Why is it so complicated to describe Wandyteeth to anyone who is not already familiar with it?

Maybe it's a consequence of age? Complexity often chaperones perpetuity. Future Ph.D. candidates could tease infinite amounts of dull theses out of Wandyteeth's seven year history. I suspect that the respected academic journals will latch onto "Wandyteeth: a shared forum for current and former residents of Omaha", but they would miss a lot of the soul of the website. Maybe I would try to write "Wandyteeth: a catalog of innovative suburban diversions", but this would be missing the essence as well. Here's a bummer: "Wandyteeth: an archive". "Wandyteeth: a weblog host for select Omaha-area high school students" would be really bland. And let's not forget its humble origins, "Wandyteeth: the website (né Combatrhino) Erik Peterson created by Erik Peterson for personal art projects".

I can tell this kind of history because I still remember it, but its also shared for all to see because the website still exists. This is remarkable, especially given the pernicious temptation on the internet to just delete what you don't like. In fact, several people have recently brought to my attention that Google searches for their name can be found in several blog posts containing defamatory statements about them, and that they would like me to take down any reference to them in any blog postings. I would love taking this attitude to its logical conclusion in the real world, where such cautiously-worded statements can't delete the fact that we still remember everything.

Having had some kind of personal website since middle school, I am by no means immune to these kinds of aftershocks from the awkward past. Four or five years ago, online scarcity presented itself as a solution, an alternative way of being on the internet. Websites can imply more by showing less (at some point I remember trying to describe to someone what it might mean to be a "facebook ghost"). But internet asceticism is not really the answer, either: deletion and ommission are equal partners in the project of online abridgement. The arrow and the frame: internet ascetics and hapless applying-for-jobs bros share the same territory, relentlessly unsatisfied pruners of online identity.

It would be foolish to imply that the solution is to never leave something in the past (or to leave the internet entirely). But I enjoy the challenge of trying to figure out how to better integrate Wandyteeth with my internet pursuits at present. Borrowing a maxim from insurance adjusters, the fact that Wandyteeth is still alive makes it that much more likely that it's gonna remain alive. Old buildings are beautiful at least in part because they have survived, and they survive by adapting to new uses. I can only hope that something similar will happen to this weird old website of ours.

For quite some time, my pocket schema has consisted of keys, cell phone and pen in my front left pocket, and wallet in my front right pocket. This arrangement has worked for me, but I'm not dogmatic about it; I would delight in a superior method.

Certain inessential routines manage to escape the light of outside corroboration, which is comforting. These "Opaque Habits" would also incude: toilet paper techniques and eggcorns ("for all intents-and-purposes" vs. "for all intensive purposes").

I would like to believe that they act like vestigial organs or viruses. How would we trace their origins? Who is the "patient zero"? And who wears their wallets in their back pockets, anyway?

Almost everyday, I choose between two pairs of similar-looking shoes.


Both of these shoes are more or less the same. I usually wear the black shoes when it is wet outside, and the green shoes when I am wearing colorful clothing.

The building I live in sits above a bodega (convenience store) called Hermanos Acosta.

Directly across the street from Hermanos Acosta is another bodega, called Super Deli Sajoma Inc.

Both of these stores offer more or less the same products. I usually go to Hermanos Acosta for cans of soda or beans, and to Super Deli Sajoma Inc. for sandwiches.

I enjoy making these arbitrary daily decisions.

Best of 2008

I would like to start writing here again.

Best of 2007

Sometimes I sincerely wish that we could change the year-end reflection system to something more frequent; I would love to devour quarterly summations, and it strikes me that it would prove beneficial on the whole.