Redesign

At the beginning of next month I am going to have to move this website over to a new hosting provider because the current company hosting this website charges a lot of money for the amount of bandwidth I need every month. I have tried to negotiate some give and take with these guys but I can’t get anyone to return my emails.

So I’ve been talking with Jon — that’s what married people do sometimes, talk. More often than not we finish each other’s sentences and have an amazing ability to understand what the other is talking about when asked about the thing that goes with the thing over there on the thing. I’ve come to the decision that I want to do a redesign of this site in conjunction with the hosting provider move. I want to make a lot of improvements, add more features, and make this website an even better waste of your time.

Some of the things I’d like to see here include:

1. Search functionality
2. Better/more categorization of posts
3. A daily photograph
4. A monthly round-up of hate mail, love mail, and could take me or leave me mail, and my commentary on all of it
5. Adding back to the archives all the older posts that I have deleted
6. Lengthier descriptions of music, books and websites I’m enjoying
7. A site FAQ section, including an explanation on the tools I use to build this site

Now here’s where I talk about the possibly controversial part: I want to try and make money with this website (Gasp. Sigh. Please alert the sell-out police.) This may seem too ambitious, and it may very well be too ambitious as this is a personal website that talks a whole lot about poop. But Jon and I have given this a lot of thought, and generating any sort of revenue from the site, however meager or paltry it may be, would help relieve at least a little bit of the burden Jon carries in supporting this family financially.

I’ve considered taking a job outside the home, but that would mean that I would probably have to give up this website. I don’t possess the juggling skills to raise a baby and work a full or part-time job and maintain the amount of writing I have done here. This website brings me much happiness and joy, and it has been the most therapeutic part of my treatment for postpartum depression. Why not try to make a living out of it?

I’ve thought about getting a job writing a column for a magazine or newspaper, but I would inevitably be subjected to an editor in those circumstances, and editors always seem to suck the life out of whatever I’ve written (no offense to editors out there, you’re good people, except for the one I dated in Los Angeles who used to proofread Honda brochures, my god, did he need to chill it on the correct usage of apostrophes, plus there was that one time he LOST IT when he couldn’t watch a Notre Dame game, and I had to witness the near-choking of the bartender at an Irish bar on Fairfax because THE IRISH BAR WASN’T SHOWING THE NOTRE DAME GAME, OH MY GOD HOW COULD THEY CALL THEMSELVES IRISH?)

Unfortunately I’m not quite sure how to make money doing this. I applied for Google AdSense and they rejected me because of “Inappropriate language.” Yes, that’s right. Google wants nothing to do with me and my motherfucking fucker fucks, my poops and penile diseases, my nursing bras and engorged, cabbage-wrapped torpedo boobs. Here’s what they actually said:

“We’ve found that your website contains content that isn’t in compliance with our program policies. We don’t allow websites with excessive profanity or potentially offensive content to participate in Google AdSense.”

Somehow I feel rather proud.

I don’t want to be edited or censored, and I would never alter the content of this site to qualify for an advertising program. My stance on this may leave me moneyless, but at least I’ll have my dignity and you’ll have my cabbage boobs.

Here’s where I ask for your feedback on the idea of a redesign. I want your input. What would you like to see here?

(NOTE: NUDE PICTURES OF ME ARE NOT AN OPTION. DON’T EVEN ASK. Nude pictures of Chuck, however, coming soon!)

Have you got any ideas?

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