August 24, 2004 01:31 | Confession

A sharp knife

Tonight, i am recoding the UI on an e-comm storefront I did originally did over 3 years ago. Tables upon tables, font tags, et al; no sign of semantic markup anywhere. I even had tables for 1 pixel high dotted divider lines.

Recoding it properly is a joy. Like peeling away layers of fat, bloated markup. We're talking on the order of 80% less html in some files.

But there is a tinge in this fun. I remember the month I spent working on this site. The girlfriend of the time, though patiently sharing suggestions, was getting seriously annoyed at how much time I was spending on it.

Earlier this evening I walked down the street to the liquor commission to stock up on some sake and red wine. Friends for my long nights of coding. Meandering home, a white car drove by the corner of my eye as I double took it: "Is it...? No, it's not."

"She must avoid this area at any cost, surely" I thought as the Nissan Sentra, and not the Saab 900, continued on it's way, and I on mine.

Arriving at the street before mine, I engage the intersection, crossing kitty corner, when something else catches my eye... and I freeze.
Gently sailing on down the street away from me, a lithe figure on inline skates, arms up adjusting her ponytail. I recognize her immediately.

I am transfixed. My first impulse is to call out her name and run after her but I know she'd just give a quick kick and fly away. Just the thought of the piercing in my heart this would engender stops me.

So I just watch, until she turns the corner and disappears. There I stood, in the middle of two streets, rastafari t-shirt, pinstripe jacket, jeans and sneaker clad, with a giant branded bag full of alcohol. I turn to go on home only to see a smiling James DiSalvio looking at me. "What the heck is this guy doing?" he must've thought as I gave him a nod and a smile... and limped home.