeling. We all have our secret worlds and sometimes we choose to live in them for a bit longer because we can.

Sometimes the king and queen require their time to be their own so they can have a moment to get reacquainted and rebalanced.

It is good for all parties and what is good needs to be watered and nurtured so the trunk stays strong and the roots well fed.

Changes Upon Changes

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Been listening to this song on and off throughout the day. Can’t tell you why I started but once I did a couple sections hit me and I was sucked in.

Haven’t had time to start looking at the redesign of this joint, but did play around with asking SQ about it.

Already hit her with some other questions that might be making her eyes roll, knees weak and her head explode so might let it go cuz those other questions might lead to the positive or negative sides of the physical descriptions above.

And truth is I really need to think about what I am trying to achieve here and that will lead to the path I choose to go down or so I think.

It is a particularly strange time so I am giving myself room to move around a bit, the final days of 2020 require it.

Design Changes

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Still haven’t decided if I like the look of this joint and am thinking about some design changes but haven’t come up with any hard decisions yet.

Three days of work left before I take a small vacation and decompress.

Just might take some of that time off to work on things here. Just might dedicate some time to tinkering and devote some thought to making it sing as I wish it would.

We’ll have to see given the effort it took to reach this moment I might not have as much left in the tank as I expect.

Might crash, might not.

My heart aches and it soars all at the same time, so who knows what might be.

Will be interesting to find out.

Can I Give You A Ride

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Some of you will interpret the headline in a way that I didn’t intend for you to but I can’t worry about that. Can’t put time into whether you follow this as I want or hope you to because I can’t control a damn thing.

Or should I say I can’t control your understanding/interpretation of what I say or don’t say.

There are the few who don’t require much to follow the crumbs I lay upon the floor or to see them as rose petals, but very few.

And even those few will misunderstand and misinterpret some of it, maybe all of it. I am certain some will do so intentionally because it is easier to manage some things like that.

Easier to create excuses and reasons not to go beyond a certain place than to open those doors. I know, I have done it.


Fuck Me

Now there is an expression that is hard to decipher without context. Is it said in exasperation or seductively?

Might be somewhere in between or something different altogether.

Been looking at the theme for this joint and wondering if it is helping to tell the stories I tell or if it is making it harder.

Haven’t decided yet, but eventually, I will.

Been distracted because I haven’t felt right physically in a long time. I am not quite wrong, but I am not quite right either.

Can’t decide if it is stress, age or illness. Hell, it could be all three.

I go through periods where I feel like I am almost back and the body does as I expect and then something happens.

Sometimes it is something that blows up all that I think I have accomplished and sometimes it is a variation. Irks me more than I can say.

Used to be so damn strong in every way and now it comes and goes in a way that throws me and makes me wonder what I need to do to adjust because it can’t be like this forever.

Can’t be like this for the next hundred years, maybe I am just not disciplined enough about exercise and diet or maybe it is something else.

Maybe it is vanity, maybe it is sanity-I’ll figure it out and then I’ll have to make some choices and decisions.

This part scares me more than I let on, but don’t expect me to say that in person.

Why?

Because force of will carries me past every obstacle, always has and I expect it to again. I’ll figure it out or I’ll be sad and disappointed.

Can’t have that, not about the few things I can control so I suppose I’ll figure it out.

Life is hard, but in many ways it is better than it has been in a decade or so…

That is pretty cool.