There are a number of places that I just can't seem to stay away from. Most of them are online, and one of them in particular is where I actually met a ton of people whom I later became friends with in real life.
The thing is, places, especially online-places, are volatile. They change with time, and the makeup of the community itself changes, sometimes in ways that aren't always agreeable to, well, me. But the power of nostalgia, the impulse to believe with a little bit of effort the places that I remember will become those places again, is like gravity for emotions. It can be enormously powerful, despite the very real truth that the place that you remember will never, in fact, exist again. And so, if you're me, you get incredibly frustrated by the fact that, as an old and cranky bastard, the new population of these places I used to remember are now different, and I don't really want them to be different, but they are.
So it's time to try and take another break. I won't ever say "I'll never be back", because that always turns out to be a lie -- that nostalgia, it's like crack -- but it's time to go spend time somewhere else.
And I miss my friends. Which reminds me, I need to call the Milwaukee people back, since I said I would last week and failed miserably, because I'm a terrible, terrible friend.
So anyway. Maybe I can channel some of my energy into actually, y'know, posting in this damn blog.
The thing is, places, especially online-places, are volatile. They change with time, and the makeup of the community itself changes, sometimes in ways that aren't always agreeable to, well, me. But the power of nostalgia, the impulse to believe with a little bit of effort the places that I remember will become those places again, is like gravity for emotions. It can be enormously powerful, despite the very real truth that the place that you remember will never, in fact, exist again. And so, if you're me, you get incredibly frustrated by the fact that, as an old and cranky bastard, the new population of these places I used to remember are now different, and I don't really want them to be different, but they are.
So it's time to try and take another break. I won't ever say "I'll never be back", because that always turns out to be a lie -- that nostalgia, it's like crack -- but it's time to go spend time somewhere else.
And I miss my friends. Which reminds me, I need to call the Milwaukee people back, since I said I would last week and failed miserably, because I'm a terrible, terrible friend.
So anyway. Maybe I can channel some of my energy into actually, y'know, posting in this damn blog.
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