My experience with Catherine Alice’s web design obsession began on the first day of High School, when she was both in my Advanced Algebra and Public Speaking classes. As the new girl, I had to endure many an awkward conversation, and one of the most awkward was that with an overly skinny and ostrich-like Asian girl whose greeting was “Hi, welcome to UA, here’s my website,” leaving me with a definite feeling of WTF. Catherine Alice actually handed me a Post-It note with her website on it, which I accepted, thinking that this was all I could do to make the scary girl go away. Next period, I discovered that either a) she was stalking me to make sure that I did visit her website or b) she was in my Public Speaking class. I’m still not sure which one it was. But she spent the next forty minutes or so studiously copying down her website url onto hundreds more Post-It notes.
Catherine Alice was the keeper of many nicknames, many of which I gave her and have forgotten since. The prevailing nickname when I first met her was “Turtle” on account of her love of turtlenecks. As I slowly became her best friend (hey, it’s how you appease stalkers nowadays), I added many others to the list, several of which she’d kill me if I repeated. Never one to be hindered by typical social mores, Cat introduced me to her esoteric personality by hitting me with many interesting conversation leads, including “I really hate wearing bras.” Over the next few years, I learned more about Catsup (one of the more acceptable names). I learned that she ran a very successful boy harem with revolving members. I learned that she was very patient when it came to the countless times I spilled my can of soda at lunch. I learned that she was amazingly stubborn.
Right now, you are reading Cattish’s (sounds a lot like ‘cabbage’) web blog, for she is a webtekkie, as she seriously informed me, emphasizing that it was spelled with a “k.” You’re privy to a great deal of her life and many extraneous bits of information, this being one of them. I still don’t know Cat’s favorite color (she’s not fanatical about wearing only certain shades or colors of clothing like I am), and I’m not sure that I’ll ever find out. But I do know that when Cat grows up to be rich, powerful, and famous, I have first dibs to write her biography. And here is where it all starts.
Written by Jennifer Chen, best friend.
Last updated January 15th, 2006.