Red

I’m at the lake with my shirt off, letting my belly tan, when I find out two different blogs have written about this place. Just mentioned it, praised it even. I’m not sure what I did to deserve it. Maybe they were bored. Maybe there’s nothing else worth writing about lately.

It’s strange, getting noticed out of nowhere. One said it was worth seeing. The other went on about the simplicity and style, how it all fits together. You don’t expect that kind of thing when you’re just doing your own thing. Suddenly you’re reading praise about yourself and wondering if you’ve actually built something real or just imagined you did.

Then Christoph shows up with his problem. The aesthetic’s too much, he says. Too many breasts, basically, too deliberately designed to catch a certain kind of eye. He’s not entirely wrong. I built this place to be crude, horny, unashamed. But when someone calls it out directly, you start to wonder if you should soften it up, get proper, download a respectable WordPress theme and try being an adult.

The whole thing’s funny when I think about it. Two people praising it, one criticizing it, and all of them seeing exactly what I was doing. My commenters too—they drag my posts sideways into conversations I never planned for, and half the time it’s hilarious. You get seen, you get the good and the bad, and somehow both matter.

I dunk my head in cold water to get the red out of my face. The real question that won’t leave me alone: so do I get on TV now?