Have you ever heard of the Way Back Machine? If not, let me be the first to introduce you.
At some point in the early(ish) days of the internet, some tech nerds realized that things could be changed. Yes, anything you put on the internet *may* stay forever, but if a server fails, an ISP shuts you down, or your web lady suddenly retires, it very well may not.
So they created the Way Back Machine, a branch of the internet archive.
I know basically nothing about it, other than it’s function, which is, well, to be an Archive of the Internet. Our industrious friends built lil spidey bot bros who surf the web and take snapshots of websites wherever they find them and save the moments in a database. This is useful if, for example, a major world power starts randomly and aggressively erasing words, images, studies, or entire websites from the face of the internet.
It’s also useful if you’re just a nosey folk like me, and suddenly realize that your wishy daydream of going back in time to remember what things were like when you first started in a given industry is an entirely reachable possibility.
And so, come with me as we drift back in time.
http://web.archive.org/web/20260406222820/https://amiepetite.ch/wp
April 6. Only a few short days prior to writing this, and what you see is more or less what is now. It’s limited; the bots aren’t always thorough, and the pages don’t always work. I was going to see whether this snapshot was before my FBSM special, but they didn’t capture that page, so who knows?
Another short hop further into the past: January 16. My tits in the ferns, blissfully unaware that their time as my banner was coming to a close. But what is this? My blog is still there? My ten most recent posts, right there to be read by any passing time traveler!?! What luck! And the second page is still up as well. Upon further investigation, it appears that this glorious tool has captured it all the way back to the beginning. Whew! It may be a little harder to find, but the whole blog is right there.
What happens when we keep going?
January 26, 2021. Right after porting from a .com url to a .ch. Complete with pandemic updates. Yeesh. Those were some weird times.
Hey! A gallery of older photos! I had such short hair for so long. In the scheme of things no time at all, but in the moment it was everything. The especially observant will notice me mentioning usually pedicured feet, versus their current state of well-walked. Hiking can really wreak havoc on a toe.
And a list of old friends. Retired, gone sour, pivoted, faded out, or not even begun, you can track my professional interpersonal relationships through the past, should you choose. Like watching a time lapse of a tree: bursting with life, maturing and solidifying, then maybe someday falling to play nursery to the next.
As I click around to other pages on my old site, I notice a detail: up in the corner, the date changes. The wayback machine doesn’t scrape every page every day, so if you try to navigate away it’ll do it’s best, going to the closest screen grab of the url you’re clicking to.
I forgot about that old tagline: taking casual encounters seriously since 2013. Damn I write good sometimes.
Later that year, but at the old URL: November 26, 2021. Sparse, redirecting you to the new site. But with some really lovely photos I haven’t thought of in a while. I still have that shirt; it’s one of my favorites and I’m finally slim enough again to wear it comfortably*. I also still have that sweet floral bodysuit, and those earrings, but I lost that diamond and ruby ring some years ago. Took it off for Pilates and never saw it again. I looked for it for ages and always meant to replace it but shopping vintage means you rarely see the same thing twice.
Oooh, and how is this to make us all have feelings? My rates, as of August 15, 2019. How times have changed. If only all our assets doubled every seven years! That cash tag is invalid, by the way. Apparently I violated some terms of service or other such foolishness. Stupid morality police ruining it for the rest of us!
And back to Amie’s naissance. July 11 2017. I have to laugh that I considered myself at my peak physical fitness then, but I don’t really remember making much of a fuss when I became… not… peak physical fitness around 2021. I certainly was trim, with a marvelous pilates bod, and the energy and flexibility of youth, but I doubt I’d have been able to do a pull up at the time.
Twenty Eight. Just a wee one. Those days were good, in different ways than the ways these days are good. I still have that bra, but it fits a bit differently.
I also find it charming to read about myself, from the perspective of past me. It feels like nothing has changed, and yet also so much. I feel… protective of her, hindsight showing me all the things she could have done differently, and yet proud: knowing how well I did despite my shortcomings. I forget things, sometimes.
I think back to my first incall, a dark studio, maybe 200 square feet, that fostered such growth. Bars on the windows, though you would never know through the curtains. The couch, a huge, carved maple monstrosity, a pull-out sofa that required multiple tries to get it on the door, purchased because I thought I might maybe share with a friend of mine who would do full service. It never performed that service, but it started many a chat. I lined the walls with candles and cheap art. A print of red wine from target. Budget friendly, but the dark colors and still life subject matter felt rich.
And now to travel back further, we come forward a bit. My alternate blog. Up, not updated, but my own personal archive. www.divinadaemon.com. I thought I was so clever. Divine Demon, joyous and devious, as if I was the first girl ever to contain multitudes. HA! But when I think about it, it’s honestly not that bad, and in the years since, I don’t see it used often. Not never just not often.
May 28, 2017. Shortly before my rebrand. Massage only, rock bottom rates, compared to today, and a sweet simplicity. ALSO WE COULD CUDDLE!!! I had a cuddle closet. Yes you heard that right, a closet for cuddling. I shoved a twin mattress and a fuckload of pillows into the hall closet, stacked Christmas lights on the shelves, and once used it to make the maintenance guy feel reeeeeeeeeeeeal awkward.
You know I might bring that back one of these days. Underbritches on, lights off, but I can not guarantee I won’t fall asleep.
And here we are. At the very beginning. Me so full of who knows what. Honestly my enthusiasm is genuinely charming. I wanted so badly to prove myself. To make a good impression. I was so scared that someone would meet me and say “ooh, yeah, no thanks. You’re a bit too *whatever*” that I overcompensated badly. At the time I’d have been crushed to be judged wanting. Now if someone said that to me I think I’d just shrug it off. And the formatting of that site… I was definitely new to design. Of course, that was a time when myspace was still in living memory, so I’ve got to cut myself a bit of slack. I’m not sure it was any worse than the bright orange soda fountain font of the next iteration.
In the process of looking back, I am looking again at the way I wrote. The way I thought. I was SO pretentious. And also SO sweetly earnest. I feel fond of my old self. Catching a bit of her excitement. Reminded of that flowery way with words. Using perhaps more than were necessary, and fancier, or at least more obscure. Enamored of cleverness in an innocent way. I suppose some things don’t change much.
I’m sure that ten years from now I will be equally fond of, and rueful at, my current self. At what I don’t know I don’t know. Looking through the lens of time and experience. I remember being 25 and reading journal entries I wrote at 18. Same story, different decade. How innocent, how naive, how huge each thing seemed to be, that is now so small in retrospect, I thought to myself.
I wonder, now, what I will find amusing then. Will my stance on AI seem close minded and bigoted? Will I decry the price of gas in twenty years? When I tell “the kids” to “touch grass” will I date myself as a millennial trying to pass as a gen alpha?
And so what if I do? I’m reading Piers Anthony’s With a Tangled Skein and in it the three aspects of fate are entirely different people. Maiden, mother, and crone live together in the same body and experience each moment simultaneously, but from different vantage points, and learn to appreciate the wisdom, practicality, and innocence of all three perspectives.
It’s been a joy strolling the halls of the past, and I’m sure it will be again. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little tour as well!
And if you happen to get curious about the political implications of a tool like this, or perhaps wanted to share it with students or other young folks, well, the more you know, eh?
*A shirt isn’t comfortable until I can fit a ribeye inside it.