Cache Flow

June 20

Yesterday there was a blackout on this blog. Hours went by when the blog was gone from cyberspace. At first I figured it was just a technical problem at the blog space provider and would be cleared up in minutes, but when two hours went by I thought (wrongly) that there was something I could do.

I don't have good computer instincts. I don't like to multi-task and have long since decided that all the details of making words appear on the screen and in the cybersphere were just not of importance to me. I just fiddle with the keyboard until the screen tells me I have done something; often it tells me what I did was wrong (and sometimes illegal) and I hate when that happens. I adopted a casual attitude about the warnings years ago, to save myself the nervous breakdowns and insecurity complexes resulting from being so wrong so often. When I have to do something difficult, like deal with html, I grit my teeth and try it, but I don't care to enlighten myself in the finer points of how it works. I call it self-protection; what it probably is is recklessness.

When the blackout occurred I decided to deal with it the way that I deal with it when the post I've been working on assiduously just doesn't appear some mornings. I have been to the "Help" department of the blog provider and it tells me that I need to clear the cache. All this time (I've been blogging since February), I thought that meant to delete former posts to make room for new ones.

I didn't know what the "cache" was. Such a pretty word. Lots of opportunities for puns, like the title of this blog. But I was, because of this misunderstanding, deleting some of my best work from the archives of the blogs -- work that would attract new readers through search engines, work that would exemplify my mission here and even sell some books for me.

I did copy the posts onto my hard drive in case I want to use them someday.

Thank God for young friends who fresh brains are a cache for computer information. One of these, Salome, who does a private dance on her own blog to which this one is linked, came on my email last night to chat and I asked her to explain how to deal with the blog blackout situation. She walked me through what the cache actually is, how to clear it -- and explained that I should never have to delete posts from my blog. I promptly cleared the cache. Then I checked the archives and of course everything is gone but a few posts in June and May.

However, friends, the good missing posts are on my hard drive, so I shall re-post them all as we go forward in time. Don't be surprised if you read something familiar here from time to time. Some things should be out there -- the Upton Sinclair in Fairhope stuff, etc. Let me know what you'd like to read again. You'll probably be reading it.

Maybe I should take computer lessons?