this site / each section / the author
this site : is built to validate as XHTML 1.0, using CSS to handle layout. It probably looks a little disjointed in Netscape 4.x, but I'm only sort of sorry.
Somnolent is a place to record my experiences. Some of them are true. Some of them are subjective as all get out. Some of them are just experiments in automatic writing and didn't really happen. Some of them are poems. Some of them will not come with the guarantee that you will find meaning in them.
I keep these writings public as an exercise in writing on a regular basis—a way to keep me honest. Your readership and interaction keeps me in practice, and knowing that I'll have an audience means I'll put more effort into writing well. This in turn affects the quality of my other writing endeavors (poetry, essays, articles, documentations for work), helping them improve. It also serves to keep the channels in my head open, so I can more easily exercise my creativity. Basically, it's a training camp.
This site is probably more about process than it is about finished product.
Version 2 of this site used Greymatter as its content management system, but has moved over to Movable Type in version 3. Regretably, this means that old links to specific pieces of content will most likely break. Get a hold of me and I'll provide you with the new URLs for anything you need. It's arguable that I could have set something up to handle the switch-over so that old links wouldn't break, and that doing so would have been good site maintenance. If this was a website I maintained for my employer, then of course I would have had some contingency planning, absolutely. But this is a personal site done on my own time, and I had enough problems coming back to this project after a nine-month absence, and to be honest, I just can't be arsed. This is an exercise in expression, not best-practice. At least you know how to bitch me out. And I do apologize.
The background image is a one-pixel-width line taken from the original copy of this photo and stretched out.
The cursive font used for section names is called Breastbomb, which was designed by the now-missing BombHaus Design. You could probably find it for the PC if you Google it. The Mac version seems to be unfindable, but both a friend of mine and I have a copy. Keep it under your hat.
The katakana at the top of each page says Somnolent ("samunorento"). Katakana is the Japanese character set used, among other things, to write words borrowed from other languages. It's also used to write brand names, so unintentionally, the header logo is a marketing strategy. :