Comments on: How did I get here, Sarah?

How did I get here, Sarah?

Tlogmer — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 21:50:36 -0800

By: chasing

chasing — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 22:06:55 -0800

I've Metatalked about this sort of post before... It seems even more important to summarize long pages of blog text that start with "I used to share a house with three of the biggest geeks you ever saw. They were computer programmers. I had my own excuses." That's not much of a hook and to keep reading I need to know I might get to something worthwhile if I keep reading... (Anyway. Don't mean to be a chronic complainer...)

By: Asparagirl

Asparagirl — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 22:09:02 -0800

Awesome story. Ms. Pierce is a good writer. Thank you, Tlogmer.

By: chasing

chasing — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 22:09:19 -0800

And in honor of about_time's coining of the term "monkey beaning" in my honor to describe these sorts of posts, I'll say: This is a bad case of monkey-beaning, right here.

By: c13

c13 — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 22:12:55 -0800

[this is good]

By: drmarcj

drmarcj — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 22:25:20 -0800

This is a bad case of monkey-beaning, right here. Yes, true. But somehow I was intrigued enough to read the story and was rewarded with, well, a really interesting story. So, maybe sometimes the title is just interesting enough to make you want to click and read. Can't say I'd click a link that says "monkey beans", of course.

By: Bdave

Bdave — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 22:35:10 -0800

That was very pleasant, and a nice way to finish the working week.

By: Tuwa

Tuwa — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 22:43:33 -0800

I quite liked it. I could tell the author knew what she was doing; she had me from sentence one.

By: letitrain

letitrain — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 22:46:45 -0800

It started off Tortilla Flat for geeks, and ends very well. Great find.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 22:59:48 -0800

Nicely written :D (hey - I really like the little popup messages that appear if you hover over the bits that look like hyperlinks...)

By: Tlogmer

Tlogmer — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 23:13:54 -0800

There's a lot where that came from. I knew her as Junkpile on everything2; finding out she had her own site gave an long-overdue excuse to link. Around nine pm my heart was breaking so I went to bed early to listen to it happen. I can think of worse things than to die like a dog It's a jailbreak; we're free. My Snuffleupagus smells like CK One. This does not disturb me. screwing it up for Anna Every shiny fish is floating, floating, and every dark fish is at the bottom, at the bottom of the sea If you want to read these in their original format (not as well laid out, but in some ways they're tailored for Everything2), Here. On preview: UbuRoivas: those were originally links to everything2 nodes with those titles.

By: Lossewen

Lossewen — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 23:20:13 -0800

A great little bedtime story. Thanks!

By: taz

taz — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 23:20:32 -0800

Very nice, Tlogmer — I enjoyed it, thanks.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 23:30:21 -0800

Tlogmer: yeh, have been flicking around the site...the blog part contains lines like "I'm swimming in rabbits", so - woohoo! - sorry, boss, no work from me this year! ;D

By: LeeJay

LeeJay — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 00:03:38 -0800

This was terrific. Thanks for introducing me to her site.

By: snwod

snwod — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 00:06:54 -0800

nice post. nice story. stop complaining, chasing. ;)

By: loquacious

loquacious — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 00:51:41 -0800

I prefer reading them on E2, but that's only because reading them elsewhere just seems weird, especially without the hardlinks and even the softlinks. I guess it just feels more whole and complete to me, with the many forks to choose from and paths to follow to continue the story. I've always liked following her prose on intentional or accidental tangents and arcs, as a lot of her pieces are well crosslinked. A handful of very short but and very well formed prose stories gather to become novels and multiply. And Junkpile/Jessica Pierce's nodes always seem to reside in the most interesting parts of the nodegel. She also once nuked most of my nodes in one go, but that was a long time ago and confusing to recall or explain.

By: 13twelve

13twelve — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 03:05:44 -0800

I dont get it?

By: dabitch

dabitch — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 04:11:45 -0800

Really nice story, and nice mouse-over messages. The one for "cook" made me laugh.

By: googly

googly — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 05:14:18 -0800

Great googly moogly, chasing, who put horseradish in your oatmeal this morning? So you want someone to summarize a story so that you know what its about before you read it? Great idea. Perhaps novels should have a few pages of summary at the beginning so that, if the first paragraph doesn't grab you, you at least know it gets better later on. Or perhaps they should show the previews to films immediately before the film, so that if the first few minutes are devoted to exposition or character development and you are bored, then you can be sure that there are some nifty action sequences later on... I liked that story a lot. Nice post - succinct and understated. Thanks, Tlogmer.

By: shoepal

shoepal — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 06:09:01 -0800

Thanks, Tlogmer. A nice read and worth the time/effort.

By: devbrain

devbrain — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 07:44:44 -0800

Excellent. Well written, interesting, captivating ... I want chapter #2.

By: palancik

palancik — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 12:52:28 -0800

I particularly liked the little device of the tags that pop up with skew commentaries. Wonderful find.

By: dsaelf

dsaelf — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 15:52:45 -0800

lovely IMHO. I spent the day reading close to every word she's written. I just got hooked!

By: verisimilitude

verisimilitude — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 12:15:08 -0800

I enjoyed reading this, thanks. However my original interpretation was a little different to everyone else’s: I thought it was the heartfelt confession of a guy who enjoys dressing up in women's dresses (esp. Wedding dresses) and domestic maintenance. I was intrigued by his gradual realization of his homosexual tendencies, and I felt pleased that a geek had committed to sharing these feelings as well as his programming with the rest of the world. The truth is a little disappointing. But don’t stop 'monkey beaning' for the sake of people who cant always be bothered to read properly

By: orange swan

orange swan — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 12:27:37 -0800

Lovely story (though as an editor I kept wanting to polish it up a bit).