...is a snapshot of who I am and a little fun. It is my hope that my website doesn't read like a personal ad (stop sending me email asking if I have a boyfriend, willya?), but rather a sort of help manual with a sense of humor. I realize that many of the pages are composed of links to other pages, and so, in a classic web sense, if there is such a thing, these pages are bereft of true content. I think you will discover, however, that you can find out a great deal about a person by examining their links. On the web and in real life. Angry Young Websites I am not an Angry Young Person With A Website. There is a developing school of thought with some of the better webdesigners that in order for a personal website to be good, it must be angst-heavy. I have always felt that unless you are still in college, or a great writer, your angst should basically remain a personal matter. And angst that is not done well is dull. I get just as bored reading website tirades as I do looking at pictures of Melissa's dog/boyfriend. Evolution One of the really nice and most obvious aspects of websites is that they can evolve. Must evolve. The web itself is what, four, five years old? and is changing, morphing, mutating faster than an alien embryo in a sci-fi movie. There is a layer of good webdesign and content that seems to be rising above the rest, and The Rules are becoming more tangible, moving from liquid to gelatinous form over the last few months. Still, jello isn't concrete, and a good website is a dynamic and developing one. Not that Q is anywhere near being a good website yet, but it has come a long way over the last few months. It started out as a summer project, borne on to the web with the purchase and study of good old HTML for Dummies (I am a big fan of the Dummies and Idiot's Guide series, especially for technophobes. I am not really afraid of technology; I would just like to know as much of it as I need to know in order to accomplish what I'd like to do. And then I get bored). When I first uploaded my site in August 1996, Q was chock-full of horizontal rules, loud and colorful background tiles, bullets, huge graphics, linear menus, etc. After I discovered how to animate gifs (hey, this is great! it moves!), Q became a singing, dancing, moving, multimedia mess; Las Vegas in Brooklyn. I fell prey to a classic "I can do it so I will" first-time-designer disease. Even now, though I would like to think that Q has evolved into a much cleaner site, (and thank goodness I learned how to use table tags,) I am told that there is a bit too much clutter and movement on my site. Well, if this is supposed to be a form of personal statement, a little clutter and movement is absolutely necessary. Then again, people tell me that my life has too much clutter and movement. They are correct. Unfortunately, it is more difficult to use table tags in real life. Tell me, tell me, tell me... Take a walk through my site. If you like, write me and tell me. If you don't, write me and tell me.

Copyright © 1997 Susan Ehrenfeld