a 2 year anniversary of sorts. More a jumble of feelings than anything coherently thought out.
The interesting thing about Trillian is that it keeps logs of conversations: Aim, ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, whatever you use. If you've fallen out of the habit of using Trillian, as I have, and haven't formatted your computer in awhile, as I have, it can be very interesting to dig these logs up. Each log (at least the Aim versions), are separated into files by screenname. I'm sitting here, this early in the morning, because I can't sleep. My knee is aching, not a consistent, dull, ache, but a sharp, fleeting one that comes and goes. This is the knee I injured last year, the day before my birthday, in what possibly was the lamest reason for an emergency room visit ever. Funny how some of the smallest things never heal right.
Anyways, back to the log files.
A lot of screennames I don't recognize, some I do. Most of them you can kind of get a feel for if you start reading them, but there are some, that regardless, just don't spark any sort of recognition at all. It's funny, when you look at how "comfortable" the conversation is, I suppose. At the time, what did I feel for this person, how did they feel towards me? Why did we stop communicating? I don't know if anyone else does this, but I have sporadic bouts where I'll delete half the people on a buddy list, just to see who will eventually message me. I guess it's to see who's more interested in the conversation. If they end up messaging me eventually, well, I know it's not just a one-way thing.
This, at least in my case, usually ends up with the buddy list remaining much smaller than it was.
I don't know why I bother keeping these logs, most of them are now going on almost being two years old, mainly from around the time I moved out here to Fullerton, from the looks of it. I suppose I could somehow try to message the person again sometime, but what would be the point? Surely they won't remember me, and if I barely remember them it wasn't much to get worked up about in the first place.
Half of them are still people I remember, having talked to them just yesterday or last week, or slightly further back. There is one I should delete, but can't bring myself to. I try to forget it's there, try not to read it when I go back through these. But I'll end up reading it anyways. It isn't even half of our conversations, even less since we actually started interacting in person, but all it does is remind me how comfortable it was. And how, two years later, almost to the day; I wouldn't have probably even realized if Matt hadn't mentioned he and his gf had gone to Laguna Beach today; I still remember some of those events so clearly. Less than the year before, I'm sure. It'll probably be even less next year.
Things keep coming back to Murakami and the Pillows, it seems. I started listening to the Pillows two years ago, after I finally watched FLCL after moving here. I listened to a hell of a lot of Pillows music when she vanished, I started reading Haruki Murakami, not knowing how strongly abandonment and isolation were themes of his work. Along the way, memories started fading away. I remember watching Amelie with her on my bed. I remember her not wanting to "split the (light)pole" as we walked into the restaurant for dinner. I remember the beach at night. I remember doing a bad sketch of her with my wacom tablet on the computer. I remember the touch of her hand on my face. But it's less than it was.
Before I gave up trying to sleep half an hour ago, I was listening to The Pillows, and again thought about the last two years here, I realized just how long I've been here, and that it was almost two years since that night. I eventually moved on to some Sambomaster; the song, Zanzou, I believe, which at one time I thought I could play part of on my guitar, uses the word sabaku, if I'm not mistaken. Which means desert. I like the use of the word desert in a song, now that I think about it. If I were to write music, I thought, I would write a song about people, and deserts. It would probably be a song about my last two years here, and how, in that time, my relationships with people, seem to have dwindled, like the ruins of a city being covered in a sandstorm. I'm excavating these old relations, however meaningless or meaningful they were, they belong to another time. I'm reminded of a line from Haruki Murakami's South of the Border, West of the Sun: "Everyone just keeps on disappearing. Some things vanish, like they were cut away. Others fade slowly into the mist. And all that remains is a desert."
My mouse drifts over her screenname's log. Right-click...Open is at the top. Delete is third from the bottom.
Open is already highlighted. I click.
Shit.
Anyways, back to the log files.
A lot of screennames I don't recognize, some I do. Most of them you can kind of get a feel for if you start reading them, but there are some, that regardless, just don't spark any sort of recognition at all. It's funny, when you look at how "comfortable" the conversation is, I suppose. At the time, what did I feel for this person, how did they feel towards me? Why did we stop communicating? I don't know if anyone else does this, but I have sporadic bouts where I'll delete half the people on a buddy list, just to see who will eventually message me. I guess it's to see who's more interested in the conversation. If they end up messaging me eventually, well, I know it's not just a one-way thing.
This, at least in my case, usually ends up with the buddy list remaining much smaller than it was.
I don't know why I bother keeping these logs, most of them are now going on almost being two years old, mainly from around the time I moved out here to Fullerton, from the looks of it. I suppose I could somehow try to message the person again sometime, but what would be the point? Surely they won't remember me, and if I barely remember them it wasn't much to get worked up about in the first place.
Half of them are still people I remember, having talked to them just yesterday or last week, or slightly further back. There is one I should delete, but can't bring myself to. I try to forget it's there, try not to read it when I go back through these. But I'll end up reading it anyways. It isn't even half of our conversations, even less since we actually started interacting in person, but all it does is remind me how comfortable it was. And how, two years later, almost to the day; I wouldn't have probably even realized if Matt hadn't mentioned he and his gf had gone to Laguna Beach today; I still remember some of those events so clearly. Less than the year before, I'm sure. It'll probably be even less next year.
Things keep coming back to Murakami and the Pillows, it seems. I started listening to the Pillows two years ago, after I finally watched FLCL after moving here. I listened to a hell of a lot of Pillows music when she vanished, I started reading Haruki Murakami, not knowing how strongly abandonment and isolation were themes of his work. Along the way, memories started fading away. I remember watching Amelie with her on my bed. I remember her not wanting to "split the (light)pole" as we walked into the restaurant for dinner. I remember the beach at night. I remember doing a bad sketch of her with my wacom tablet on the computer. I remember the touch of her hand on my face. But it's less than it was.
Before I gave up trying to sleep half an hour ago, I was listening to The Pillows, and again thought about the last two years here, I realized just how long I've been here, and that it was almost two years since that night. I eventually moved on to some Sambomaster; the song, Zanzou, I believe, which at one time I thought I could play part of on my guitar, uses the word sabaku, if I'm not mistaken. Which means desert. I like the use of the word desert in a song, now that I think about it. If I were to write music, I thought, I would write a song about people, and deserts. It would probably be a song about my last two years here, and how, in that time, my relationships with people, seem to have dwindled, like the ruins of a city being covered in a sandstorm. I'm excavating these old relations, however meaningless or meaningful they were, they belong to another time. I'm reminded of a line from Haruki Murakami's South of the Border, West of the Sun: "Everyone just keeps on disappearing. Some things vanish, like they were cut away. Others fade slowly into the mist. And all that remains is a desert."
My mouse drifts over her screenname's log. Right-click...Open is at the top. Delete is third from the bottom.
Open is already highlighted. I click.
Shit.