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It's a little disconcerting to have to ask for help for something as simple (as it turned out) as buying a web domain from GoDaddy.com. I have talked about getting my own domain for years now, but I didn't wanna have to learn HTML just to post my extemporaneous opinions on the internet. I got my brother to help me go through the process so that I wouldn't end up buying something I didn't need or want.
What I didn't really understand was what "web hosting" is. Web hosting doesn't come with buying a web domain, and I thought it did. That why needed an experienced person to advise me. I found out as we went along that buying the rights to the domain name (felixperegrino.com) didn't come with the hosting part of it. Despite my ignorance, my brother's experience got me through the entire ritual for $15 for the next two years. If I should live so long.
As far as getting my new domain hosted it turns out my brother has some sort of unlimited account with his web host, and can add my puny little domain to his account until I can figure out how I wanna handle this process. He has to figure out how to make this happen, but when he does, I'll be able to publish my arcane views in a more responsible way. I won't have to worry about some cubicle boss at Google deciding whether I have a right to publish my views here.
Writing in a less responsible way won't make much difference, and it doesn't add up to much. I only have my timorous speech (thus mind) to be utterly provocative with. If you're reading this blog then you probably know that I don't stray far from a central theme, and it's that the-me I'm catering to, for the most part, rather than to some anonymous clone corporation's editorial policy.
One of the aspects of publishing on Blogger.com is the feature at the top of the page that reads "Next Blog". It's said to be connected to a random generator that takes the user to see other people's blogs. It's a curiosity I like to indulge occasionally, but I don't think the blogs that show up are very random.
What it represents to me is that by using the Next Blog link, curious people can stumble across my blog without intention. I like the idea of complete strangers reading the way I arrange words without their deliberately intending to. It could be a long time before I get my own site up, and running at all, much less how long the learning curve might take for me to have a viable product. It's gotta be simple. What's simple is easy.
It's not that big a deal. It's a little like owning my house and car. It impresses me that it's a simple way to ex-is-t. The important part of life as I perceive it is that I am pretending to a multiplicity of I-am-s in order to concoct a ground for being whatever I am that appeals to me. My property is composed of damaged goods. I certainly could not sell it for what it's worth to me. There is a the-me to cater to.
Hyphenating the term "theme" just now ca-me to me. In the past I have written about "my me" more than I have "the me", but have intended consistently to indicate that my me and The Me are One and the sa-me.
It's easy for I am is to cop to dualism. In my warped opinion I am can't have One without the Other. I will say that I never could anticipate the future with any certain of being prophetic. The story of my eyesight could act as a plausible example of that.
One of the most critical parts of the story of my eyesight arrived in my late thirties and early forties pretty much like it does for many people entering middle age for sure. Basically, I began to need reading glasses. My eyesight became a critical deal during this era because I made a living as a pipewelder.
Working as a pipewelder requires really good eyesight. Journeymen welders can make some pretty decent wages if they're willing to travel to remote places to build the kind of industrial complexes that nobody wants to live near. The welders get tested and have to re-certify on most jobs of this type. There is a constant barrage of eye exams to keep the corporations from being responsible for legal problems.
During this one period of time when I had laid outta work to live on unemployment a little too long for my economic well-being, my fading eyesight cost me a job that was gonna resolve all my financial woes. I busted the welding test despite the fact that I cheated to keep them from finding out that I was visually handicapped.
It was a tragic event I had not properly (thoughtfully) prepared for. It was not only a blow to my rickety, unstable moral values to have gotten caught cheating, but the truth of my blindness was driven home in an undeniable manner. I wasn't the man I had pretended to be, and I couldn't do that anymore.
Hitch-hiking from Casper, Wyoming to North Carolina where my wife and children were was not the happiest time of my life. I didn't have a decent occupation with which to bring home the bacon. My manhood depended on my livelihood, and my second marriage didn't last long after that.
When I did get home, however, one of the first things I did was to get some prescription eyeglasses. I had to wait for two weeks for them to arrive at the optometrist's office. If ever I had carelessly acted like I wasn't really blind up to this point, putting on my first pair of glasses did the trick. I knew how blind I was because now, with the new glasses, I could see what wasn't there for me without them.
The next critical moment in the story of my eyesight has been the deal with the cataracts. Less and less light was getting through the lens in my eyeball to my retina. Every time I got my eyes check for a new prescription for the last decade the optometrists told me I had cataracts in both eyes. Particularly my right eye.
Eventually, incrementally, the optometrists began telling me that they were running out of ways to improve my eyesight with new lens for my eyeglasses. The light needed from the outside world wasn't getting through my increasingly cloudy, browning, and hardening lens.
The world wasn't providing me with a remedy for the growing cataracts, and it was irritating beyond pleasant description. I've whined about it here for years. Finally, the surgeons at the Fayetteville VA Hospital removed the cataract in my right eye and replaced it with a plastic, powered lens with UV filtering. I still wear glasses, they're just inside my eyeballs.
Soon, less than a full week, next Friday morning I'm scheduled to get the cataract replaced in my left eye also. The right eye procedure was done on June 12th, so it's been over two weeks since it was done. You'd think I'd be ecstatic because, so far, the surgery appears to have been successful, but I've had to deal with unexpected emotional reactions to what is properly labeled a miracle of science.
Currently, I find myself concerned over how the second procedure turns out. Sure, it's great that I can see real things with good clarity, but if the second procedure doesn't go well it could act as a mockery of that success. That's the way I've learned to cope with the world through my study and use of the oracles. "What if it fails?"
If I'm having emotional reactions to what seems like a good outcome with my right eye, then to have problems with the left eye my emotional investment might multiply by an order of three, and I wouldn't be concerned at all when Rainey haughtily tells me, "I told you so." '-)
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