In 2004 I, Mai, decided to make a website.

There were several reasons for this:

• People seemed to enjoy the things I did so it seemed like a good way for them to stay updated.
• Other people suggested that I couldn’t do it, or that it was a bad idea, and I wanted to prove them wrong.
• Procrastination- there were lots of other (more important) things I should have been doing but was avoiding.

So, armed with the help of my father and a program called Nvu (which I do not recommend using, ever, particularly in the case of its “convenient” FTP management) I set about this little project, with no idea what I was doing and the vague assumption that I’d probably just get bored and forget about it anyway.

As it happens, I turned out to be a relatively persistent individual who is nothing if not committed.

The Asylum has been re-built 4 or 5 times and what we’re seeing here is the latest rendition of this. A tipping point was reached in which I admitted the gallery was a dogs-breakfast and ceased denial of just how dated the HTML tables really looked. It would be a big job, but it would make the future so much easier.

This time? Nothing was torn down. Instead? Everything was flat out destroyed.

I began from scratch.

Armed with a combination of Notepad++ and Brackets I set to work.

Then I thought: “Why stop there?”

When I first made the Asylum it was hosted on my parents domain; .fathen.net which was totally fine. I didn’t really have to worry about anything. But the more I worked on the new Asylum the more I knew we needed to move on. It was time to stop with the identity crisis and move to our own domain.

Is this a metaphor for life? Because I feel like it could be interpreted as one.

It’s also midnight and I’m supposed to go to bed at 22:00 so forgive me for kind of falling apart here and not really knowing where I’m going with this babble.

Trivia you might like to know:

• The asylum began life in 2004 as an exercise in angst-driven procrastination.
• Blog entry titles are lyrics from songs because I lack the imagination to think up titles on my own.
• The original Asylum blog was by something called Bit5 Blog.
• In 2010 I switched the blog to WordPress because Bit5 had no security and I was constantly deleting entries after finding myself unable to keep up with the influx of spam comments.
• I briefly considered importing the .fathen.net blog here instead of starting from scratch but decided against it because I said some really stupid things I no longer agree with and couldn’t be bothered editing all the entries to reflect this in rolling with this whole “new life” metaphor or whatever.

The gallery no longer has lengthy descriptions with the artworks. Why? I felt like I was constantly repeating myself. Type a description on dA, then another on FA, then another in the blog, then another in the gallery, then fifty billion more times to every person who never bothered reading the descriptions but still felt a need to enquire about things which were directly and specifically covered by said description. Point is: I usually say whatever I have to say here. In the blog. Where people who want to read that sort of thing can and those who don’t want to don’t have to worry about it being in their way.

Please forgive any clunkiness you experience with the site. I’m still ironing out a few unforeseen problems (doing this whole “running my own domain” thing is simultaneously easier and more complicated than I’d anticipated) but if you do happen across anything that seems seriously wrong please don’t hesitate to let me know and I’ll try to fix it! Or cry. Maybe both?

As a little bonus for those who were paying attention and are curious about “Separation Anxiety” – it’s a little comic thing I’ve been working on for longer than I’m willing to admit.

It is going to happen this year. I promise. You can hold me to that. Better blog entries than this one will also be a thing. Ones with like. . . works in progress and. . . beverages that I enjoy. . .

Just not right now, because I’m going the fuck to bed.

RIGHT AFTER I THANK EVERYBODY WHO HAS VISITED THE ASYLUM OR SENT NICE MESSAGES OR HELPED ME or generally just not implied what a failure at life I am. Seriously, thank you. I couldn’t have done this alone.

Extra special thanks to my father, and partner, who have basically been my tech-support throughout this ordeal and who both seem to have way more faith in my capabilities than I do.

The future isn’t looking as daunting and mysterious as usual.