Everything In Between

Oh my god, fourteen hours playing with XHTML, CSS, and PHP to get Maymay Media to what it is now. (And it’s still not done, though I’m constantly looking for feedback!)

Much, if not most of that time was spent writing and editting new content, and beating down CSS bugs in Internet Explorer. Those of you who know my work habits are likely to be surprised by the fact that I could spend 14 hours dealing mostly with client-side coding issues.

Normally I can’t spend more than a few hours—at the most—dealing with CSS problems because browser bugs tick me off too much. (Ahem, MicroSucks.) Nevertheless, for some miraculous reason, I kept swatting bug after bug after bug this session and the enthusiasm just fueled more coding. Needless to say, I was very very productive last night.

I also didn’t sleep a wink, however, so now I’m dead tired. Here’s a short recap before my memories fall down behind the waterfall in my mind.

Last Night’s Call-a-thon and Digital Departure

• Last night I was Mr. Popular. I got literally countless phone calls (I can’t remember them all) from folks who wanted to chat it up. I spoke to a few Meetup group members, Danica, my parents, and others. Christine called and wanted to hang out today but she canceled this afternoon. (I didn’t mind, I’m exhausted.)

• Danica came over from about 8:30 PM to 10:30 PM so that she could give me back the apartment keys and transfer her digital posessions (computer files) off of my computers and onto her own. She also gave me a Moldy Peaches album to import into my iTunes Library. (Cool.)

  So that’s pretty much it. We said goodbye, she seemed sad, and I asked her to call me so I knew she’d gotten home okay. She did, and we said goodbye again. And that’s that; we are finally going our separate ways and have no more connection to each other whatsoever.

  I’m not even thinking about the future, but I do admit that remaining friends is something I’d probably like—if it were not emotionally draining. We’ll see what happens, but the path for right now is very clear: I’m trekking it solo yet again!

The Geeky Parts

• Back to the tech realm, I’ve implemented my dynamic relevancy message API on this blog. What does that mean for you? Probably nothing, but it does mean you’ll likely see relevancy messages change and grow in abundance over time. As always, use a modern browser to see the full effect.

• Still in the tech realm, I squashed a number of annoying IE CSS bugs on this blog with the somewhat-magical application of position:relative;. This means visitors using IE will finally get a near-perfect browsing experience, with no annoying vanishing backgrounds anymore.

• Also, Google SiteSearch has been implemented, so you’ll be seeing that on the top banner for the time being. It’s nothing special, just a way to make it look like you can do more than you can here. It might also make me some more money via clickthroughs, but that’s unlikely. (Oh, which reminds me, those ads on the right side of the window, yeah, if you click on those I get money. Don’t be shy.)

• A not-so-new but still interesting point of note is that I’ve started using MyBlogLog.com to keep track of which hyperlinks people are clicking on. This has been somewhat informative because it means I get to see which hyperlinks induce clicks and which don’t. Anchor text is important, and this is a useful tool to learn how you can manipulate the effect of a link.

Flickr Photos from the Past!

Finally, I’ve been wanting to get more value out of my digital camera. I haven’t been taking pictures, but backing up and transfering a bunch of Danica’s things last night inspired me to dig through some of my old photo collections to see what could turn up. Well, here it is:

• Here’s me almost a year ago, during last year’s Passover at my mother’s:

  

• Me at San Francisco’s Exploratorium with Danica during the Summer of 2004, on my trip to meet her family. Look at the face I’m making, I had so much fun there.

  

• Yeah, I was gonna eat that piece of toast. Obviously, my dinner plans were foiled.

  

• This is what happens to my face if I don’t shave.

  

The past week has felt like months, though I can only remember 3 days clearly. Read that sentence one more time and tell me if it makes any sense to you, becuase it sure as hell confuses me.

It’s been nearly impossible to sleep. Or more accurately, it’s been very difficult to get myself to fall asleep. I’ve been sleeping just fine, but only after staying up for hours on end. This happens a lot but each time it does I’m left to obey the whims of my sarcadian rhythms rather than my own plans. That’s what’s really bothersome about it: I can’t fall asleep when I want to, only when I’m tired.

Unfortunately, I haven’t really been able to do what I wanted when I’m awake either. I’d like to have more done than what is currently done. I’d like to have more templates for this site, I’d like to have written more, and I’d like to have more paid projects to work on.

There is likely some kind of connection between my own productivity or lack thereof and my sarcadian cycles. Of course, I’m not sure if I’m more productive when I can’t sleep and end up online all night or when I behave like a normal human being and work during the day. I have had conflicting experiencees in both cases so my perception is confused.

Online at night I usually do a lot of reading and learning, but I don’t think I’m very constructive. Perhaps this is because I haven’t the space or the equipment. But maybe that’s just what I tell myself in order not to feel too bad. Productivity is like this mythical holy grail of faith. Sometimes I have it and sometimes I don’t, and I don’t know how to get it or why I lose it.

Ultimately, insomnia is more frustrating than anything else because it implies boredom. No, I’m not really bored when I can’t sleep because, of course, I do all sorts of things. But I don’t think I’ve ever really done exactly what I’ve wanted to do when I’ve been unable to fall asleep. Perhaps what I’d have liked to do is get to sleep. Afterall, that’s why I’m calling it insomnia, right?