yes, so my name is actually jamelah. (that rhymes with tequila.) when i was in school, my name was the arch-nemesis of substitute teachers, but by today's standards, it's really pretty normal. when i was in driver's ed (the first time) there was a girl in my car named bequeesha cunningham. so there you go.

anyway, it's not that i sometimes think i'm so beat, it's more that when firecracker buys a girl a beret, it's necessary to wear it. i have a lot of hats. my favorite is probably a grey one i picked up in poland for about $1.50 from this old lady standing on a sidewalk selling a bunch of knit things. it's made of wool and it itches, but i love it anyway. my second favorite hat is probably my cowboy hat, which i like to call my thinking cap. when i wear it, i think about how cool it is that i'm wearing a cowboy hat. but i love the beret. it makes me feel like i can smoke a lot.

i also have a thing for sweaters with hoods. i tend to get myself into a lot of ridiculous situations, and i sometimes find that it's necessary to pull the hood of my sweater over my head and pretend that i'm somewhere else. call it a habit, if you will. i should probably stop with the ridiculous situations, but i don't know, everything always seems like a really good idea at the time.

would you mind traveling back in time with me to the early 1980's for a minute? i didn't think you would. remember that show solid gold? there was a dancer named jamelah. i figured that she was as good a role model as any, and so i dreamed that one day, when i was all grown up, i too would be a dancer on solid gold. is that show even on anymore? yeah, i don't think so. anyway, my point is, that since i wanted to be a dancer, it logically follows that i grew up to be a clumsy oaf. i fall down. a lot. it's okay, though, because falling down a lot has taught me how not to injure myself. so, now i only end up bleeding, like, 20% of the time. not bad, i say. not bad at all.

as of two seconds ago, i decided that you can learn a lot about a person by knowing who their favorite peanuts character is. well, despite popular belief, my favorite is not lucy. i admire lucy and all, but she and i are too much alike for us to really get along. no, i like linus. see, linus is my kinda guy because he's obviously very intelligent and well-read. sure, he's a little quirky, carrying that blanket around all the time, but you know, when i was little, i carried my blanket around with me wherever i went, until that fateful day i set it on fire. but anyway, back to my point. i believe it's the quirks and imperfections that make people interesting. and i really can't stand boring people. so that is why i like linus.

see this picture of me that is currently to your right, the one where i'm making a stupid face? there's a picture of me as a two-year-old making that exact same face. you know what that means, don't you? it means that i've been this way all my life. the truth of the matter is that i'm always up to something. this mysterious "something" usually includes at least one of the following: reading, napping, eating peanut butter, writing, being distracted by shiny things, laughing until i inhale my icy cold beverage, coughing because i just inhaled my icy cold beverage, photoshopping things, getting mad at HTML, tripping over the shoes i told myself not to leave in the middle of the floor, or plotting my eventual world takeover. i'm really a very busy girl and can't be bothered with commonplace things like, uh, mopping, for instance. i really hate mopping.

some days, i'm really just like a caricature of myself. i'm not sure what that means, but it sounds kinda interesting, huh? i often find myself not understanding the things i say, which is fun, because nobody else understands, so i usually end up saying "yeah, don't worry, i don't know what i'm talking about either." i do have a habit of just saying things and then not knowing why i thought it was a good idea to say the words i just said. but back to that caricature thing. i think that really, what i meant was that when i was younger, i had this picture in my head of what i'd be like when i was this age. boy, was i wrong. i'm currently nothing close to the picture i had in my head of what i'd be like when i was this age. i mean, i code web pages by hand and consider that a pretty good time. where did that come from? i don't know. but you know what john lennon said, about life being what happens while you're busy making other plans? well, it's true. and furthermore, it's pretty cool that it works out that way, because during all the little side trips to the places i never imagined going, i've had a lot of fun. i've also had a lot of not fun, but i'm working on focusing on the positive here.

i have this reputation for being evil. it's completely unfounded, except i'm really sarcastic and sometimes when i'm cranky i can be rather rude. yes, i do have what has been called an evil gleam in my eyes at least 90% of the time, but it's not really evil so much as it is amused. i think that funny is all a matter of perspective, and from my particular perspective, most everything is funny. i laugh a lot, usually at inappropriate times.

other than that, i'm fascinated by all the minutae that life has to offer, and other people are just about the best collections of fascinating minutae on earth. i memorize people's mannerisms and speech patterns, and if i've met you and spoken to you, i probably find you adorably cute for one reason or another. this is probably why i have a tendency of developing schoolgirlish crushes. but then, crushes are delicious, like june strawberries fresh from the vine. i love warm strawberries just about as much as i love smiling at people for my own secret reasons.


in short, yes, i believe that life, like good work, is all in the details. and this is, of course, why i listen to cher.