Remembering the Old Ways (HTML)

Long before technology really had grasp on the world (because I feel myself to be oh-so-old), I recall spending an obscene amount of time ensuring that my MySpace was just so. HTML gave me and all the hormone-driven teenagers something to do with themselves when they should be writing up homework, but would much rather be stuck in the back of someone's car playing with the hem of their crush's shirt, their heart all aflutter- but alas! It's a school night.

There was art to it that involved no small form of thievery. As anyone scrolled through MySpace looking for new exotic teenagers (not persons in general, because anyone over 25 felt creepy) and found themselves struck by that amazing new thing that Jessica (it was always Jessica who had so many advantages) had moving, dancing or otherwise tantalizing across their screen on her virtual home, anyone could rest easy if they only knew how to search through the code and pick out that unfamiliar thing. Copy and paste. It's mine now.

We were all so cool, sitting in front of our screens in complete control of this fantasy land. Mom and Dad can't touch me here. This is my house and my friends can come over whenever they want -- whenever I want! Cars and lack of driver's license be damned. We were so in control.

And then comes Facebook. It felt boring -- that thing that college students were doing instead. At least, until you were a college student. Then you HAD to have Facebook. And gone were the days of lurking in someone's secret room searching through their valuables. It's no wonder I took a break from it for so long. Facebook was all about the people (something of a struggle) where MySpace had been about showing off -- materialism 101 for the broke.

And, that was oh-so-long ago, I have forgotten most of what I didn't really know and only came to understand passively. Much of it came back in creating my little HTML page. I had to do it twice. The second is barely more impressive, but the first attempt felt sad as I sat here reminiscing. I can do better, I told myself. And I could back then. That may not be the entire truth now, but I like to think that some of my HTML knowledge is still in there, a fount waiting for a tap.

I simply chose The Jabberwocky for my text, because my mind is tired from all that recent changes have brought to me. Exhausted. And the Jabberwocky needs me to silence it. It is bogging my brain, but it is a welcome change to what felt to me as stagnation before. The poem itself is familiar, and I luckily got a semi-private recital (from a sound-check man for the Zoobilee) that is still sounding in my mind. He was quite the show-off. It was moving. He growled and hissed the words out -- bringing the Jabberwock to life just so it could be slain. I've only memorized pieces, but I think it is time to complete the whole. I have no MySpace from which to steal HTML code any longer, but I can still steal from master artists and carry that around (even though Lewis Carroll was over 25 and decidedly creepy -- of course, I'm over that age now, too).

Jabberwocky