Aug.02 - Blaugust Day 2

In which I transition to Eleventy

I'm typing in markdown right now, so I don't have to write any HTML to go along with this, which is a bit ironic considering this is HTML Day (yay, HTML!). I'm celebrating HTML by...converting my hand-coded HTML blog to one that is created through Eleventy, a static-site generator. I did this because the fuss of editing my own RSS.xml file was getting to be a bit too much.

And secondly, while I didn't mind writing my own HTML for the content of my pages, I did mind the issue of how easy it was to mess up the entire site when I tried to change small things. In a hand-built site, each file is tended by hand, which means the only way to change things en masse is to find and replace at a big level. If you make a mistake, you make it to all your files. Using Eleventy to process my markdown files into HTML means that I can use a template, a single file that I can change at will, and those changes will appear on every page, without any supplementary cursing from me. It's pretty great.

Rey and Evan, you're the bee's knees

I couldn't have done any of this without two friends, Rey and Evan, and I thank them SO VERY MUCH! 💜💜

I started this little blog project as an entirely hand-coded blog precisely because I don't know how to use a static-site generator. I've tried - poor Evan tried to help me with my first failed foray into Eleventy and my friend Jessica was a huge help in my attempts at Hugo, which did work for a short time until enough stuff broke that I got overwhelmed and scrapped it.

One major thing has changed, that I think has made the most difference to struggling then and having more success now. I've been doing a lot of personal therapeutic work on nervous system healing and regulation. When I was first trying to use a SSG a couple of years ago, I was in a much higher state of fight/flight, but without realizing it. It would take some time, work, and therapy, to understand how revved up I was, and how this really was making cognitive tasks difficult. At the time I didn't understand why it was so hard to slow down and take things in, to focus. But that has slowly shifted through the work I've been doing. I still struggle with a chronically "flighty" system, but I see it better, handle it better, and can focus a lot more effectively now than I could then.

So a few weeks ago, when Rey decided that yes, I could learn Eleventy, if she just walked me through the startup (she had just created her own Eleventy blog), I was dubious, but I let her try. And...it actually worked! A blog was created, things actually seemed to make some sense. Don't get me wrong, I have struggled! I have struggled today, even. As I keep pointing out, I don't know code. But I do have a group chat with Rey and Evan, and every time I hit a snag, I pop the error message into our chat, and one or both of them helps me out.

Tinkering thoughts, handling problems

I've had really mixed feelings about this! Not about my friends, who are awesome, amazing people. But about the whole idea of my blog being a space for me to experience the joy of tinkering. There was so much gratification in having just enough expertise to fix things, with just enough unknown that I could go seeking answers for fun. I know what I'm doing. I can buy a domain name, set it up somewhere, get FTP working, make my own files, process photos, write basic CSS, and make a website that way. And if I want to make my own work a bit fancier, I know where to go to get the fancy code to spice things up.

But Eleventy? This is Eleventy to me: A bunch of folders, that I was able to install on my own, but which contain acres and acres of code that makes no sense to me. I understand the workflow - I make my markdown files, and then I tell Eleventy a command and it will grab my files, do...a bunch of code-y stuff....to them....and out pops a folder with all my HTML files neatly pressed and folded, which I then upload to Neocities. TA DA!

What happens when any of this breaks? (And it does break.) Well, I ask Rey and Evan. Which for awhile felt a little demoralizing, like this isn't really me tinkering. But Rey keeps insisting it is, and then Evan will say, "This is how programmers work," and here I have two very kind people drip-feeding me confidence. And it's working.

I start to want to run back to my stack of static HTML files and Rey will point out how much I've learned already, and Evan will make a tweak that fixes the thing I'm most panicked about, and then they'll explain why the tweak worked, and over a couple weeks of this, I'm starting to transition into a place of believing two things:

1. I might actually know just barely enough to happily tinker in Eleventy. SQUEE! (Coming next: tag collections, bird seed bread crumb navigation...)

2. Getting this help is the realization of community, it's not the failure of a single person.

Community is so good, and so real

I'm not a jerk - I ask if it's a good time for a question. I don't assume Rey and Evan are at my beck and call. And I've been anxious about how much time they're spending because I don't want them to ever think that just because they helped me get started, they're chained to me.

But it never feels like that. Rey will be in the middle of figuring out dinner or Evan will be in the middle of caring for his kiddo, and they will stop and help me with something, because we're friends. And we have boundaries, too; sometimes it isn't a good time. Sometimes the answer is, "leave the question here, I'll get to it later". Sometimes they want me to fix something and I have to admit my brain is fried and I need a break. Which is great! If you ever worry about having boundaries, just picture for a moment how much safer it feels when people share theirs, and know that it feels just as safe to them when you share yours.

So, in the end, I've decided I can do this. And that it's okay to ask friends for the absolutely inevitable help I'll need to build/modify something using code I don't know how to read.

Will I still get on my soapbox about how inaccessible this is to the average non-techie person? You know it. I want this to be so much easier, for everyone. Someday it will be, I hope! For now, seriously, check out Pika.page or Bearblog.dev for your hosted blogs!

What else happened today...

We went to the Eugene Saturday Market, the slightly smaller sister of the Portland Saturday Market, where I spent hours and hours as a teenager. I love street markets!

Some amazing artist(s) created this effigy and had it right on the corner between the park blocks, for maximum visibility. Beautiful.

This person and I would get along:

Found this little doggo in a window, watching the world go by, seemingly very exhausted by it:

Nervous system was not happy today

I had barely arrived at the market before my system started shutting down. We didn't stay too long, just enough for our kid to get the thing they'd wanted. I was practically seeing spots, it was all I could do to walk back to the car. The psychological work has been so good, has seen so much blossoming and progress, but the physical state of things is still a mess, and in some ways, worse than ever (but in some ways, better - it's complex. And I'm so tired of that.)

I'm torn about this topic, not sure how much to talk about it. It's very personal and vulnerable, but on the other hand, if I found someone writing about their experience with this, I'd be hugely grateful. So I go back and forth a bit on how much to say. Are there other folks interested in nervous system issues, links to trauma and ADHD (possibly autism as well), and my journey through all this? If there's interest, I might try to start getting some of it down. Feel free to DM me on Mastodon.