Now, I’m going to set that backpack on fire. What do you wanna take out of it? Photos? Photos are for people who can’t remember.
Drink some ginkgo and let the photos burn. In fact let it all burn… and imagine waking up tomorrow with nothing.

It’s kinda exhilarating, isn’t it?
–Ryan Bingham, Up In The Air

Sometime in the last 96 hours, the database that holds this site together disappeared. It was as though someone had gone through and said “DROP TABLE” on everything, then erased all evidence that the database itself had ever existed. Damn strange. My first thought is “crims!” but upon reflection the odds of anyone taking an interest in vandalizing this poxy Web site are basically non-existent. (I changed all my passwords just in case.)

There’s this weird sense of exhilaration that sweeps over you when you discover your data is gone. There’s the initial sadness — all the hard work you put into it, the strange impulses that led you to hang on to various bits of cruft. If it’s stuff you created, it can be heartbreaking: all the writing, all the photos, all that creative energy gone in a random stream of bits, never to return. The loss of a blog isn’t exactly that gut-wrenching (at least, not for me); it is, however, irritating. But once the initial shock wears off you realize that maybe it isn’t the end of the world after all — maybe something good can come of it! In my case I spent a bit of time thinking about what I wanted a re-invented blog to look like, and even asked myself whether I wanted to resurrect Under a Blackened Sky. (Then I realized that Under a Blackened Sky was a product of a very specific time and place, one that probably doesn’t exist anymore, and written in a voice I don’t think I have anymore.)

I don’t know that I came to any profound conclusions about what Lost in Transliteration is, or what it should look like, or who I’m writing it for, or why I even bother. But I do know that I’m happy with what I’ve done so far, that I’m pleased I managed to recover some of the posts from the past (hooray for backups!), and that things will continue as they have been for the foreseeable future.