shift two
I started this space in late 2003. I was 22, feisty, and touring with several bands. This livejournal served many purposes, most of them reflective of the writing practices I had actively employed my whole life.
Writing, for me, has always been about finding myself. I began journaling when I was seven, second grade to be exact. I had a Hello Kitty journal then. It would be a few years later that I started composing on computers.
The Space Army
This is evidence of some of my first uses of computer/printer technology. The beautiful dot matrix ink and limited typeface. I remember thinking deeply about which trim design I would put on my cover page. Style, even then, was important to me. It seems I had an evolving sense of audience, and that pleasing them was part of my process. (Never mind that my audience consisted of my brother, god brother, and god parents-the only people in my life kind and affluent enough to share their technology with me at the time.)
My childhood also gave me a brief moment with a special computer game. Before my parents divorced and began crippling drug use that would leave us transient most of my young life, I was given this computer:
I never used my Tandy 1000 for writing, but did spend hours playing Springster. This game set the standard for games I would like in my future. Games like Tetris, Bust a Move, and Harry Potter Lego. I have always liked maze and/or strategy games, games that made me think. I guess that comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me. If it hadn't been for this initial experience, I may not have been as excited to play and code video games with my son.
But, to move on. After this period, writing through advancing technology was put on the wayside. I returned to hardbound journals for my work, and only used a typewriter once on a report discussing Albert Einstein. White Out had played a significant role in my fifth-grade composition.
Fast-forward to my senior year in high school.
Someone somewhere, probably in administration, thought it a good idea to make typing class mandatory for all graduating seniors. Well, whoever it was, I thank them. It was here that I learned how to type fast, accurate, and using both of my hands! The teacher I had was extremely nice. I recall her staying after-school to help me with composing my first PowerPoint. She even let me print my big senior essay on her printer. Without this help, I am not sure how I would have met the requirements to turn in my senior project. I had no computer at home, and no resources available. It was her kindness that inspired my graduation gift.
It looked a lot like this.
My dad bought me this-one of the few generous things he has ever done for me. I was ecstatic. It had Microsoft Word and everything! The cute, little Paper Clip dude, as I called him, was always there, bouncing around and willing to help me with my extremely poor grammar. For years, until this livejournal began, all I used my computer for was typing essays for college and my more personal work. It was on this computer that I composed my two screenplays. Gobs of poetry and short prose filled it as well.
Then, in 2003, I was formally introduced to the Internet. My friend Angela showed me this site, and I immediately wanted an account here. I thought: now when I write, all my friends can see it at once.
This was a great, liberating revelation.
Until I realized that all my friends could read what I wrote at once. This livejournal marks the moment when I began understanding social implications of my voice. If I wrote a post about something personal (romantic affiliations, usually), I would have comments from my friends wanting to know that person's identity. Sometimes, though, I would write what is now fitting as the genre of a subtweet in twitter.
But this livejournal also captured my memoir-like approach to memories too. I liked to muse fictional liberations onto moments I shared with the people in my community of music and touring. What I wrote often served as documentation of the things we had done. Even if those things were slightly altered with poetic license.
A year later, I also joined MySpace-another home away from home. There I built a much larger community reflective of my social engagements and initiated what I see now as manipulation of code. The cool and singly unique trait of MySpace was user-freedom of their own space. I often inputted code into my profile from one of several popular sites, then changed it to my own preferences. These collaboratively-made sets of code became backgrounds on my MySpace profile page. I would make them whatever color and frequency I wanted, usually matching to a song I would set to play whenever someone visited my page. This was my ability to design a place reflective of whatever self I felt like I could be.
It is no wonder, then, that when MySpace went down, I felt a need to complain here.
lulz.
Livejournal also served me when MySpace became “too social”, when I wanted somewhere to reflect without being watched. At this time, I was living in Big Bear and working at the ER there. The triviality of the ‘small town syndrome’ made every detail of my life a constant source of entertainment for nurses and clerks hoping to be the first with salacious news. I hated encouraging them, so I hid myself here. Funny that this was a safe place when, only years prior, I had felt the subjection of my acquaintances’ watchful eyes in this space. Nope, the Big Bear social circle read my blog there like it was their special grocery store gossip mag.
And then there was Facebook. Ick.
All I thought when Facebook began popularity (for me this was 2008-9) was: what’s with the boring blue and white background? Why can’t I find a way to be me here?
So I went to twitter.
I no longer have this account, but a part of me still remains. Some of my best me, it seems. At least socially. But I have another space, let's go there.
Writing, for me, has always been about finding myself. I began journaling when I was seven, second grade to be exact. I had a Hello Kitty journal then. It would be a few years later that I started composing on computers.
The Space Army
This is evidence of some of my first uses of computer/printer technology. The beautiful dot matrix ink and limited typeface. I remember thinking deeply about which trim design I would put on my cover page. Style, even then, was important to me. It seems I had an evolving sense of audience, and that pleasing them was part of my process. (Never mind that my audience consisted of my brother, god brother, and god parents-the only people in my life kind and affluent enough to share their technology with me at the time.)
My childhood also gave me a brief moment with a special computer game. Before my parents divorced and began crippling drug use that would leave us transient most of my young life, I was given this computer:
I never used my Tandy 1000 for writing, but did spend hours playing Springster. This game set the standard for games I would like in my future. Games like Tetris, Bust a Move, and Harry Potter Lego. I have always liked maze and/or strategy games, games that made me think. I guess that comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me. If it hadn't been for this initial experience, I may not have been as excited to play and code video games with my son.
But, to move on. After this period, writing through advancing technology was put on the wayside. I returned to hardbound journals for my work, and only used a typewriter once on a report discussing Albert Einstein. White Out had played a significant role in my fifth-grade composition.
Fast-forward to my senior year in high school.
Someone somewhere, probably in administration, thought it a good idea to make typing class mandatory for all graduating seniors. Well, whoever it was, I thank them. It was here that I learned how to type fast, accurate, and using both of my hands! The teacher I had was extremely nice. I recall her staying after-school to help me with composing my first PowerPoint. She even let me print my big senior essay on her printer. Without this help, I am not sure how I would have met the requirements to turn in my senior project. I had no computer at home, and no resources available. It was her kindness that inspired my graduation gift.
It looked a lot like this.
My dad bought me this-one of the few generous things he has ever done for me. I was ecstatic. It had Microsoft Word and everything! The cute, little Paper Clip dude, as I called him, was always there, bouncing around and willing to help me with my extremely poor grammar. For years, until this livejournal began, all I used my computer for was typing essays for college and my more personal work. It was on this computer that I composed my two screenplays. Gobs of poetry and short prose filled it as well.
Then, in 2003, I was formally introduced to the Internet. My friend Angela showed me this site, and I immediately wanted an account here. I thought: now when I write, all my friends can see it at once.
This was a great, liberating revelation.
Until I realized that all my friends could read what I wrote at once. This livejournal marks the moment when I began understanding social implications of my voice. If I wrote a post about something personal (romantic affiliations, usually), I would have comments from my friends wanting to know that person's identity. Sometimes, though, I would write what is now fitting as the genre of a subtweet in twitter.
But this livejournal also captured my memoir-like approach to memories too. I liked to muse fictional liberations onto moments I shared with the people in my community of music and touring. What I wrote often served as documentation of the things we had done. Even if those things were slightly altered with poetic license.
A year later, I also joined MySpace-another home away from home. There I built a much larger community reflective of my social engagements and initiated what I see now as manipulation of code. The cool and singly unique trait of MySpace was user-freedom of their own space. I often inputted code into my profile from one of several popular sites, then changed it to my own preferences. These collaboratively-made sets of code became backgrounds on my MySpace profile page. I would make them whatever color and frequency I wanted, usually matching to a song I would set to play whenever someone visited my page. This was my ability to design a place reflective of whatever self I felt like I could be.
It is no wonder, then, that when MySpace went down, I felt a need to complain here.
lulz.
Livejournal also served me when MySpace became “too social”, when I wanted somewhere to reflect without being watched. At this time, I was living in Big Bear and working at the ER there. The triviality of the ‘small town syndrome’ made every detail of my life a constant source of entertainment for nurses and clerks hoping to be the first with salacious news. I hated encouraging them, so I hid myself here. Funny that this was a safe place when, only years prior, I had felt the subjection of my acquaintances’ watchful eyes in this space. Nope, the Big Bear social circle read my blog there like it was their special grocery store gossip mag.
And then there was Facebook. Ick.
All I thought when Facebook began popularity (for me this was 2008-9) was: what’s with the boring blue and white background? Why can’t I find a way to be me here?
So I went to twitter.
I no longer have this account, but a part of me still remains. Some of my best me, it seems. At least socially. But I have another space, let's go there.