Let’s start with my icon. Well, it’s a 100×100 pixel white square with a navy Abercrombie & Fitch moose in the corner and the text “Who cares? It’s my parents’ money…” It’s disturbing to me that this was the catchphrase I chose for myself, but also not surprising. And I guess I’m kind of jealous of my fourteen-year-old self. I wish I could say that in my day-to-day life. But no, all I get to say is “Fuck, I can buy gas or a third latte today. Latte.”

At this point, either the HTML coding has disintegrated, or I was going for a minimalistic theme in the last few weeks of my active Xanga use, but I can’t fool myself into thinking I didn’t spend hours, hours, on finding a new theme every week. Memorable ones include alternating between an Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth headers, depending on who was my favorite Wicked star that week; various Abercrombie Kids ads used as page backgrounds (scrolling, which is even worse than the fixed background) and I’m pretty sure I had a Laguna Beach theme for a while as well.

Speaking of Laguna Beach, do you even want to know how many LC icons I had saved on my desktop? I would post hundreds of icons on my Xanga, usually of my favorite Laguna cast member or Rent lyrics.

Another weekly ritual was the posting of a 100 Facts About Me quiz. Because I was certain that a) week to week my favorite clothing brand, favorite song, eye color and the thing I first notice about the opposite sex would change (note: they didn’t) and b) that the people who read my Xanga were interested in knowing whether I liked ketchup or mustard more, or what I thought the acronym S.O.L.R.A.K.S. stood for. (“Surely Olivia loves rude applesauce, kinetically super.” I’m sorry, but what?)

I made a lot of really casual jokes about eating disorders and Jewish people. I also adopted an ironic (or just stupid) manner of peppering my sentences with “hell ta da yes” and “fersheezie.” During the heyday of my Xanga use, I was 14, just over five feet tall, and weighed about 80 lbs. And I’m white. Fersheezie.

I had a lot to complain about. For instance, I had a really tough time deciding whether to sign up for choir or not. Or the time I ordered an Italian soda at a Borders and the barista put half & half in it. Waking up early. A teacher docking my grade in his class for “excessive socializing.”

In what can only be considered my Virginia Woolf phase, I wrote lengthy posts in stream-of-consciousness.

Also, I was very brazen about talking shit about people and naming names. There were no boundaries in what I would post about my personal thoughts on the people in my life.

And while I complained a lot and was generally annoying and hyperactive, I also look back at my Xanga and see that I had a really fun time in my early teenage years. Without my Xanga, how would I remember my friends and I talking in fake British accents at the dinner after my best friend’s Bat Mitzvah? How would I remember minute details of cast party traditions and dance parties that followed the musicals I was in my freshman year of high school? How would I know what lyrics, quotes, anecdotes and moments of glee and stupidity were important enough for me to document?

And how would I remember that I was one of the most active members of the “I pop my collar” group?

– Grant Nolan