Much ado about books and backslashes. Topped with sour cream. Mmm!

Do you know that book? Bread and Jam for Frances? I love that book.

Other books verily adored by yours truly when she was fresh and impressionable include anything about Nate the Great (with his dog Sludge and weird friend Rosamund), anything about Amelia Bedelia, some Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, and whatever was on Reading Rainbow that week. When I got older I had a 10-year-old trifecta going with Anastasia Krupnik, Encyclopedia Brown and the Great Brain. (Does anyone else feel that everything they know about Utah and the modern toilet comes directly from the Great Brain series?) I had about seventy zillion yellow hard back Nancy Drew books in my room, plus my mom's old Trixie Beldens and my aunt's Happy Hollisters. (In Portland last year I went to Powell's and bought their only copy of the first Happy Hollister book, with plain red falling-apart binding. A PRIZE.) My dad tried to get me into Madeleine L'Engle (to the point where I was informed that I was NAMED AFTER Meg and didn't that make me want to read the book?) but Madeleine L'Engle's spacy stories didn't take. Tesser-what? (Especially since I've also been told I was named after Margaret Thatcher. I mean, pick a story, Dad.) He sicced the Lloyd Alexander books on me and I reluctantly admit that those weren't bad, but I didn't like The Dark Is Rising either so he kind of gave up. (Recently he recommended Hoot, which was ok for me and most likely adored nationwide by 11-year-old boys, and scored big points with The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt and A Corner of the Universe which is aMAZing.) We did agree, I recall, on the magnificence of Zilpha Keatley Snyder. And I think I'm rewriting an old post at this point... Did you read any of these books? Are we all worshipping at the altar of Snyder?

So anyway. The whole reason I am writing today, actually, is so I can go into the HTML code when I'm done and see what it looks like. Before Typepad got all gussied up with WYSIWYG, you could see the tags inserted automatically and everything. But now I have no idea what HTML even looks like let alone what the tags are for and where they go. I just peeked at my source code and Freaked. Out. because WOW that is a lot of brackets and blackslashes.

Because, you see, my big project for the summer (as of this morning, when I decided) is to learn myself some HTML and figure out how to build my own site. Or at least go into the Typepad code and edit it without losing my archives to a cyberspace black hole. I'm also becoming marginally interested in web publishing as, you know, a possible type of employment, and I figure learning some actual skills may come in handy. Of course, my innate laziness threatens to derail the entire idea and posting my Big Project on my website is a surefire sign I'll be humiliated in three months when the only code I know is <title>I Spent My Summer Eating Bon Bons And Reading My Horoscope</title>. But for now I'm pretty optimistic. Keep hope alive!

Here's another way to ruin your Low Carb Diet: Drink wine. Even though the news this morning had a feature on drinking wine and dieting and how it shouldn't make a difference, but the people they tested were on a 1500 calorie diet. And I'm not much of an expert on these things, but I'm pretty sure Low Carb does not equal Low Calorie. In fact, the only thing I'm enjoying about this Low Carb thing is that I don't feel bad putting a small mountain of sour cream on my tortilla-less fajita. YUM.

Okay, here I go boldly into the HTML side of my editor. Whee!

Comments

[yoonie]

Your dad and I would have gotten along tremendously. I love Madeleine L'Engle and Lloyd Alexander! I absolutely adored Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series. Ah...thinking about books from your childhood makes one's day happy, and I need an extra dose of happiness these days. Studying for the bar SUCKS. I hope you are well and enjoying your lovely new home!