&julie;

Julie

I'm Julie. I've been on the internet for most of my life. As a child, I used to make little websites about my interests using ExPage and GeoCities. I kept a self-hosted blog/portfolio for much of the '00s-'10s to share my writing and photography. I enjoy the ability to own my online presence.

I graduated from an arts high school and studied political science and philosophy at various colleges in the American Midwest. Several years later, I began to study cybersecurity as well. Occasionally I sell stickers, clothing, and vintage items online; but most of the time, I'm mothering two young children.

I'm a big proponent of Umberto Eco's antilibrary of unread books, and I'm always excited to learn something new. I have an extensive list of things I want to explore further in the future and things I've placed on the back burner, so I will never get bored.

Colophon

My site is inspired by the retro web aesthetics of the late 1990s and early 2000s when I grew up and started using the internet. This site is built with Eleventy, a static site generator. I use a plugin that I created for Eleventy that allows me to easily crosspost from my blog to Gopher and Gemini protocols.

I don’t have public comments on blog posts (yet?) because I couldn’t decide which commenting system I hated less. Instead, I have an email form for receiving private feedback.

I was inspired by LiveJournal’s "current mood"/"current music" fields because I used to blog there back in the day, so I've recreated that structure within my own blog. I am using a set of mood theme gifs from LiveJournal called CharityCam’s Frogs, with the original 132 LJ moods.

The hopping frog following your cursor (or your finger tap) is based upon the classic Neko cat.