So I have reluctantly been dragged into the last frontier on the Internet. At least, this is the last frontier for me. If I go any further, I’m pretty sure my head will explode. Either that, or I’ll have to deliberately forget all the lines of “The Raven” that I so painstakingly memorized in my dorky youth in order to make room for more codes and passwords and access numbers and online names.
The good news, of course, is that I can now never forget my great-grandmother’s maiden name because if I do I will forever be locked out of some account I have online that requires that information should I forget my password. Why anyone thinks I’d forget the password but remember that name is beyond me.
All these thoughts come crashing in because I have recently crossed the final border into total geekdom and, with the very patient help of a wonderful lady name Sonya Senkowsky, created my own website.
I did it for a variety of reasons. I thought it might be good advertising for my business, which I really, really would like to take from a totally non-profit venture into something that can actually support my latte habit. I also thought it was the wave of the future and I might as well catch it now since I’m way too old to be chasing it later.
But it’s not easy to enter this world of codes and commands. It’s one thing to make a mistake on my computer while working on a word document in the privacy of my home and suddenly send three weeks worth of effort into the ether by the accidental stroking of one wrong key. That’s at least a private matter. But when you’re working on a website and do it, the whole connected world can see your dumb mistake.
Every time I hit the wrong key and accidentally post half a headline when all I meant to do was hit the space button, I imagine people all over the world pointing at my website and laughing. I imagine they call their friends and say things like, “You can’t believe what that dumb broad in Alaska did this time. Hurry up. Check it out before she gets help from someone who knows what they’re doing and cleans up the mistake.”
It’s the difference between spilling food down your shirt in the privacy of your own home and doing it at a five star restaurant where you know all the waiters are in the back snickering at your ineptitude.
I guess when I’m not being hysterical, I am aware that with all the information available on the Internet today, and with the millions upon millions of websites to visit, the likelihood that my mistake is drawing worldwide derision is pretty slim if not non-existent. And, let’s face it, an Internet that still contains stories about women blowing up at gas stations because of sparks caused by their pantyhose rubbing the car seat is not a forum in which one should go looking for high standards in postings.
Part of my website is a blog, which is apparently nothing more than an online diary. When I think back to my youth and the agonies I went through to keep my diary hidden from my parents, my brother and anyone else I thought might find it, I realize that the Internet has changed even my definition of privacy. And I am, according to most standards, a pretty private person. Or maybe the word my friends use is hermit. Is that the same thing?
At any rate, I find an odd sense of relief each morning when I go to my site and post my latest thoughts. It’s as though emptying them out of my head on to the Internet has opened up space in my brain for other things. Instead of wondering why I had that thought and what it meant, I just post it on my website and wait for people’s comments to explain to me what it really means. It saves me a lot of psychic energy and time that can better be spent trying to beat the odds at Pong.
I am very aware that most of the information on the Internet is questionable at best. And many, many, many blogs are as ugly as the word seems to imply. But I like to think mine is different. I like to think that mine enlightens and amuses. Of course, when I’ve done one of my particularly stupid keystrokes and sent whole postings into orbit around the dark side of the moon, I prefer to comfort myself with the thought that no one is paying attention anyway.
Maybe, in the end, this whole Internet craze will go the way of the hulahoop and I can go back to memorizing the rest of “The Raven”. One can only hope.