Wheelistically @ Claire.NU » Updates

The Bit Where There Were Changes…

Claire — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 19:43:26 +0000

This year has been full of changes. We’ve changed where we live, who we live with, jobs, medication, lifestyle, support, hospital treatment and wheelchairs. Huge big, massive changes, which despite altering the landscape of my life for the better, have taken a lot of getting used to. Sadly, part of that process meant that I had to put my blog on a back burner for a short time.

In reference to the message I left up for the duration of my “blogging break”, my in-laws are now managing their own health and welfare much better now and are back safely in their own home. The Little Downstairs House wasn’t made for four fully-grown adults and for a while things got a bit hairy, not least when I ended up giving my Father In Law an eyeful when he walked in on me as I was getting dressed. On more than one occasion.

Anyway, where was I? Changes.

It’s been over 3 and a half years since this place had a facelift. I know for some the idea of a website having the same look for more than a month seems horrifying, but for me, I find overly frequent and radically ever-changing website designs jarring.

If when you opened up your ‘Office’ software or your Internet Browser and the Graphical User Interface (i.e. where all the toolbars/menus are, what the icons look like, how they are laid out and the tasks they do) drastically changed every fortnight, you’d get cheesed off. And yet people these sorts of changes to a website on that sort of basis and expect their users to be fine with it. Well, I’m not.

That said, the blog had long since out-grown its previous design: There was limited scope in the layout for the integration of content created via 3rd party websites (Twitter etc) and with each passing month, it was becoming less efficient at what I wanted it to do and more prone to bugs when plugins were changed/updated. I wanted to make use of epigraphs and “pull quotes” and to tailor each post design to its content: give proper emphasis to the EXIF data of my photos, allow myself to make short posts that wouldn’t then give way to masses of empty space. The last design just wouldn’t allow any of that without some serious grappling and if I was going to grapple, I may as well start over and do it properly, from the ground up.

So, here it is: my new blog.

It has its own name now and everything. What with me using my name online in preparation for when I graduate and eventually turn my hand to this “employment” lark, my blog needed an identity of its own. Still something inherently “me”, but ultimately something that marked it as something wholly separate; wholly personal. I have always enjoyed blog names that subverted familiar turns of phrase or played on words in some way or another. Yet, I wanted something that could be used in a .com address that wouldn’t require a good memory and lots of hyphens. The result? Wheelistically: authentic, mildly amusing and a bit different — with a slight crip edge, which hopefully represents my blog, especially in months to come.

The design was partly inspired by the works of the late John Heartfield, a German-born avant-garde artist and ex-Dadaist, known predominantly for his radical photomontages of the 1930s and 40s. The other and most easily identifiable influence is that of the Surrealist Movement; particularly the work of Dali and his Surrealist objects (most notably, the infamous Lobster Telephone [1936]).

Since my art classes at secondary school, I have been drawn to and coveted many a book on 20th Century art, particularly those focused on Surrealism and Dada. During my birthday trip to London last year, I spent days absorbed in art galleries, enthralled by the complex simplicity of Modern Art, fascinated by what it meant, or didn’t — as the case may be! When it came to choosing the subject matter for the final year of my degree AA318: Art of the Twentieth Century seemed and natural and exciting choice and reading the course texts has been nothing short of inspirational.

Many a cynic among you may write off Modern art as a load of cobblers that your 3 year-old could produce. I beg to differ and implore you to read up on your Art History in order to see otherwise. The reality behind what appears at first glance to be baffling, is truly enlightening.

I hope you enjoy you time at my new blog as much as I have creating it. I am so excited to be back writing and sharing here.

All Original Words and Pictures are Copyright © 2012, Claire.NU. All rights reserved.
This feed and its content are for personal, non-commercial use only. The author of the content does not allow the content to be published on any other website or feed. If this content is not coming directly from Claire.NU, then the website publishing it is currently violating copyright laws. (Digital Fingerprint: 3121claire117nu1800n1e9w19fu687nk99 ).

The Bit Where There Was No Internet…

Claire — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:50:42 +0000

Dear Internet,

We are changing Interneting Providings that provide our providings. Ergo, I AM WITHOUT INTERNET — PANIC — PANIC!!

Hopefully, our new Internet Providings shall be up and running in about 2 weeks time. Until then, know that everyone is fine and rosy and I will return with a change of fortune, big, wonderous news, shiny pictures of shiny new things and lots of stories. I am keeping a paper journal in the interim, which I intend to share with you all as soon as I can — and I’m even considering a video diary. See? Don’t say I never give you anything.

I will be Twittering by text as and when I can, please follow me if you don’t already. Message of urgency can be sent to my email box (claire@claire.nu) — I will check my email whenever I can pinch my sister’s iPhone, which may not be as often as I’d like. (I don’t have 3G/Cloud access on my phone.)

Hugs & Kisses,
Claire x

The Bit Where I Fill You In…

Claire — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:52:02 +0000

Hi. My name is Claire and in a previous life I used to blog here. More recently however, my world has recently imploded.

Thank you to all those that sent well wishes to K, in response to my last blog post. Alas, K is still not well. After unceremoniously deciding to have a nervous breakdown in February, she opted to take 3 months off from work with a tentative diagnosis of PTSD and to have some minor surgery. Because, you know, there was just not enough Crazy in this house.

She has since embarked on a much needed career break, whilst she recuperates and seeks numerous forms of treatment. Never in my life have I supported a decision as much as I support this one. Yes, the economy is on its knees and yes, life will have its boot up our arse. But she needs this, her health and welfare is worth more to us than any financial or material carry-on.

I have every intention of returning to my beloved blog, but right now we’re taking each day as it comes and Open University exams and coursework aside, I’ve been on-call 24 hours a day to rub her back and (trying in vain to) make it all better.

I can’t tell you how brave K is being right now.

The Bit With The To-Do List…

Claire — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 15:25:31 +0000

Since finishing my course, I’ve been targeting a mammoth To-Do List offline that pretty much consists of all those thing you think “I really must get around to doing so-and-so…”, but you never do because they always seem so lengthy, time-consuming and monotonous. And just so you know, they’re actually even more lengthy, time-consuming and monotonous than you would suspect. REALLY. So take this as your warning.

Current, brain-thawing tasks have included the following:

#1 Form Filling

The last couple of weeks have seen me buried under paper; filling out forms and photocopying what seemed like every bank statement, payslip and proof of I.D. we’ve ever accumulated in the history of ever, in a bid to attempt to move closer to K’s (new) place of work. At one point I became convinced that at the rate it was going, the next thing asked of us would be a full internal examination and a stool sample.

We’ve been on waiting lists for accessible properties for some time now in our current area, but since K’s promotion had led to her commute almost tripling in length, it seems far more practical branch out and sign-up outside of our District. It’s counterproductive to spend years trying to get a place and moving, only to still have a really shite commute and fork out a fortune on petrol, just so we can stay “local” to the areas we grew up in. Not to mention, by moving closer, K will be able to continue her role as my primary carer, so to speak. I don’t want to have to resort to some form of Home Help unless there is Absolutely No Other Alternative. Unfortunately, starting these processes in a new area effectively means starting from scratch and having to go through our living situation and my medical history, mobility limitations and equipment/adaptation requirements ALL OVER AGAIN.

Arse.

#2 Finally Ditching VHS

Since I-can’t-even-remember-when, we’ve had the final, paltry remains of my once-humongous VHS cassette collection rotting gently under the bed. Retrieving them from their musky grave and lobbing them in a box so that I could finally go through them was like excavating ancient relics. As of yesterday, I began the (painfully slow) process of transferring them to DVD. A task best not left for the faint of heart, especially given the right load of old shite that I just cannot seem to LET. GO.

Highlights have included: The entirety of my Prince VHS Collection, Bootleg footage filmed of a Placebo gig I went to over 5 years ago (originally purchased for about £25 off Camden Market the following week) and a small collection of video compilations, recorded between 1985–1988 by my parents, that feature all the cartoons and commercials of my early childhood.

Lowlights include: Seeing Bob Geldof in an advert for milk (circa 1985) and thinking that, actually, he used to be rather ruggedly handsome, in a tatty Irish kind of way and the several minutes of abject, inconsolable, horror when I thought that my 1987 Teddy Ruxpin and Ovide compilation video was scrambled beyond repair. It turns out that the cassette is fine, but I think the dust from the old tapes has knackered the heads inside the VCR, so I’ll have to swap it for my spare.

#3 Going Paperless

This is connected to one of the (many) reasons we want to move: we have a mold/rising damp problem and despite various preventative measures and damage limitation methods, we still find it eating through our binders and paperwork at the bottom of the shelving unit. I no longer have any of the meticulous handwritten notes that documented my 3 year learning journey through my first Open University qualification. Everything that I made cheat sheets and memory-joggers for got gnawed away by gross, furry, green stuff — it broke my little academic heart watching all of those years’ worth of work just put out for the recycling men. *Sob* Now, if I ever want a refresher course on anything I covered during my Web Development courses, it’s back to conventional books from Amazon. Bugger.

To combat this problem (and preserve everything else that I own before it gets totally mangled), I’ve been reading some online articles about the transition towards creating a “paperless” (home) office. In a more practical sense, this actually means “less paper” as opposed to “no paper”, but I figure the principles of transferring my notes to a digital format for archiving purposes will at least go some way towards combating the storing issues we’re currently having with binders full of paper. It’s going to be a monster of a task, scanning hundreds of sheets, and I have no idea how successful it’s going to be or how long I’m going to stick to it. But, it seems a good idea. In theory anyway.

Actually, it seems a nuts idea that is going to take fucking forever and I’ll totally run out of steam half way through and wish I’d never even started it. But at least I’d have started with good intentions, right? RIGHT?!

When I lose my mind in a fortnight’s time and smash my face into the scanning glass as a form of light relief, please make sure to comment here and tell me it’s all going to be ok, won’t you?

Ta.

The Bit With The List…

Claire — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:45:07 +0000

Resorting to bullet points because we’re off to Kent as of tomorrow morning and we’ve not even packed yet! Argh.

Firstly, K’s weightloss has just hit the FOUR STONE mark! (Again, that’s 56 pounds for you Americanists). I am very proud of her.
I am in the process of working out a redesign for this site. It’s been a long time coming and I’m a bit rusty, but hopefully with enough hair pulling, you should see something swish here in the next couple of weeks.
Yesterday, K brought home tickets to go and see T.Rextasy on tour! Squee!
To EVERYONE that I owe emails/novel feedback to: I am a Very Bad Person. When I come back I promise I’ll bring reply emails. Promise.
To Vixx — K enjoyed your chapters so much she MADE me show her the others because she just HAD to know what happened next. So I let her because She. Made. Me. and she’s bigger than me and everything. Plus, she can choose to withhold things from me if I don’t comply, like T.Rextasy tickets, cuddles and cooked food. Trust me, it was better this way. (But being the true chick-lit reader she is, she’s gagging for the next sex scene. FOR THE LOVE OF BOB, WHEN’S THE NEXT SEX SCENE?!)
As of tomorrow, I won’t be at home so Internet access will be limited until Monday, which is likely — yet again — not to be Musical. Bugger.

Hugs and Kisses,

Claire xxx

The Bit Where Claire Was Curly…

Claire — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:40:16 +0000

I started writing this post Saturday. And then the boxing was on, so it didn’t get finished. (There’s on-ly one Ricky Hatton…). Then, yesterday was spent catching up on this year’s Eurovision Song Contest that I’d had to record because it clashed with the boxing. (Typical, the two things K and I love to watch and they were both on at once…)

So, here it is today: Curly Claire.

On Saturday, I decided to get my hair permed. I wanted something that looked like it was “doing something” even when I didn’t have time to mess with it. I also wanted something that was relatively easy to manage when I did have time to mess with it.

My requirements were as follows:

No dodgy, Essex, poodle-perms like my Aunties used to have. I don’t want to look like a 1980s throwback)
Must be easy to “do”. If I have to ponce about for over half an hour with tongs and dryers and shit, just so that I’m in a fit state to leave the house, then it’s the WRONG style for me. I’m thinking: Scrunch ‘N Go.
Must be cute and sexy and tousled and soft and effortless. I want to be able to get out of bed in the morning and look like a Goddess. Is that too much to ask of a haircut?

Well, I got no change out of a hundred quid. So it bloody-well shouldn’t be.

BEFORE using the iCam, or whatever Apple call the web-cam on my iMac:

DURING using K’s phone in the hairdressers:

and AFTER using my point-and-shoot back at home:

The result is a loose perm that’s neither wavy, nor curly. Kinda cute and curvy.

Today, it’s just a case of trying to replicate what my stylist did now that I’ve washed it at home.

Something tells me it’s not going to be half as easy as she made it look…

The Bit With Tuneful Tuesday…

Claire — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:11:48 +0000

…Because I missed Musical Monday.

This was taken from Prince’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Now, before you all roll your eyes in unison, seriously watch it from 3:28 onwards. No, really — I’m not just saying this! Disregard my usual fan girl ramblings and take time out to listen to that guitar sing — please.

If ever there was proof that that man kills it on guitar, there. it. is.

This is the first post written since the WordPress upgrade and if there’s one long lasting thought I’ve had since the installation of 2.5, it’s been: What in the world have you all been whinging about? No, really? So many blogs that I’ve read since the release of WordPress 2.5 have had nothing good to say about it at all; it’s too clean, it’s too orange, I hate the navigation, I hate the “Write” page, it’s too different, I don’t like change, it makes me come out in a nervous rash, Oh my god, my OCD, where did I put my Valium… It goes on and on.

I had visions of my blog being sucked down a black hole, instead I get a brand new interface (that I love — go orange!), an updated blog and only one solitary broken plugin — a new personal best for a such a “big” upgrade.

There’s only one significant change since the upgrade that you will notice; a change to user registrations. As you will remember, since my blog temporarily died back in February, I lost all of the user accounts and since then only a couple of you have (re)registered. Now, due to the ridiculous amount of fake registration and sign-up spam I was getting, anyone who chooses to register from today onwards will be required to verify their sign-up by clicking a link in the confirmation email. All new users will need to click the confirmation link before logging-in and failure to “click and confirm” within 3 days of registering will render your sign-up totally void. And then, you’ll have to start over.

It’s a small thing really, no different to signing up on a message board or social network, but I thought it was worth mentioning nevertheless. It was either confirmation emails or those silly type-the-unintelligible-word-in-the-box thingies. I know which I would prefer. (For those that are unaware of the benefits of registering, let me help you out.)

If all goes quiet this end, don’t panic. I’m off to Kent for a couple of days to say “Happy Birthday” to a very special little munchkin.

See you when I get back. x

The Bit Where I Was Back Once More…

Claire — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:02:57 +0000

Firstly, I would like to apologise to all my lovely readers for all the erroneous shenanigans and the seemingly never-ending game of “musical blogs” that I’ve been playing since Friday.

I hope that you all eventually find your way over here so that we can all relax together with a cup of tea, have a catch-up and ultimately engage in a big group hug to sooth the trauma and disruption our daily blog-reading has suffered. I am sorry to my blogging buddies for all the confusion and over-complication that has arisen as a result of the rather big mess caused by my old hosts. For those of you that didn’t read the passworded post on my temporary blog, I recommend that you now read the whole story here (no password required).

I am also sorry to all of you that took the time to read, comment and partake in the three of February’s posts that were sadly caught in the crossfire and are no more. It makes me sad that those posts and your comments are gone forever. This little blog and the interaction that occurs as a result of it, are very important to me and I feel very disappointed that even just a small part of that experience has been taken away.

Still, it is a small loss really when you consider how very stressful, time-consuming and relatively expensive this saga has been.

It is also worth noting at this point that all the “registered user” accounts are gone. Sadly, there was no way I could save them. If you would like to (re)gain the ability to read Partially Private posts, please take a second to register.

For the record: I am now hosted at Site5; a decision based on my own research and coupled with the invaluable advice gleaned from fellow bloggers. Site5 had the bits and bobs I wanted, came highly recommended by people I trusted with this sort of thing and were very reasonably priced, particularly as I took advantage of their 14% Valentine’s discount. (The reason I previously referred to this saga’s expensiveness was because I will effectively lose 2 months worth of hosting on my old account as a result of the old host’s cock-ups).

Fortunately, my domain names were not inextricably tied to my hosting account (I learnt from that mistake years ago), so I get to keep my lovely web addresses and all links should be up and working ASAP, if they’re not already.

I am gradually settling in after a monumental brain-sneeze on my part wherein I borked the .htaccess file last night and caused untold savage for about 6 hours, during which my pathetically shameful support ticket was answered and the problem duly remedied. The main delay was caused by the fact that the domain pointer carry-on took forever to propagate and sort itself out and then there was the small matter of my theme being totally screwed. Joy.

I’ve tried my best to restore all of the posts and comments right up until the end of January 2008. My back-up (WXR) file was approx 3.8MB and the upload limit on this place is only 2MB, luckily I managed to get around the problem with the aid of this post on the WP Support forums. It was a bit of an arse to have to cut my back-up WXR file into chunks, but the other method people spoke of that involved .htaccess just resulted in the aforementioned hoo-hah and support ticket. So, if you ever try to restore your blog using WordPress’ export/import features and the file is too big to import, I suggest just dividing it into bits like the forum post says. It’s a bit of a faff, but worth it. Quick tip: Before you “export” your posts and comments, clear out all the crap caught by Akismet, it will help keep your WXR file-size down.

If you have a dig about and find something broken, the please, please do tell me either via the Comments or by sending little messages of helpfulness to my email box: claire@claire.nu. I can’t fix it if I don’t know it’s broken in the first place.

I’m so glad to have my blog and you guys back again! I hope that this will be a “fresh start” and regular posting will resume in due course.

The Bit With The Server Thingy…

Claire — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:59:42 +0000

According to my host, they are making some changes to the server and the features currently provided.

These changes will occur between Friday 25th January (today) and Friday 1st February.

I’ve been told not to play with my blog in-between these days as any changes I make could be lost during the upgrade. This also means that any comments made during that time may go AWOL too.

Should you need me for anything, or just want to pop by and say hello, send all nice words and messages of squee to my email box: claire@claire.nu

Will be back to play with my blog as soon as it is all fixed proper and newly fandangly.

Hugs & Kisses,

Claire xxx

The Bit Where I Wasn’t Poorly Anymore…

Claire — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 20:15:23 +0000

Dear Internet,

Remember me? I’m the skinny, cynical one with a penchant for Prince’s chest-hair and pissing and moaning about — oh I don’t know, the world and everything in it, bar Prince’s chest hair? Oh, you do remember me?

Splendiferous.

So how are you all? I’m finally feeling more like myself and less like the scutty, scab and snot-infested, skank-grot-gank-bag that I have been these past couple of weeks. What started off as a sore-throat that felt like I was swallowing razor blades on Christmas morning rapidly morphed into an absolute stinker of a cold during our stay with relatives in Kent. I felt so grotty that on our premature return, I was so pathetic that I thought it fit to travel the entire journey home in my new fleece pyjamas with fuzzy lions on. At two in the afternoon. On three motorways. And we stopped in town, both on the high street and at the bank. During January Sales. In fuzzy lion pyjamas. Oh, dear.

Days later, I was hacking up both of my lungs, my liver and my pancreas. Sleeping was something other people did, as was eating. Chewing a small mouthful of food became almost impossible without spewing tiny pre-chewed morsels over everyone within a five mile radius before then bursting into tears, as I did one evening when I felt intolerably nauseous and light-headed, “Nobobby wands squished beef in dere hair!” I wailed.

I am such a baby when I’m poorly, don’t you just feel so sorry for me? Poor me.

Then, fate smiled. And blessed with a coldsore so gargantuan that it is literally swinging from my face. Joy.

Somewhere amongst all that yuck, I managed to write a 2,200 word short story with a 500 word commentary. I have no idea if the story was any good, quite frankly it was a miracle I managed to get anything onto paper. It was a shame really as this was the last fiction writing assignment of the course (the next one is poetry — ARGH!) and I think had I not been ill, I would have really enjoyed it. Instead, I just managed to muddle through it. A missed opportunity there, methinks.

Still, I’m better now.

Although I’m not really one for resolutions, one thing I do plan to do in 2008 is get back to posting here regularly.

Internet, I’ve missed you. Forgive me?