change

It's funny that I have been having so many conversations with people about change on the Internet lately that I have suddenly been forced to make a decision to make a change of my own. Change, of course, can be hard because we like things the way we are used to seeing them. Yet the Internet, by its very nature, is a place that is constantly changing and at a high speed. What networks do you use? What coding languages? What the hell is Google looking for now in its ranking? And on and on.

I promised myself that this year I would return to my habit of taking August off from the blog and a few other things. Not only is it a good idea to take a break and have a little rest, but I am going through some changes with some very large projects and I need some time to focus on them.

If you are one of my facebook friends then you may have seen my angry rant yesterday about what is going on with me being stalked again. On the bright side, all of this is pushing me to take a step forward that of course - has its plusses and minuses. It is neither good nor bad, it is just different. Since my past three stalkers have all originated from strangers contacting me via the web and asking for help with something, I am changing the way that people can contact me. I would never, for an instant, give up being available and willing to help or talk to people about things -  that would go against who I am. But I have learned that anonymity and the ability to lurk dis-connected are things that act like fuel for the unbalanced. So I am taking steps to make sure that to contact me, you have to engage on a certain level first. The blog will remain the blog, my site will remain open etc and so forth, but my canned reply to any queries coming from a social network will be a redirect through my business email (cassandra.tribe@loveandwords.com).

I am also, because so many problems have originated with Facebook, making my page there private and for close friends and family only. I will be sending out linked in invitations if you are a "friend" on my facebook account but actually a network contact. It is going to be a long slow process, a little bit here, a little bit there.

Other changes in the wind - in August I am revamping the love and words site so it may be down for a bit. I am recoding and redesigning it to be accessible on mobile platforms (all mobile platforms and not just smartphone/iPhones) and combining several of my online sites under the loveandwords banner. After two years of fooling with mobile sites and construction I have a better understanding of what to do with all that next.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, the play was fine. Sad to say I have gotten so used to this stupidity that its like saying "Oh, its starting to rain again, pull out the raingear." You get angry, but you know the steps to take.

And mixed into all this is the definition of evil and the concept of responsibility that I have been talking about lately. It would be easy to excuse someone's behavior by giving it a title for an illness, but the fact is (and in face to face conversation with the current problem person it was evident) the behavior is often a willful choice. The choice is made to ignore an other's life and to follow what you want irregardless of the havoc you cause around you.

Somebody asked me yesterday or made the comment rather, that these encounters must at least give me ideas for writing. Outside of the occasional inclusion in a blog like this, no, they don't. There has only been one poem I ever wrote that was about being stalked and the funny thing was, the stalker at the time saw it and thought it was a compliment and thought it beautiful (where everyone else who read it saw it as a depiction of something horrible). So you learn. These people are not worth my time and I resent having to take the time to go to police stations and then do postings to explain to perfectly fine people that one bad egg with no inclination to self-control is causing some changes.

Echhhhhh...enough, too much time already. The day is beginning. I am in a wonderful mood and MK is bouncing in and out of the misting rain and being her wonderful, annoying self.

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