How did I get here, Sarah?

March 31, 2005 9:50 PM

How did I get here, Sarah?
posted by Tlogmer (25 comments total)

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...)
posted by chasing at 10:06 PM on March 31, 2005

Awesome story. Ms. Pierce is a good writer. Thank you, Tlogmer.
posted by Asparagirl at 10:09 PM on March 31, 2005

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.
posted by chasing at 10:09 PM on March 31, 2005

[this is good]
posted by c13 at 10:12 PM on March 31, 2005

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.
posted by drmarcj at 10:25 PM on March 31, 2005

That was very pleasant, and a nice way to finish the working week.
posted by bdave at 10:35 PM on March 31, 2005

I quite liked it. I could tell the author knew what she was doing; she had me from sentence one.
posted by Tuwa at 10:43 PM on March 31, 2005

It started off Tortilla Flat for geeks, and ends very well. Great find.
posted by letitrain at 10:46 PM on March 31, 2005

Nicely written :D

(hey - I really like the little popup messages that appear if you hover over the bits that look like hyperlinks...)
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:59 PM on March 31, 2005

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.
posted by Tlogmer at 11:13 PM on March 31, 2005

A great little bedtime story. Thanks!
posted by Lossewen at 11:20 PM on March 31, 2005

Very nice, Tlogmer — I enjoyed it, thanks.
posted by taz at 11:20 PM on March 31, 2005

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
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:30 PM on March 31, 2005

This was terrific. Thanks for introducing me to her site.
posted by LeeJay at 12:03 AM on April 1, 2005

nice post. nice story. stop complaining, chasing. ;)
posted by snwod at 12:06 AM on April 1, 2005

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.
posted by loquacious at 12:51 AM on April 1, 2005

I dont get it?
posted by 13twelve at 3:05 AM on April 1, 2005

Really nice story, and nice mouse-over messages. The one for "cook" made me laugh.
posted by dabitch at 4:11 AM on April 1, 2005

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.
posted by googly at 5:14 AM on April 1, 2005

Thanks, Tlogmer. A nice read and worth the time/effort.
posted by shoepal at 6:09 AM on April 1, 2005

Excellent. Well written, interesting, captivating ... I want chapter #2.
posted by devbrain at 7:44 AM on April 1, 2005

I particularly liked the little device of the tags that pop up with skew commentaries. Wonderful find.
posted by palancik at 12:52 PM on April 1, 2005

lovely IMHO. I spent the day reading close to every word she's written. I just got hooked!
posted by dsaelf at 3:52 PM on April 1, 2005

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
posted by verisimilitude at 12:15 PM on April 2, 2005

Lovely story (though as an editor I kept wanting to polish it up a bit).
posted by orange swan at 12:27 PM on April 4, 2005