None of that "it is better to have loved and lost" crap; I'd rather love and fight for something than let it fall away so easy, mayhap never to return...

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My monitor broke last week. It is apparently common for this type of monitor to break in the way it did, but it's still a bitch. Theoretically, I can fix it, but I'm not sure that will work out well in practice. In the meantime, I'm appreciating the benefits of a networked home. ^_^

Nonetheless, I'm feeling mighty disorganized and interrupted. In flux, as it were. This morning as I was laying in bed, wondering what time it was and wishing my back didn't hurt so that I could fall asleep again, I decided that it was probably overdue for me to summarize all my body mods in one post. So I started to do that, and was diligently searching one of my old blogs for the facts, when I came across something unexpected. Something brilliant. You can find the full republished post here, but for the sake of efficiently I'll quote the relevant portion:

so, i found this new site today that i know i'll be completely addicted to. listener: a book for the internet in sixty entries. it's written by warren ellis, who i've never heard of (and i know i'm not alone) but has apparently been writing for several decades. he's currently on day 5, and i am greatly enjoying it. i actually read it counter-chronological (if that's a method of organization), which gave it this more funky memento-style feeling. go, read.

Excuse me for a few moments while I get over the horror of having been so completely out of touch. God, it makes me cringe; "apparently been writing for several decades." APPARENTLY!! Maybe you have heard of him?!?! God. What a douche I am. A n00by douche. But I was just a goth child then, and had yet to realize my full ubernerd potential via the Internet.

Personal embarrassment aside, some back story: I wrote that in August 2003. Not sure how I had come to find "Listener", probably a Cory Doctorow post on Boing Boing*. I held on to the link for a long time, until there came a day when it was revealed that someone wanted him to write it as a "real" book (none of that newfangled "online" stuff!) and thus he would no longer be publishing new chapters there. Saddened, I stopped tracking the page for updates, and eventually forgot about it and my post altogether.

But I didn't forget the story... the concepts of a post-apocalyptic Northwest, the integration of technology with the body, the tribalism vs. government. These are some themes that have continued to shape my view of the world and its future, and yes, I am specifically crediting the beginning sections of this Warren Ellis project as having been a contributing factor. And yet, I had forgotten any of the other details of the project: the title, the author, where I had read them or how I had got there or could get back.

Time passed and my interests evolved. I started reading the works of people like Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, Chuck Palahniuk, William Gibson, and yes, Warren Ellis. These are names that are now set solidly in concrete as directly influencing my current views and psychology; the fact that I had ever not known them kind of shocks me.

So when I found that long-ago post written by me, I was just floored. Not only had I finally found this long-lost story--the memory of which was becoming dangerously fuzzy--but I also had a moment of joy as I realized that I had been reading Warren Ellis' work longer than I realized... then sadness as I realized that I had a perfect opportunity to have read more of it, if only I'd not walked away from an abandoned web project so easily. Now I feel like I've been reunited with a long lost friend, only to discover that this friend has been living in my apartment for years but I just didn't remember him from the early days.

The best part is that I did some research into what became of the story "Listener". I wasn't even sure it would have been published under the same name, but it was worth a shot. It took me about a minute of reading around on Listener's Amazon page to figure out that, hey, the book won't be released until this August! Which is, like, two months away! Well you can bet I'll be heading down to Powell's to pick that up right soon as I can. Because holy crap, that is some brilliant timing on the part of The World, leading me back to the story just before it's to be released. I couldn't be happier about that.

*I searched BoingBoing and found the post by Doctorow, which links to the first four parts of the story. But I'm gonna go ahead and link to this post, which has links to parts 1, 5, and 10, plus some interesting thoughts by the author. Go, read.

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... and simply count myself lucky when it does.

I would just like to end this post by saying this:
Dear god, how I love the Internet.