Mid january thoughts, getting my scrambled head slowly unscrambled.

🎶Its been 16 hours and 17 days🎶...since I took my love away from youuuuuuu 🎶

Or rather, there is a reason I haven't posted for over half of January.

Mostly its because I've been overwhelmed, as a lot of us get. Its been because I got turned around about what my point and purpose is. Its because I didn't want to write something here just to say I wrote something. I want it to make sense and have a goal. Even if its a meandering approach to that goal, I want it to match the platform.

I've been writing some drafts on Tumblr, and apparently have a whole obsession with newsletter posts on substack (not that I've released a lot, but man o man am I drafting and redrafting).

I'm re-orienting to making sure that I catalogue and preserve, so I'm working on some of that. but I'm running into the concept of how to preserve remnants scattered across the internet for anyone to find when the authors aren't reachable, or seemed to have moved on.

but also, given I don't want to talk to anyone, I don't want to be asking so I'm only using what I have a reasonable feeling is fair use, educational use, or public domain.

the former (can't actually reach people) is more pressing than the latter (don't want to reach out) because I can always make myself sack up, but I can't make people appear out of the ether. Still, honestly, the sheer thought of collaborating with anyone as more than a passing sneeze in dedicated platforms is a little terrifying.

I'm working on a post on Tumblr about the ASLWrite version of the Book of Ruth, which I think is a pretty important version of history. I'm working on a post comparing options for "YEAR" on Tumblr and options for "TEASE" on substack, and showing what the SLWrite interface looks like for everywhere, and probably options for something else. I dunno.

I'm typing words I haven't typed before, crashing libre office and everyday checking my email to see if todays the day ao3 accepts or rejects me as a volunteer to clean up the ASL category.

Still, somehow I don't feel like I'm progressing very much, especially for the public view, the raison d'etre.

I need to rewrite "write/written/writing" and I'm now confluxed and confused about "ASL" vs "How much" versus certain movements and I don't wanna ask anyone their thoughts. Which is exactly how not to do things.

I haven't touched any videos and I feel like I'm doing something wrong if I don't include pics on the blue sky or MeWe feeds regularly. I've totally neglected the MeWe group (a version of this thread), but absolutely using it as the place to upload PDF's though I don't have any trust this is a stable place to do so.

Fantastically, I've discovered that the old si5s website was catalogued on the way back machine and this is essential history for ASLwrite. It also means I'll be able to recover old PDF's but it leaves me in a conundrum

What do I do with old materials without screwing things up? Its not that some of the things were wrong for their time, but they're different than now (for example you can't write "NO" the way its written in a new years card by Adrean Clark from 2013, you need a thumb curve to make it the NO handshape or you're writing an entirely different sign thats more like WAH-WAH or pac man munching. Or the handshape for new in new years has been updated to look different. The 13 waggle (those two curved lines next to each other in different signs) can go on top or where it is, and the NO waggle is in dispute by a tiny group of people, all late signers, me included). YEAR now has a side profile view as well. Honestly this makes me want to do an article on the evolution of "Happy new year" but I need to do more research to make sure to expand it beyond one or two people).

Wayback Machine 2013 happy new year card Copyright Adrean Clark

Which leads me to how to track evolution of a writing system when it moves so fast. How to organize, archive and notate differences so people can understand what was written but also develop what to be written?

I dunno.

Also, my request for an account to the wayback machine so I can use it to help do this has fallen into a black pit of zero verification email.

anyway, its not bleak, its not bright, its just a lot to parse through when trying to reset on what I'm doing, get organized and not be so distracted by the scatter dust of so many possibilities.

Mostly this place here, is where I'm going to write things that aren't so polished, that maybe aren't so public eye--that if you really want to see it, you're going to have to commit to whacking through the bush to the fediverse.

so...yeah. Nothing compares to stream of thought, and you if you got this far.