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Motherfucker | Sep 07 2001

Decided to change Oblivio so it would work for daily, shorter things. Did this. Showed early designs (which included some quasi-pornographic content) to several designer friends. One said, aside from design commentary, that I couldn’t or shouldn’t put such things (quasi-pornographic content) on the same site as my business stuff, what would potential clients think?

Became depressed. Had trouble sleeping. Would have begun drinking, were I the type. Had but two choices, as I saw it. Do it anyway, despite quasi-pornographic content, or create totally separate business site.

Separate site meant three bad things:

Never considered the other apparent choice: to tone it down. Felt this would destroy it. Felt that if I had to evaluate each thing on the basis of whether it might offend someone, I was fucked.

After weeks of waffling, decided finally, irrevocably, to do it anyway, damn the consequences. Wrote a long impassioned email to designer friend, explaining my decision. Felt deep down that I want clients who won’t be offended by quasi-pornographic content, clients who might even appreciate quasi-pornographic content, clients who in any case can distinguish between what people call pornography and ramblings about what people call pornography. Told myself I would gain as many clients as I would lose and that the losses wouldn’t be losses but gains since I wouldn’t have wanted to work with “those” clients anyway. The quasi-pornographic content would be inadvertently beneficial, I told myself, since it would scare away the “bad” clients and attract the “good” clients. And the quasi-pornographic content would give me something precious, I told myself, something no sanitized separate business site ever could: a sense of wholeness. No more hiding what I write from the people I work with. No more splitting myself into separate personas for work and non-work. No more fear of people getting “the wrong idea” about me. Let them get “the wrong idea” about me; I will no longer act like someone about whom no one can get “the wrong idea.”

Such is what I told myself.

And then the next day I realized I couldn’t possibly go through with this, so I spent the next two months doing the three bad things I didn’t want to do, and now those three bad things are done and I have a separate business site which I’ve spent at least a hundred hours working on because I’m an obsessive motherfucker, and I also have new business cards and of course new hosting fees to pay, and here I am writing this new piece for the new Oblivio, which I must admit feels great, in part because I can now write the word motherfucker as many times I want without fear of seeming like the kind of person who just goes around writing the word motherfucker all the time and for no apparent reason.

Motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfucker.