:: the bat tricycle ::

I did a major audit of my Tumblr and had a terrifically large moment of nostalgia that I can’t quite rationalize. 

I’ve been at home for a few days sick, alone, and I couldn’t even remember what I used to do when I was bored. It’s the strangest feeling to know you somehow don’t have enough downtime to be bored but I had no recollection, like a war-torn gap in my memory. I haven’t been truly truly alone in a house or a room or a cubicle or a bedroom in many, many years. I closed Netflix and looked at my 7 year old computer. There’s a pattern worn into the right side of the casing just outside the track pad on the right hand side. I wore that patch down from torrenting hundreds of albums and writing thousands of words and Photoshopping dozens of pictures.

I haven’t undocked my laptop from my television in 4 years. At least 4 years. Which means I haven’t held it in my lap and seriously gone on Tumblr.

It was fine. I’ve been on off and on over the years. I may not know how to use the new editor but I can still rip it up in the HTML like a relic.

I instantly knew I wanted to mindless reblog things. On Thursdays once every few months I’ll open it up on the TV and purposefully share a few photos from neighbouring blogs who are still running and find a few new ones. It’s funny because the amount of followers I had in 2011 when I started hasn’t dropped more than a few dozen so I keep this dusty vision of what my old blog aesthetic looked like and try to keep it even now, ten thousand millennia later. Last ships from the old fleet, metaphor, metaphor, etc. 

I dug a little too deep and found the last fan fic I published in 2012. I couldn’t click the link for a moment. It was as if I swallowed a rock. It was bitter and acidic and it sank.

I’m not the kind of person who feels shame about old writing in the way that I tried not to ever create something so saccharine or maudlin that I could grow to hate it. For the first time in years I read something I wrote and... I missed it. I missed writing, and a sense of community. I wasn’t ashamed, because with the posts I also saw the comments and the screen names and it all sort of came down in the landslide. I actually checked my files to see if the originals were still there and I found an unpublished 18 page monster that never saw the light of day. It started as a plot bunny but escalated every time I looked at it. Everyone was so good and so talented and it made me feel an actual pain in my chest that I didn’t know where they were now. Do you still feel the same pang and excitement when you see a picture of your OTP together and wonder if everyone else feels the same way? Plus we wrote some fucking quality porn. End statement.

I don’t feel I was ever popular on Tumblr or off. Maybe that’s just time’s cruel change of perception. I’ve always had a close knit group of friends, but even in real life I see people who greet me and ask me personal questions about times we had back when and I genuinely have no idea who they are. I’m not saying that to be pompous; I’m reiterating that looking back last night at 3AM as I laughed at old comments and incredibly (incredibly) kind words from other people I realized I knew a lot of people. Good people. People reading my writing, people screaming through keys, people laughing at the same things, never wanting to leave to conversation for fear of losing that staggering inclusiveness. It’s hard to find. Really hard.

These some odd almost 7 years later there are thousands who would never understand our references or secret jokes or extreme fanaticism but I really think it... mattered. Not in a life changing way for the actors or writers or musicians, but to us. And I think I really miss that part of me. That Batty part that is dormant. Still there. Still as arrogant and flirtatious and fervent and manic and secret. Maybe just more secret.

I’m at that age where I look back on the recent past and I wonder if it’s worth telling. Worth remembering. Someone once told me that you don’t remember the times you were alone, but we weren’t really alone and I need to remember that. As I looked at old memes and fan edits and old secret confessional blogs and playlists I had this gnawing feeling that I will never ever feel that passionate about something. It hurts. Stings the eye a bit. 

I don’t think you can re-create a scenario that was a microcosm of the times and the culture around you, but I had a little faith that the fire’s not totally burned out. In me or anyone. It’s a very ‘adult’ feeling to look back and acknowledge that nostalgia is a very addictive and exhilarating drug. I think the Booshlr/Tumblr times are one of the rarest experiences that someone who never got into online culture could never understand. If you’re a Booshlr reading this send me a PM for old time's sake. Also just do little tiny Boosh-filled things as often as you can for me. When someone talks about jazz say it’s for science teachers and the mentally ill. Say cheese is a kind of meat. Tell a friend’s child that the black bits in bananas are tarantula eggs. Do anything you can to, I don’t know, honour whatever the fuck that was back there. It was amazing. I wrote this while listening to my first fan mix Cave Away and found some comfort in the lyrics of Trent Dabb's Inside These Lines and Wonder by Jack Savoretti. I did it all for me and for them and for Hollis and for you, and it mattered. It doesn’t matter if Tumblr is archived forever like MySpace or disappears in another decade. I just wanted you all to know that you really, really meant something to me in the purest way. I hope I meant something to you. And if anyone wants to read an 18 page Noelian fan fic from 2012 about being drunk and trying to cut someone's hair hit me up. x