[mood  |  melancholy]
[music  |  leftover crack]

I’m sure I wasn’t listening to Leftover Crack, but I’m sure I wanted people to think I would. I’m sure I was up late to rub an eraser across the grid of my drafting homework; I’m sure I was up late because I was on LiveJournal.

Everyone had a LiveJournal: ska kids from Bayside, punk kids from Bensonhurst, riot grrrls from Tribeca, emo kids from everywhere. We confessed and flirted and projected; we toggled between public and private. We wrote cryptic posts to each other (“this isn’t about you”); we wrote cryptic posts to nobody (“you know?”).

We met in Communities and then we met at concerts. We found B– outside CBGB, turned the corner to help him rip the arms off his denim jacket so we could stitch them back with safety pins. We spotted T–, fifteen, wearing corduroys and a porkpie hat, skanking at the Knitting Factory, but he didn’t wave back. (What would I have said, anyway? “It’s me, ~opentointerpret”?) We went home to write about it.

Time passes. They tore down the Punk Temple; we all grew our dye out. The Internet I loved no longer exists—if it does, it’s a ghost town. It’s all right. Too much tenderness. You know?