Reading my blog
This weekend I spent hours tweaking little cosmetic and technical aspects of this blog. I finally managed to change the HTML of the footnotes, which I am happy to say is now an <aside> element and not a <section> element anymore. Semantically, I think it makes more sense like this.1 I wonder why the footnotes module I use on Eleventy relies on a <section> element, especially one that lacks a heading component, which creates a little issue in the W3C validator.
This is what MDN says about the <aside> element:
The
<aside>HTML element represents a portion of a document whose content is only indirectly related to the document's main content. Asides are frequently presented as sidebars or call-out boxes.
This is the explanation for <section>:
The
<section>HTML element represents a generic standalone section of a document, which doesn't have a more specific semantic element to represent it. Sections should always have a heading, with very few exceptions.
The one that is best-fitted for footnotes is, to me, without question, <aside>.
While I had the bonnet open and was getting my hands dirty, I also removed all the class attributes generated by the footnotes module, so hopefully nothing will appear broken for you in your browser, RSS reader, or read-later app.2 I also removed some unnecessary lines from the <head>, keeping this website as light and simple as possible, as always.
Removing nearly meaningless lines of code to improve the site is great, but actually, what I should have done is add more entries (at least one). This is something of a tradition here: tweaking instead of writing, fine-tuning existing HTML instead of kneading new ideas.
As I was working in the “back-office”, I had a few looks at pages and posts to see if everything was working as intended; Eleventy’s local mode is a great way to do this but I tend to prefer experimenting with my HTML and CSS in vivo. While I opened old posts to look at how they rendered, I ended up reading them.
I noticed two things.
First, that I seemingly forget about 85% of what I write. Reading these articles didn’t feel like reading something completely new — I remember the topic and the gist of what I said — but I was surprised at how much I forgot about these topics, rants, and comments. Writing makes me refine my thoughts, but I think publishing makes my brain click the “Move to bin” command for these now-safely-backed-up thoughts.
Second, and this may sound a bit strange, but I enjoyed reading these old posts. Not in a “oh, this is a good post” way — some of them felt rather uninspired actually — but more as a “oh, this is easy to read” way.
Of course my sentences flow in a familiar way: they are my sentences after all. Of course they are easy for me to read. Yet, it was somehow surprising to realise that I write a lot like I think, or even like I talk. It felt like travelling back in time and observing myself, and being curious about what I’ll say next. A little like rewatching a Columbo episode for the third or fourth time: you know the story, you know what’s going to happen, but you notice a new piece of furniture, hear a new line of dialogue, or realise that a famous actor had a small part in it all along.
It’s like I get to know myself a little better every time I read my older posts. Is this weird?
Anyway, before Christopher Nolan jumps in and buys the rights for this blog post, I realise it also means that if you’re reading this blog regularly and have never met me in person, well, surprise, you won’t be surprised. I talk like I write and write like I talk. If you’re reading this, you kind of already know me somehow.
This is yet another reason why I love having a blog. Writing makes me think better, and thinking improves my writing. The motivation to write something new encourages me to read more, to learn more. And now I just realised that reading my own words is a pleasant way of reconnecting with part of myself.
On top of these self-appreciation and self-improvement aspects of having a blog, managing a blog like this one, again, despite being a very simple and minimal blog, is also a fantastic way to learn how to operate a website, how to do CSS, HTML, etc. Very rarely does working on this site feel like actual work. It’s a hobby, it’s only joy.
Sure, spending three hours at a time inside a JavaScript file, waiting for the site to recompile, refreshing the browser tabs, and starting over, again and again, just to change the way footnotes are displayed can indeed feel like a huge pain (and it was).
But guess what? This whole chain of events apparently inspired me to write something new. I can’t wait to read this again in three years: “This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine.”