big whoop dot me

Well, folks, here we are - I've officially jumped back into blogging.

The last time I life blogged, I was a Y2K-era high schooler, gleefully vomiting my innermost thoughts across Xanga and MySpace. Though I outgrew the hobby when the 10's rolled around, I've always enjoyed talking about myself (shoutout to the hostages friends who tolerated me IRL or pretended to from the other side of a hulking, convex computer screen). I have my most profound breakthroughs while processing out loud. Now that life has settled into the relative monotony of adulthood, I've more thoughts than folks to share them with.

And so, here we are.

What I've learned since launching Big Whoop dot Me:

Coding a website 'from scratch' pains me as much today as it did in the aughts. Back then, I was a frustrated preteen, dizzy with awe and envy at other kids' Neopets pages and character shrines. Now I'm in my early 30's, arguably better at following tutorials, and not much has actually changed. I'm still frustrated. Still envious. Still baffled by anything more complex than slapping black text on a white background (or vice versa if I'm feeling spicy).

It's a miracle this site even exists.

I'd been toying with the idea of launching a homepage since October '24, but couldn't find a free site builder that spoke to me. They all cost too much, looked too generic, required too much technical knowledge. So, I pulled on my big kid britches and committed to wrestling with .html files instead.

It's been, uhm, enlightening.

Now, there's a folder on my desktop labelled "My Website". Its contents are disorganized and poorly named; and I keep breaking my own links by shuffling files around. The 'baby's first homepage' vibes are so strong my teeth rattle when my cursor strays too close to the icon.

For all my mediocrity, this isn't my first 'real' foray into web design. Not really.

Some years back, I took an honest crack at learning CSS. I had stumbled on my first Twine game - Anna Anthropy's Queers in Love at the End of the World - and thought I'd try making my own. I never finished any (thanks, ADHD) but became surprisingly invested in tweaking stylesheets. I spent more time tinkering with page elements and refreshing my browser than I did writing actual prose.

Fun fact: I shared a few stylesheet bundles on itch.io in the 10's. They're long gone - I closed my account years ago - but I still remember the warm-and-fuzzies that arose whenever someone downloaded my work. Running a blog isn't quite the same as distributing game assets, but maybe, maybe, putting things out into the world on the regular will pull me back into the indie dev sphere.

I do want to revisit game dev someday. My brief tenure at a games company (in a comms role) let me bump elbows with the narrative team, and I wasn't exactly subtle about angling for mentorship. Alas, the company restructured before I could squeeze my way into a coveted(?) intern role, and it looks like my relationship with games writing will remain strictly observational for awhile yet.

Right now, Big Whoop dot Me feels like a big enough project on its own. I'm constantly experimenting with fonts, mucking about with folder structures (yes, I know), and agonizing over how to organize content. If this were a 'serious, professional' blog, it would need much more work before I'd inflict it on the public.

(Good thing there's not much serious or professional about me.)

I like my webpage. It's a mess. That's where all the character is, you know - in the chaos. I'm glad I skipped WordPress etc. when laying down virtual roots. There's no pretense here: just me, muddling through this webmaster-ing stuff with little more elegance than my adolescent self, while making it everyone's business.

So, what's next?

Hopefully, my next couple posts will dive into my recently expanded stationery collection. (Something, something, Black Friday... something, something, no self-restraint...) Eventually, I want to dedicate part of this site to my art supplies - swatches, reviews, and the like. One step at a time, though.

Thanks for stopping by!