Robert Manners

Redecorating an Irrelevancy

I've been thinking about doing a redesign of this site, from the color-scheme and the font all the way up to the domain name.



Actually, I'm supposed to be writing a Ninth-Step letter, and I am resisting it with even more energy than I usually devote to resisting doing things I know are good for me but which are nevertheless painful, and have done everything in the world I can think of to avoid writing this letter... I've spent untold hours and far too much money trolling around in eBay searching for jewels and gowns and furs; I have had entertaining but entirely unnecessary conversations with my grandmother and my nephew; I have watched television; I have watched videos; I even did all my laundry (you know I must be desperate when housework of any kind is better than the task at hand).



So now I have twelve loads of clean clothes, an avalanche of packages coming in the mail, a nearly-empty bank-account, and a passed deadline for getting this damned letter written... and here I am at work enjoying a particularly uneventful workday. Am I using this lack of event to devote myself to writing this letter? No, I'm thinking about new domain names and researching their availability.



Here's what I've come up with so far:

• MannersFromHeaven (which I like best, but might be copyrighted since it's the title of a Quentin Crisp book)



• MarvelousManners



• MannersManse



• MannersWorld



• MindYourManners



• Mannerist



• McManners

Most of these are available, I think, in dot-coms and dot-nets and dot-orgs and what-have-you. All of them are, I think, fairly easy to remember (unlike the unfortunate current title, which most people read as Mannerisms, which is a real word, instead of Mannersism, which is a word I made up... never dreaming that people would confuse it for another word). Of course, these are just the names that incorporate "Manners" somewhere... there is a universe of other possibilities that might some time or other occur to me.



I'm pretty sure I will switch over to Moveable Type (I like BloggerPro just fine, but I hear on good authority that I'll like MT better), and I of course have to find some new comments system, since YACCS has apparently disappeared off the face of the Earth... ideally I'd like something that is contained in my own domain so I don't have to rely on others. I'm also questioning my devotion to this flame-suede-and-parchment graphic-scheme as well as my commitment to serif Roman fonts. I know I want to keep the pictures up, and keep my links of the front page, but beyond that I'm all at sea.



Advice? Why, I'd love some! Since my comments are kaput, write me an email if you have something to say. My time-frame is to launch the new domain on December 17 (the second anniversary of my blog), so there's no big hurry. Plenty of time to screw around finding a new domain-name and a nice new template and all that.



In the meantime, I've updated some links and pictures and whatnot today. And maybe I'll manage to get that Ninth-Step letter written before my sponsor completely loses patience with me. Or perhaps I'll get all the Venetian blinds in the living room repaired and in place. Or maybe I'll polish all the hardwood floors in the house. Or maybe shop myself blind on eBay. Or some combination thereof.



Really, how hard is it to write a letter?