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June 24, 2007
I didn't start the fire (but I'll have to put it out)
There was a spark today. It pounced upon me, suddenly, while IMing with my older sister. It grew brighter as I typed responses to her--my typing becoming gradually faster, more enthusiastic, even deft.
My sister was talking about working on her web page. She was having issues with CSS. We talked about FTPs and setting up uniform style for pages. In the end it was determined that she would be (sadly) confined to HTML since there was no way to upload a stylesheet.
The spark found a small familiar smoldering in me, and tried to light it but the kindling was damp. I haven't touched my blog's stylesheet since the fall of 2006--that honestly seems like eons ago. I remember the days when I was constantly tinkering with it, developing ways to use things I'd recently learned, trying to make it better somehow. Time hasn't permitted anything like this (what with all that's come to pass in the last two months).
But the spark was exciting to me. I showed my sister the sugarpacket web page I created, which I admittedly hadn't looked at in months. I looked at it and started to think of stylistic improvements that I could make, thinking that I could continue adding photos of my collection, keep building the page to better organize it. I started thinking about my blog again, and how I could change it more.
While I now have the resources necessary to do things like this--i.e. time, patience, pixel ruler, hex coder, and all the links to the tutorials I used in the past to teach myself these things--I don't have a real reason to pursue it. I'm not going to be a web designer. I have no formal training. My current job has me writing for various sites, but I'm not on the other side. I do content, not composition. I can write for folks online and suddenly that's supposed to be enough... My blog won't be frequented anymore by classmates looking for my thoughts on our latest assignments, and it functions well enough with a nice enough look, so why bother?
The spark hasn't died, but I feel myself trying to douse it with sense or reason, both of which are putty and tend to try to use their malleability to squeeze into any situation. ("Try" being the operative word.) I don't remember thinking that I really wanted to learn coding to create web pages and manipulate styles--I just did it. I guess I was hoping, somewhere in my mind, that I wouldn't have to recognize the moment I let it go. But I can't see a reason, beyond my own curiosity, to continue to tinker.
Meanwhile each time I examine a web page, whether it's for work or for someone close to me, something wants to slide pixels around, push colors next to each other, and find a style that works for the information that's being conveyed...
Posted by KarissaKilgore at June 24, 2007 6:07 PM
Comments
It's not necessary to keep the stylesheet on the same server as the HTML documents. If she can uploaded a stylesheet anywhere, she should be able to use it on her HTML site.
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz 
at June 24, 2007 8:05 PM
Why do you feel the need to tell everyone every mundane, excruciatingly boring detail of your life? This seems to be less a blog and more of a desperate plea for attention, from anyone. I am guessing you have low self-esteem?
Posted by: Ji Xhiyang at June 25, 2007 1:09 PM
Wow! that's harsh. dont talk about Karissa that away!
I have to agree with Dr. Jerz on that one, Karissa. She can put the stylesheet anywhere it's uploadable. No one is stuck with just HTML anymore.
Posted by: Lou Gagliardi at June 25, 2007 4:17 PM
Don't feed the trolls, folks.
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at June 25, 2007 6:08 PM