Lucy Ruins Everything And Says Fuck A Lot

You may have noticed that my website looks a little different (if you haven’t, please notice now). Well, I’ve been thinking for a while I should jazz it up, and I was sifting through WordPress themes to see what my options were and think about what I was going to do. I figured, with a chronic illness and a one-year-old in the picture, it would be best to plan meticulously, get everything I needed drawn, written and organised over a few weeks, and then pull it all together quickly and painlessly. Like a professional.

I’m sure you can guess the general direction this is going.

Three panels of a comic. In all, comic-Lucy lies sprawled in an armchair with a laptop in her lap. In panel one, she says ‘Hmmm… I quite like…’. In panel two, a tick shows up green on the laptop screen and there is a *click*. In panel three, the whole laptop screen is green and Lucy says ‘Fuck.’

I ruined everything. I accidentally activated a new theme.

And I couldn’t just switch back to my old layout because a) I would have to re-do the aesthetics anyway just like I would on a new layout and b) I had CSSed the crap out of the old one so actually it would take much, much longer to re-do.

The only way out of the mess I had made was through.

I kissed goodbye to my beloved sidebar. I love the old-school blogger vibe, jam-packed with buttons and banners and links and titbits. But the look is dated, probably no one else likes them, and it only shows up on desktop which hardly anyone uses outside of work these days anyway.

We won’t linger on the new WordPress Site Editor [beta]. I do like the concept. It’s versatile. Makes all kinds of cool shit possible. But actually using it is kind of like trying to format anything in Word.

Three panels of a comic. In the first, comic-Lucy sits at a desk with her laptop in front of her and slightly to the left (her right) and her baby on her lap but slightly to the right (her left). The baby has her glasses and is clearly very awkward to hold. Comic-Lucy says ‘I’ll just move this over…’ while moving a mouse. In the second, comic-Lucy makes a *click*, and a block of website that says ‘Silence Killed the Dinosaurs’ flies out of the laptop into the top right of the panel. Both comic-Lucy and her comic-baby look at it, baffled. In the third, the comic-baby stretches desperately to reach the block of website, glasses abandoned on the floor. Comic-Lucy struggles to hold her, a baby-foot in her face, and says ‘fffffffforklift.’

I stayed up past midnight several nights running. I built headers and footers. I re-jigged menus. I vectored logos. I tripled checked everything would not size weird or go to complete shit when viewed on tablets or mobile.

Three panels of a comic. In all, comic-Lucy and her partner sit next to each other on a couch in a dark room. There is a laptop resting on comic-Lucy’s couch arm, her partner has a TV remote. In the first, her partner is looking toward the viewer and holding the remote out in one hand like he is watching TV, the other arm is around Comic-Lucy. Comic-Lucy is turned to the side and typing furiously saying ‘fuck’ over and over with no punctuation. In the second, both comic-Lucy and her comic-partner look down at her stomach, which has *rumble* written over it along with wobbly radiating lines to indicated it is rumbling. In the third, her partner takes his arm from around comic-Lucy. Comic-Lucy looks directly at the viewer and says ‘fuck.’

And then I got gastro.

I realised to make all the new site editor elements work the way I wanted to, I would have to go back into each individual post I had ever made—as in, back seven years ago to 2014—and change/add various meta-data elements I had been pretending didn’t exist because life is too hard to learn new things even if they make everything look much more professional.

And I don’t want to have a big, angsty moment here, but it’s really difficult to go look at old work. Like just … really difficult. I avoid it. I avoid it so much it’s the main reason I put off updating my site for so long in the first place.

After a while I became completely desensitised to it, which I guess means it functioned as DIY exposure therapy and maybe I’m emotionally stronger and a better creator having done it or something I don’t know FEELINGS I don’t like feelings especially ones about myself they bother me into the worst flustery run on sentences it’s much more comfortable to draw myself being horribly obliterated.

Back to nice, comfortable catastrophe. There was still heaps to get through and without the emotional distress melting my face off, it was just boring.

In short, the last couple of weeks have been A LOT.

But I did it.

Comic-Lucy sits at her desk facing her laptop, one hand resting on the keyboard. Above are speech bubbles and sound effects reading: ‘Fuck…’ *click* ‘…’. She looks tired but happy.

Ta da.

Click around. Make yourself at home.

I know what you’re thinking. Fuck yes that header-logo-banner-whateveritis image is awesome, and you bet your gastro arse you can get it on a mug.

Now, excuse me while I go have a nap.


9 responses to “Lucy Ruins Everything And Says Fuck A Lot”

  1. Pistachios Avatar

    Sounds intense. Gastro is the worst. Also editing/formatting. Glad you survived!

    I like the bonus art at the bottom of the page for those dedicated enough to keep scrolling ;)

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Lucy Grove-Jones Avatar

      Haha I was really pleased with myself for sneaking that one in!

      Liked by 1 person

  2. Jay Avatar

    I’m so sorry I laughed so hard at your misery, but I have been there as well. Also, is little human already one? Where did time go…? Oh, wait. Yeah. But seriously, I love the new layout, what with the dinosaurs and cat butt. :D All the best to you and yours, always!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Lucy Grove-Jones Avatar

      Sometimes you just have to laugh. And yes, she’s one. I can’t believe it either.

      Thank you!

      Liked by 1 person

  3. magickmermaid Avatar

    Had almost the same experience. I accidentally changed my theme and my original theme is no longer available. This new layout really shows off your art! Best wishes!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Lucy Grove-Jones Avatar

      They really need an undo button.

      Yes, I tried to pick something that would be a little more visually focused.

      Liked by 1 person

  4. The Type Of Blog Posts You’ll See On WordPress, According To Me | Your Friendly Malaysian Writer Avatar

    […] could stumble across a painting, comic strip, or even a face on the sidewalk. There’s no saying what you’ll come […]

    Like

  5. itsmayurremember Avatar

    WordPress themes are a pain to get around and find one that you like, and I don’t even have my own domain.

    Bravo to you for continuing until you were satisfied.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Lucy Grove-Jones Avatar

      I’ll probably tweak again from time to time. But it exists. It works. That’s good enough for a while.

      Like

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