illusionofjoy | The dusty attic is a creaky hard drive

Since I don't have internet access, I rarely use my computer anymore. The fact is that I need a new machine anyhow, given that this one would likely choke on a download even if I could get online. Such is the curse of owning a five year old machine coupled with the aggravation of not making enough money to plug into the online existence that I so crave.

About the only times I get online at this point are when I'm either at a friend's place where the internet flows freely or visiting the library. I can't even sneak a peak at my email while I'm at work (most companies block Hotmail anyhow).

Still, the fossil record that I once had a T-1 connection (courtesy of the hollow halls of education) remains. Littering my hard drive are dozens of downloads, most of which are useless, some of which are interesting and some that are just plain embarrassing.

Among these downloads are snippets of IM conversations. I used to leave AIM on all the time, opting for an away message when I wasn't going to be in the room to respond, rather than logging off. Most of my snippets are URLs and screen names that I wished to remember, but a few are more substantial.

One of the conversations I had saved was from my younger brother. He was still in college at the time and this was right on the cusp of a break from school. He wanted me to relay a message to our mother. Having assumed that he would have to leave his dorm later than he expected, when in actuality check out time was much earlier. Since it was expected that he'd be picked up at the dorm, the message was that he'd have to be picked up elsewhere. All this he told me using a script font bathed in yellow against a white background. I wanted to pummel him merely for assaulting my eyes with that particular colour combination. My mother was none too happy once I relayed the message to her. Finally, none of us were happy when my younger brother failed to be at the alternate location, having run off with one of his friends for some reason, as opposed to being easy to locate.

That was about a year ago.

Another conversation occurred between myself and masochistmonkey. The two of us had just woken up and gone online. Furthermore, we were both the recipients of strange dreams just beforehand. In the conversation we are comparing notes about the dreams - his being of satanic monkeys and odd delivery men and mine being about a train across the ocean in a parallel universe. Both dreams ended up becoming journal entries. Masochistmonkey had just created a Livejournal and I was still posting to The Project. He had also just moved to Pittsburgh a handful of months prior and I was slowly losing any grip I had on my collegiate career.

That was also a year ago...perhaps a little longer.

There is yet another conversation where a friend first introduces me to Darkling. That is to say that I wasn't so much as introduced as I was given the means (her screen name) in order that I may introduce myself to her. She had wanted to start a band. The band never materialised, though other things happened. Then I moved away.

That was not long after xeyli had broken up with me. It was a strange time for me, the fall and winter of 2002.

Photographs of Xeyli are among the random gifs, jpegs and bitmaps that clutter my hard drive. I always found her so beautiful, though she would disagree with me every time. One photograph of her was a head shot with a great degree of empty black space to the left. I had taken this photograph into a graphics editing application and merged it with one of her name in Japanese, so that her name was in white next to her face. I'm not sure why I did this, save the fact that I found the aesthetic effect pleasing.

There are times I still wonder where I went wrong with Xeyli that she broke up with me. I try not to linger on these thoughts for too long. The answers are easy to find - I just don't like finding them.

I actually have a lot more random photos than I expected to find. Most of these are pictures of girls who I met online. I spent far too much time online during the waning days of my college career. I didn't really like going outside of my room very much. Despite living in a suite with two other people (three, if you count the one's girlfriend), I felt like I couldn't connect or relate to them. These were my friends, or so I had thought. There was no animosity, no arguments, but I just couldn't bring myself to open my door and spend some time in the commons room with my peers. I would only leave my room when I needed to go to the bathroom, went to get something to eat, took care of business at WAIH or attended a class every once in a blue moon.

Since I was spending so much time in my room sucking on the teat of the ethernet , I had ample opportunity to meet people online. Some of them even lived in my town, even going to the same school as I did. One of these was a girl named poekitty.

She had IMed me one night, having found me on LiveJournal though a search of local users (hers was a paid account). I remember that she had asked me early on if I had wanted to see a picture of her boobs. I was moody at the time so I replied, "sure, I'll add it to my collection." I had quickly discovered, in my search for lust online that there was an overabundance of girls online willing to let you see (what were presumably) their boobs. I kept a collection of these photos in case any of these girls eventually got a respectable job at a law firm or something so I could blackmail them later. Really, that was my reason for saving them...really...

I did get to see a picture of Poekitty's mammary glands, followed by an invitation to meet up sometime. "Great," I told her, "I'll see you at the 24-hour convenience store on Maple Street in 30 minutes." I'm certain that she was shocked, but she agreed, saying, "this better not be some sort of joke." It wasn't. The phrase that expressed my mood at that moment would have accurately been, "why the hell not?" It was an excuse to get away for the campus and it just may have been a chance for me to get laid.

For a while I did get laid, though the fun didn't end up lasting. At best, I could call my time with Poekitty "a troubled affair."

I had made my way to the convenience store, past the stink of downtown Potsdam through the moistness of the cool night, situating myself on one of the park benches placed outside of the establishment. I had a good idea of what the person whom I waited for looked like. Of course, one can never be too sure when the internet is involved. After about twenty minutes of waiting, I began to think that the joke was on me.

Poekitty did show up, however and the first sign of the undoing to come was immediate, though I didn't give it much credence at the time. I asked her if she wanted a cup of coffee. She took me up on that offer, giving me an elaborate set of instructions on how the coffee should be prepared à la When Harry Met Sally. I think I eventually told her that she should prepare her own cup of coffee and that I'd simply pay for it.

This fling began the way most of my flings do: I gave her a disclaimer. "I'm not looking for a serious relationship," I told her. "If you want to just fool around and have some fun for a little while, that's cool, but don't expect the distinction of being 'the girlfriend,' any kind of monogamous commitment or really anything aside from sex." Lying to me, she said that she was cool with the arrangement.

It wasn't long before warning flags began popping up, telling me that I should probably head for the highlands. Of the more startling revelations was that she had been pinning for me over a year, knowing only what I looked like and nothing else. A year is an awfully long time to create some fairly unreasonable expectations and fantasies, in my opinion.

Eventually I decided not to continue having sex with her. There were many factors leading to this decision, but the consequence was still the same regardless: Poekitty was livid. Not only that, but she began posting outright lies about me in her journal. I recall my two favourites being that, of all of her intimate encounters, I had "[given] the best compliments (even if they were just lies to get into my pants)" and I had also "called [her] fat."

So, there I was accused of being not only a liar, but an insensitive bastard as well. Granted, I have been the latter, however, up until that point, I'd really been given no reason to practise at it. I found it perplexing that my compliments could be lies for the mere purpose of getting laid when I don't make a habit of sleeping with women I am not attracted to.

As for having called her "fat," let's face facts: Poekitty was a big girl, though I can not recall ever using that particular adjective in reference to her, and if I had, it most certainly would have not been in the negative light in which she had painted it in that entry. It just so happens that every woman I have ever slept with has been on the heavy side, which I honestly can't complain about. Poekitty just happens to hold the record of being the largest (Xeyli was the smallest, if anyone is curious). I have no problem having sex with big girls; in fact, I quite like it.

As far as I can tell, big girls have no problem having sex with me either.

After the entries had been written, she IMed me on a couple of occasions. Each one started the same way: I was led to believe that she wanted to "work things out," only to find myself in a land of accusation. I refused to play the blame game when no wrong had been done, save for the wrong that resided in the mind's eye of the initiator of the IMs. I was quick in severing all ties, knowing all too well from experience that nothing positive would ever come of even trying to untangle a mess that should have never been - a mess that I couldn't untangle and didn't really make in the first place.

Why her photograph still resides on my hard drive, I have no idea. Like so many other files, I simply never bothered to delete it. It may be a while before it gets erased anyhow, as I've no inclination to go through the effort of cleaning out my hard drive (despite the fact that such a thing might do my ageing machine a world of good).

It's strange just how many memories I can dredge up from these abandoned files though. I'm also amazed that I didn't download more porn while I still had the chance.

Still, most of these files remind me of melancholy times. When I refer to "my waning days of college," I don't speak of actual days or even weeks for that matter. I'm talking about months and even years of decline. It could even be said that I starting falling apart right before my freshman year ended. It was during my fourth year at SUNY Potsdam that I began habitually locking myself in my room - though I'm not sure when exactly it began. I didn't socialise much, though I would occasionally go to friend's apartments. Forget about parties or large gatherings though...my appearances at Hurley's had even become rare (though there is an IM clip I have of a conversation with Masochistmonkey where I tell him that I debuted two new songs there the prior night).

That time seems so long ago, though it's ripples still touch my life. I think I'm better off now than I was then. Still, I feel like I have very far to go. I'm certain that I can get there fast enough, if getting as far away from the past is the idea.