Can’t say I’ve enjoyed messing with all this site look-and-feel stuff which had been stable for so long. But a bunch of stuff has been fixed, anyhow:

• Main menu no longer bulleted; items in menu returned to horizontal layout — ditto for the list of “entry pages” (Previous, Next, etc.) which appears below whatever post(s) show on the current page
• Main font of entries returned to earlier serifed font (blockquotes still sans-serif, as before)
• Removed “Recently on Instagram” widget until I figure out why the so-called sidebar elements (Subscribe, Hats Recently Chased, etc.) have been suddenly turned into, uh, bottom-bar elements

The main thing, and I think it’s big enough to sweat, is that the layout remains hinky — displaying entries in full page width, which forces all that sidebar stuff to be buried at the bottom of the page.

About that, one possibility has suddenly occurred to me… How to explain…?

See, the basic look of the page is based on a WordPress “theme” I bought the last time I did a site redesign, in, um… well, it was years ago anyhow. Since then, WordPress itself has undergone a number of updates — and so did the basic theme, although I didn’t know it (or didn’t think it would matter). WordPress updates are automatically applied; theme updates are not. When I finally got around to updating the theme late last week, Boing!: everything sprung out of whack.

So anyhow, what occurs to me now is this: I have not been using a “real” computer since we left on our Roadtrip 2021-22 almost a year-and-a-half ago; instead, I’ve been using a laptop Chromebook, since it’s very small, light, and easily transported. I think maybe the new, updated versions of WordPress and my theme are now smart enough to recognize this as a mobile tablet-like device instead of a Real Computer, and are thus forcing the “sidebars” downstairs because (in their opinion, haha) the “sidebars” won’t fit comfortably at the side.

To test this theory, I’ll need to use a “real” computer to view the site. If on such a device, with a bigger screen, everything looks as it should, then I’ll know the theme is working correctly for small mobile screens… even though, for such screens, it will be a very dumb layout and will need to be corrected somehow…

And yes, I realize that you as readers probably aren’t following this train of thought, let alone understanding why it matters to me. Just trust me: it matters to little old OCD me. *weak laughter*