2003
Identity Crisis, AKA What’s in a Name?
Texas T-Bone brings up something I’ve been thinking about lately. Should I have a “secret” name now that I have a “secret” website? I just can’t seem to find anything that’s right. I couldn’t use my middle name (Kay) because it’s just so, well, blah. And Dylan’s middle name (Jim, that’s right, Jim, not James) is not a proper middle name at all, so that’s out of the question (although we shouldn’t complain because he was given the name “Jim” after a guy who went by “Woody,” so it could have been much worse). I could think of many names that have something to do with my job or my appearance, but I don’t want to be too cutesy or as outwardly obsessed with my career as I am inwardly obsessed with it. And, God love Texas T-Bone, but I just can’t get enthusiastic about being Utah Jello Salad (with marshmallows and shredded carrots!), and I don’t want to be afianced to KFC’s Original Recipe. I don’t have the heart to just make up something out of the blue either; I have to have some personal connection to my name. My instinct is to go with a character out of one of my favorite books, but that would mean I’d be known as Lolita, Daisy (that shell of a ditz who was Gatsby’s object of affection), Sue (the feisty and intelligent yet tragically doomed heroine of Jude the Obscure, which I just finished reading), or Emma, both for Austen’s matchmaker (good) and for Flaubert’s adultress (not so good). Perhaps it’s time to get out the phone book, close my eyes, and point.
2003
It’s a Bloggy Blog World (Again!)
I’m finally here! And oh, how I’ve missed you!
After a week spent fuming and being miserable over the colossal betrayal of trust that occurred when my mom shared the old website address with a bunch of my relatives whom I’d explicitly asked her not to share with (especially since I announced the engagement there before I’d told everyone in my family and now some of them are a little hurt about it), and another week trying to figure out the logistics of subdomains and add-on domains before finally giving up and just ordering a new account for extra money, and another week trying to get everything transferred from the old site and up and running and navigable on this site, I’m finally finally done and here and happy it’s (almost) all over with. I’m cooking up a new little logo for the site and will have a fancy-schmancy splash page like Renee’s to greet my visitors, but that probably won’t be for another little while being that Dylan is in the middle of a huge research paper and I can’t ever use the computer at home. Ugh. But that, in addition to the trauma of having the laptop freeze and die and refuse to even start up last week because it can’t handle all the digital photos I’ve downloaded means that we’re dedicated to getting a desktop soon, so yay! Personally, I’m vacillating between getting another PC or a Mac (mostly so I can make imovies like Secret Agent Josephine), but we have yet to dig up the proper issue of Consumer Reports, so we’re not set on anything just yet. In the meanwhile, I will squander time between making important red pencil marks all over people’s masterpieces and write from work when I can. I should be punished for it, but just about everyone in my office is too cool to ever make that happen. I am indeed a lucky girl.
FYI, here’s the deal with the old site. Dylan wants to leave it up for several reasons, and I will comply for one reason and one reason only: because he’s my main squeeze. He wants to be able to share stuff with family and friends. This is fine with me, as long as I know that’s who’s looking at the site. When I thought we had just parents and close friends looking at the old site, I was okay with that, but when I found out we were exposed to second cousins and parents’ coworkers, I was understandably a little more than grumpy about it. There are some things just better shared with complete strangers and not with those we know in real life, yes? Consider it a lesson well learned. The other site will slowly degenerate into a magical world where only boring things happen and all of the comments will be overreactions or inside jokes. You don’t want to go there, trust me. All the juicy stuff will be here. The other reason Dylan wants to leave the site up is because his mom finally started reading it after she’d known about it for several months and, lo and behold, it seems that after reading about the engagement, among other things, she finally came to realize (after six years!) that I am indeed a person–a quite nice and lovely person with very tender feelings about her son and only the best intentions, instead of a harbinger of ill-will with dubious moral character. This was a revelation on par with the Annunciation. A heavenly choir of angels was singing and everything. So that worked out for the best, and for that I am eternally grateful, but that doesn’t mean she needs an all-access pass to my psyche via the holy miracle of the World Wide Web. The point of all this is to say that if you visit the old site and want to leave a comment, I will leave your message but delete your contact info, just to make it a little harder for the fam to track us to our new cyber home. If they’re going to pry where they’re not welcome, they should at least have to work for it, right?
All this is starting to sound a little too vindictive and bitter for my taste, so I’ll just leave it at that. I’m very excited to be back online in my own little room. Don’t get me wrong–I like visiting your places, but the space is a little cramped and it doesn’t have that familiar smell. There’s no place like home. *click click click*
Thanks for reading!
2003
Look Ma, I’m in the News!
This just about says it all. While it definitely makes me laugh, I can’t say I didn’t cry a little a lot too.
