Twenty years, give or take.

White tiles spell out the word “TWENTY” twice, once right aligned and straight, once left alagned with the W slightly askew
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I’ve mostly forgotten about this site, even though I keep paying for it every year. Which means this very website that your eyeballs are resting on right this minute has turned 20. I’ve definitely not used it to its potential, though that’s probably because I’m not that interesting 😉 I started off using Greymatter as my blogging platform, then grudgingly made my way onto WordPress, where I’ve been for over a decade now. I can’t really recall what life was like twenty years ago.

You *might* know, if you’ve been around as long as me, that I bought my first domain the night I finished my last college class (no idea what class that was, though it was probably math, because for some reason that class was always the last to end each semester). It was so late that it ended up being the next day by the time I completed the purchase (the internet was just a little slower in the early 2000s). I’ll never forget which day I have to renew my domain because it turned out it’s my parents’ anniversary and the birthday of a couple of friends though that was completely unplanned. I had no idea what day it was at the time.

Back then we were still using forums and telnet. I learned HTML because I clicked a button that turned my WYSIWYG site (theglobe.net represent, yeah!) into a site I had to code. And now everything’s back to blocks instead of code anyway. Plus ça change, eh?

This site is just barely older than my job, and only a few years older than my NaNoWriMo career. I feel like life before the website was more exciting than the time that came after. Sure, since then I’ve bought a car and a house and gotten married (want to watch so-bad-they’re-funny movies with my hubby Mister Fox Guy?) and wrote upwards of 900,000 words that are probably destined to remain unpublished, but those seem like little things in the grand scheme of the world. Eh, I’m content to be a little cog. In theory I have not caught COVID yet, though I’ve had a moment when I thought I’d messed up two years of social distancing and masking (masks work, people, why is this so hard to deal with?). The world is changed, sayeth Galadriel, speaking of another thing that’s had its twentieth anniversary.

I used to use Blogger like I use Twitter now (feel free to browse the archives if you want to, lol) so maybe I’ll come back here more often if my preferred method of shouting into the void becomes a hellhole due to corporate greed. Who knows what the future holds? If this website is any indication, it’s more of the same. Take care of yourselves, read more books, and do what brings you joy.

Perseverance Lands on Mars!

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The Mars rover Perseverance lands today.

The official sticker for the Perseverance mission. Courtesy of NASA

Thanks to forethought by my earlier self, I got a “boarding pass” for this rover! My name is going to take a rideabout on Mars today! Want to add your name to a future mission? Do that here.

Watch the mission:

Why is this mission cool? I mean, aside from the fact that it’s LANDING ON MARS.

Let’s all be science geeks today, shall we?

via GIPHY

Eighteen-ish

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SO this website has been around for 18 years, give or take, but I don’t have much to say, so things have been pretty boring. There’s a lot of craziness in the world right now, and I’m furloughed from my job, so I guess it’s time to mess around with the place again.

Have some Instagram photos.

[insta-gallery id=”2″]

17 years

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Well, it’s been a while. This website has been online for 17 years today, yay? I certainly don’t use it to its fullest potential (find me on Twitter for the most up to date stuff–it’s easier to post there, and I don’t usually have big thoughts worthy of a blog post).

Instead, have a haiku.

I have written books
but only in my mind’s eye
ephemeral words

via GIPHY

Jen reads: The Librarian and the Spy

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Jen reads: The Librarian and the Spy

In which Jen reads a sweet romance about a librarian and the spy who loved her.

http://etoiline.com/words/2017/05/30/jen-reads-librarian-spy/

How to create fictional worlds via TED-Ed, with questions to ask yourself #stlnano #nanowrimo #writingadvice

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How to create fictional worlds via TED-Ed, with questions to ask yourself #stlnano #nanowrimo #writingadvice

How to create fictional worlds via TED-Ed, with questions to ask yourself when creating yours

http://etoiline.com/2016/10/02/how-to-create-a-world/

Jen reads: Breath of Earth

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Jen reads: Breath of Earth

In which Jen reads Breath of Earth and loves that it made her feel intrigued and uncomfortable at the same time.

http://etoiline.com/words/2016/08/23/jen-reads-breath-of-earth/

Fireworks, Gandalf! (Home runs make me happy.) #cardinals   #stl

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Fireworks, Gandalf! (Home runs make me happy.) #cardinals   #stl  

http://m.mlb.com/video/v730852683?tcid=gp_share

There’s so much good advice in this podcast. #stlnano #writingadvice #lookingformotivation

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There’s so much good advice in this podcast. #stlnano #writingadvice #lookingformotivation

http://wp.me/pV9iY-6