The police confiscated them, saying people might steal them
Life is a post-hoc narrative.
The last time we really spoke, I had just arrived in Sydney. And so we turned the page to the chapter of my life entitled with the name of a corporation. A few cities, a few loves, a few clients; here I am. Back in Sydney.
"It's all I hoped." Yes, but. "I want to be all they hoped." Yes, but. "Pacing through the full passenger deck, from fore to aft and back again, watching the receding lights of my new city filled with exactly what I think I want: no one I know." Sometimes I try too hard. More simply, I left home because I wanted to know if I, alone, could establish and support myself? Well, no man is an island. And it was only years later I realized vagrancy had been encultured into me. But, the answer? Yes.
That was a surprise.
"Goals and plans allay me." Still true. Where does that leave me? And for anyone still reading this LiveJournal, where does that leave us? My goals and plans have changed because I've changed. For no good reason except the sharpness of recent memories and the maturity from experience, I think I've changed more in the last five years than I have ever in my adult life. And, for the first time since 2002, I wake up in the morning with a passion.
In 2002, my passion was Virtual-On. I'm so proud of how that passion shaped my life. And if you look at my K5 diaries and the Auburn VO gathering notes of those years, you can glimpse who I was then.
Nothing in this LiveJournal has ever been about my passion; because this LiveJournal started almost the day I realized I had to put it down. I woke up one morning, in that dirty basement room in Maple Valley, with a new thought. I fell into dreams thinking "find where the handshaking logic is testing latency" and woke with the cold horror, "a minimum wage job, new video games, and some computer parts is all I need to be content." I had seen, saw every day, people of all ages living the life I was pointed toward. None of my peers judged me. My parents have always, unconditionally, encouraged me. And I'd had been happy.
I quit playing Virtual-On. I quit playing video games. I quit playing with computers. I quit playing. I sat down, and wrote down a list of everything I needed to be an adult. Then I started this blog. I was cagey in the beginning, writing things like "completion schedule, #1" because I was ashamed. Most things, I never had the bravery to write. And slowly, with the missteps of any recovering addict, I became what I thought was necessary.
Years later, I stopped writing in this LiveJournal because it was over. I didn't understand how or why. My old theory was of the natural course of blogs. A slow start, a furious middle, a slow end into ellipses. But, I never stopped writing. Travel is Fatal, -, fragments, ohlife, and bedlam 臺北 are all there for perusal or reflection.
What I came to understand was my many diaries and journals, online and offline, were all hypermedia commentary in chapters of my life narrative. Too pretentious? Think Joyce or Danielewski. Still too pretentious? I apologize; because, I'm not writing this for you anymore.
I'm writing this for me. Because another thing I realized is I rarely finish. Want me to feel ashamed? Want me to feel embarrassed? Ask about school, or old projects, or- hell- this blog.
LiveJournal is where the name quadhome came into existence. quad, my handle since junior high, was taken. This was quad's home, therefore. And so it went for so many websites, whenever quad was taken. It hurt, badly, the first time someone called me quadhome in person. It still hurts.
No one has called me quad in a long time. A couple weeks ago, Kirk (MentholMoose) and Joey (Schooly D / evenpar123) in an interview called me by my given name. They said, "should we tell him about Scott?" Not quad. Not slant. That hurt too, but it was understandable: we are friends. And both quad and slant have been undead identities, no one willing to put a bullet through their heads.
This is the end of quadhome. We finished reading this chapter years ago. I became an adult. It's time to put away my childish things.
Of course, I'll be elsewhere. But, I've changed so very much. Maybe it's best if we start over.