All I Need Is Duct Tape

Imagine my excitement when I realized I’d single-handedly created a website. This may not be re-inventing the wheel, but for someone who can’t even figure out how to plug in a flash drive, designing a website was my technological Superbowl. I’ve managed to go my whole adult life and not know how to backup a computer or efficiently clean out my in-box, (so much so that I actually pay Google 3 dollars a month to house, feed and clothe my 81 thousand emails.) Yes, I know it’s obscene and most friends when they see I have 93 unread text messages and 43 unlistened to voicemails, want to throw me and my phone out of a running vehicle. My no-fault response is simple, I don’t know how to clear that shit out.

You think I like having all the clutter? No way man. I am incredibly overwhelmed by it. And also by the way, that crap is impossible to organize on your phone. Plus you have to deal with duplicates showing up on your computer and it’s just an incestuous mush of emails and messages littering your cyber personal space. It’s like the equivalent of a mismatched sock drawer. I know that these little guys have somewhere else they could go, but I don’t have time to deal with it, so I keep stuffing single sock after single sock into this box because I never know when I might need to pull out that striped zebra Christmas tube sock and refer to it for tax purposes. (I’m mixing media here, but I think you follow.)  And honestly the time it would take me to do the cleaning is hours upon hours that I could be doing other stuff, like complaining about it here in print.

See?

This is a much better use of my time.

Things got so bad on the email front, I had to abandon my original email address: bluemadeline@gmail.com (I double dare you to write me) because the spam got so out of control. My bad for signing up for every petition, healthy living newsletter and online dating site and using this as my contact address. I guess it serves me right then, in addition to getting the occasional business email, I also get petitions for saving the turkeys, dating the turkeys and how to avoid getting a turkey neck. Because I am a cyber hoarder, and I feel guilty about discarding even simple emails like, “How To Make A Better Oatmeal”  from trusted sources like the Livestrong Foundation (they still have so much to say, even with Lance having flown the coop), I decided I should let bluemadeline be and simply create another email address. Which is why ninety-two thousand emails later I have concluded it’s better to let the litter collect on the sides of my digital highway rather than take the truck tons of hours to clean it out.

That said, addressing cyber challenges head-on, such as creating a new website for this illustrious blog, is somewhat of a new endeavor for me. And I’m not to braggy to say, I’m really proud of myself for learning what the hell a widget is.  Ok, to be honest, I still don’t know what a widget is, but goddammit if I didn’t install like four of them an hour ago in a sidebar. Yeah, I even know what a sidebar is now. Storey’s had a tech renaissance and it’s starts with a widget about Pinterest and ends with me getting my own RSS feed. If you are reading this and not knowing what the hell I’m talking about.  Join the club, neither do I. At all.  Like, it’s the equivalent of me making a joke about Prime numbers and thermonuclear dynamics. I’m making this shit up, people. But I cannot deny that somehow, through me banging on the buttons on my computer like an ape waiting for banana slices to come shooting out of a plastic tube, I haphazardly have managed to design a website. This fancy site has actual pages and roll-y thingies and clicky things that lead you to words I’ve written and images of Stormtroopers, drunken puppies and chocolate milkshakes sandwiched in between giant pieces of frosted cake, luridly inviting you in to read about my misadventures in dating, being the opening act for a puppet show, childhood fantasies of becoming a bank robber and a Charlie’s Angel and why I once, in my theater debut in “Little Shop Of Horrors” played an asexual plant leaf.

Now, because I had the wherewithal to spend tens of hours working on this website (versus cleaning out emails from Moveon.org) you can now pleasurably read about my inability to clear out said email, but now with the ease of a fancier font, a more pleasant background color and a sidebar that can take you to not only my Pinterest page full of secret shoe obsessions, but also my Instagram account which houses entirely too many photographs of disfigured fruit. I am becoming technologically literate (call me a savant first grader) and with it, you my dear friends will reap the rewards.

I even have a stats page which shows me how many of you have read my blog and perhaps even liked it. Most of you reside in southern Germany with the addition of one die hard fan in Belize. Bless you. Even if you were looking for a porn site with the same name. I welcome your accidental traffic with open arms.

So here’s to my new found skill set. Next up, building that jet plane. I’m sure all I need is a roll of duct tape, Carmex and Robitussin and I can get that thing flying in the time it would take me to get my inbox to zero.

*Also, special thanks to Breanna, age 8 for her perfect drawing.  Thank you Breanna for making my hair look amazing.