And the fog clears
It’s been three years since I’ve last blogged, so pardon any formalities, please.
My best friend’s concerned that I’ve become a recluse (even for niche internet hobbyist standards) and I’m here to dust out this Casket o’ Random Thoughts to counteract that. It’ll take a moment for me to get acclimated, but there’s worse times to start.
General Ambient
Okay, first of all...it’s Spooy Month, so we’re swamped in that nice, nostalgic ambience. I’m posting from my Scooby-Doo bedsheets with a bellyful of all-anglo roast dinner. The relief from seeing the nights come earlier lifts me from even the worst moods, and I’m sleeping the best I have been in months. I’ve been chipping at servings of Count Chocula, Goldfish Crackers and these little roast jerky thingies that look like really long cigars. I’ve been thanking Lutz profusely for the privilege of getting to disrespect my arteries in such a unique way. Speaking of Lutz, I’m settling back down after a trip we took to Chicago together. It was our first time meeting and it was a total scream, but now we’re calming back down and planning a year’s worth of packages before I can book my next round-trip.
Dancing with the Dead
As for projects I have my webcomic Dancing with the Dead, which I host on Neocities via the Rarebit client. It also has its own world-building pages, which are set to come out this halloween night. As teased on the back cover of my latest release, I have another thing planned. I’m doing one last round of polishing and assuming there’s no curses that come with amateur game development, it should happen with all the other treats.
Old Web Findings: The Introduction
When I’m not doing my day-job or any projects, I wind down by going through old websites on Archive.org. I’ll grab a link off a directory, punch it in the Wayback Machine and sift through dozens of sites at a time until I find some keepers. To me, this is incredibly therapeutic.
These sites feel so enthusiastic in their writings, like, there’s a such zest for life it becomes downright infectious. Every little thing on these sites carries so much weight to it. Yes because the connection speeds were nonexistent, and yes because people had to warn for the horrors of a 250KB image file, but it’s a love from a different time.
The slow dance kind of love, letters and postcards, the embrace of a transatlantic friend. It’s a tactile love; perching before a belaboured machine as it strains to wake itself. Glancing at the speakers that flank it, then the wooden shelf that looms over you, followed by the armchair and the tower that you’re careful not to knock with an errant limb. These things, alongside the machine itself, carry an extra weight. Literal weight, of course, but then it’s a psychological weight. The presence this altar of progress held in the room carried this grandeur and its internet felt grand too. It was weighty, corporeal and alive. It, no matter how strange it could be, felt truly grounded, unlike the ensuing mass fever-dream of Instant Net.
Am I simply rapt by madness, or did a young girl realise she was in a once-in-a-millennium event? Were we the first land-fish to see the stars? Whatever this was, my God, I know that sensation can be claimed again.
So I gather my links, and I give a lot of them to Lutz. We sift through lots of dead ones before we get a winner, but we’ve seen enough to know they’re still out there. Given the season, I know exactly what kind of sites I want to look for right now. Right now I have the “Caverns of Blood” pulled up and I’m gonna go through a whole load of halloween links! Hopefully we’ll find a keeper!
In Closing
Other than this, that’s all for now. This first entry has been quite nerve-wracking to write and I can only get so much out at a time. I’m really, really not used to doing this and after hammering away at my projects for so long, I’ve sort of convinced myself that I don’t need to write like this. For some reason, everyone else can, but not me. It’s all very strange because I take up space by existing as is, and I fail to see how (to my own brain) I can shrink myself any further. Maybe I’ll be right and retreat to my lonesomeness, like with all the other places I’ve appeared in. Or perhaps I can make this work, if I can be patient with myself. After all, we’ve been here before.