Otherstream at 20: 1996

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13 January 2016 will be the twentieth anniversary of the site that became Otherstream. In a rather egotistical observance of that anniverasry, I’m focusing on one year per day in the twenty days leading up to the anniversary, linking to some favorite and important (or just inane and disposable) posts from each year. Today, we start with 1996.

Otherstream did not start as a journal/blog site–or even one named “Otherstream.” Planet SOMA was more of a static site with information about San Francisco neighborhoods, some dirty pictures, rants about annoying aspects of faggotry, and some biographical info about me. It was the early days of the web and frankly, any presence at all was was still much more than 99% of people had in that pre-Wordpress, pre-Facebook era when most people didn’t even know what a website was. i didn’t start doing personal updates till several months in.

Aside from the birth of the website, 1996 was pretty pivotal in other ways as well. It marked the end of traditional full-time employment for the next six years, the end of the car I moved to San Francisco with, and several interesting road trips. It was really the beginning of a new era for me.

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Otherstream at 20: 1997

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As a self-indulgent tribute to twenty years on the web, I’m looking back at one year a day leading to the actual anniversary on 13 January 2016. 1997 was all about free time, road trips, building a new website, and the occasional bit of debauchery. It was also the year I started questioning my relationship with San Francisco.

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Otherstream at 20: 1998

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Looking back at twenty years on the web in prepration for my anniversary on 13 January. Today’s focus is 1998, the year I began doing web work professionally and realy began to question whether I wanted to spend the rest of my life in San Francisco.

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The Idiot Factor: Pilot for a  new series that never quite took off except as a running theme.

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  • A Quinn Martin Production: This was actually the first “blog” post on the site, although we didn’t call them that at the time.

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Otherstream at 20: 1999

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The big twentieth anniversary is 13 January 2016. Today, it’s all about 1999, when I lost a roommate, pissed off a lot of people talking about gentrification, and started obsessively documenting old supermarkets. I think this was my favorite year of the website (so more links than the other “retrospectives” today) though in retrospect it comes across as a trifle whiny at times.

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Otherstream at 20: 2000

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Anniversary soon. Today? Y2K, when I apparently hated everything, especially San Francisco. OK, I still don’t care much for san Francisco.

Favorites and milestones from the textual diarrhea that was 2000:

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Otherstream at 20: 2001

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Sorry for that delay. I didn’t create enough of these before I left on vacation, thinking I’d catch up on the road, but the “cut and paste” nature of these particular posts made that a major pain on the iPad. Twelve days till the anniversary.

So 2001 was the year in which I lost one of my oldest friends, had major health issues, and met the love of my life, among other things. And a surprisingly latge number of things still managed to annoy me. A pretty intense year, all in all.

Some highlights:

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Otherstream at 20: 2002

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Twelve days till the big anniversary, and fourteen years to cover because I missed a couple of days.

2002 was all about love and mushiness, until September, when it became all about love and cohabitation. But I occasionally managed to write about other things, too. In retrospect, I’m not wild about some of it, but most of it holds up OK.

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Otherstream at 20: 2003

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Wow I turned into kind of an asshole there for a while. By 2003, there was domesticity and some travel. but the site seemed to be losing some of its charm (and its audience). The same thing happened to Rhoda in the 1970s and the producers divorced her, but it didn’t help. I remained bitter and cynical as always, but much less charmingly so. That didn’t help either.

Highlights and favorite posts follow. I tried to include a couple of the obnoxious ones as well even though they make me look bad, but not too many because they make my brain hurt.

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July;

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Otherstream at 20: 2004

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I’m almost caught up from my vacation break and so I can return to one year a day soon The anniversary happens on 13 January.

In 2004, the trend toward daily updates with no substantial essays continued, making the site more of a journal than a reflective space. Thus it’s harder to pick “highlights” as such and the ones I chose don’t really show what was on my mind quite so well as in earlier years. Anyway, here are the ones I chose, such as they are.

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Otherstream at 20: 2005

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Back to one year per day as we move toward the big anniversary on 13 January. 2005 was another pivotal year as it brought my departure from San Francisco and return to the East Coast. Highlights and favorites follow.

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Otherstream at 20: 2006

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Ten years ago I was celebrating ten years of the site. 2006 also brought homeownership, a slight case of cancer, and more travel. Highlights and favorite posts below.

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February:

  • That word
  • Triangle weekend (the “something that was bothering me” was the early-stage cancer I’d just been diagnosed with)

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Otherstream at 20: 2007

 

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Past the halfway point now, and only eight days until the anniversary. Highlights and favorites from 2007 (the year I started grad school and actually started working toward having a real career) follow. I have to admit very little of it is especially entertaining or inspiring.

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Otherstream at 20: 2008

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There was better reading in 2008 than in 2007, maybe because I was tying (at least for a little while) to generate content for four different websites, all of which eventually landed here. I’d call this year “reflective” and “hectic” with grad school and all. I also worked a very odd part-time job, continued with my freelancing, and migrated the site from static HTML to WordPress. I’d sort of forgotten what a busy year it was.

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Otherstream at 20: 2009

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In 2009, I got my master’s, got my first professional library job, thought a lot about cities, and bought a house in Pittsburgh. It was perhaps a more interesting year than I gave it credit for at the time. Anniversary in six days. Highlights from 2009 below.

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Otherstream at 20: 2010

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In 2010, I got my first tenure-track position (which is working out quite nicely, thanks), my ex and I recommenced living together full-time after five years of the bicoastal thing (that didn’t end well at all), and I didn’t write much of any consequence. Highlights follow on the march to the big anniversary on 13 January.

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Otherstream at 20: 2011

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I thought this one was going to be harder to put together than it actually was. which says, I guess, that I’m finally over the worst year of my life. Or that I’ve gotten better at ignoring it. Or something.

In 2011, I lost two of the most important people in my life. Neither of them actually went away; they both just changed in ways that drastically altered our relationships. My ex and I split up after almost ten years, and my mom developed dementia. I’m not sure the website ever quite reflected how devastating this was to me. I actually wrote more about the latter than the former, but that doesn’t necessarily correlate with the proportionate effect of each. Sharing specific details about the breakup didn’t really seem fair or appropriate, although it is possible to read between the lines de temps en temps.

Despite everything, I was very successful at establishing my new career during 2011, and my October trip to Canada (the start of a new tradition) resulted in a lot of positive changes for me, not the least of which was the fact that i started listening to lots of new music again.

For the record, some of these posts were made public after the fact and did not originally appear in this same order (basically I “sneaked” them in retrospectively) so regular readers may have missed them.

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Otherstream at 20: 2012

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Let’s just say I visited some very dark places in 2012. I’d love to say I handled it with my usual good humor, but that might be a stretch. Maybe the best thing to say is that I lived through it. And lost weight. What i really hate is that the big entries on the site stopped being about anything other than me. The big anniversary comes on Wednesday.

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Otherstream at 20: 2013

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Despite an incredibly depressing start, 2013 turned out to be a really good year for me. I relocated to the house where I grew up, traveled a lot, and started having the slightest hint a social life again (which is about all I’ve ever really been able to stand anyway). And then there were the antidepressants–both the pills (which helped a LOT) and the cat with whom I had a brief relationship (which helped more than I might have thought as well). Music was a big help too.

The web stuff was maybe not some of my best ever, but that’s OK. Feeling like a human being again was nice.

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Otherstream at 20: 2014

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Only two more years to cover before Wednesday’s big anniversary.

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Otherstream at 20: 2015

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It’s kind of hard to curate posts that are less than a year old, but I tried. This is the final year to be covered in my “twenty years” retrospective. I may talk about the actual anniversary tomorrow and try to draw some broad conclusions. Or I may not. You’ll have to check back by to see which it is.

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