since childhood, i loved abandoned places. the remains of an old barn, a crumbling basalt mine, a rusty combine left in the corner of a field for 50 years, grass up to the steering wheel. I get giddy, poking around - looking for clues to the past, mysteries (always mundane) to solve. It's one of my favorite sensations.
But this is a new sensation - returning to my own abandoned home. Xanga is pretty much dead now, all the usernames covered in dust, all the links rusted shut. For five or six (pretty formative) years - I shared this weird landscape with a strange variety of smart, weird, talented and funny people. Most of us were young, full of ideas and big ambitions - galloping out across this new frontier, parading the best version of ourselves. I learned things, got inspired, found an audience for my own ideas, met people on the other side of the world.
Two weeks ago I married a girl that I came to know, more or less, through Xanga. It's been eight years since we first passed 'eProps' back and forth. Today we share a house and a bed, and a cup of coffee every morning. And the strange, ethereal place that brought us together is now a collection of broken links, spam for knockoff LV bags and javascript error messages. It's like we met at UCLA, but in the intervening 8 years the university closed, most of the buildings fell down, all the trees died and the only remaining residents are a couple of hobos.
But I like abandoned places.
So I poke around. I look at my old subscription list and wonder - where did you all end up? What are you doing now? Cool shit, I'm hoping - and if you didn't loose the blogging itch after a couple years like most of the world, you're probably off writing about it on blogspot or livejournal or facebook. I don't really even want an answer - it's more fun to peer at the cobwebs and the old shoes and make something up, just like at the old barn or the empty mine. Because I like abandoned places.
So if you don't mind, I think I'll stay.
I'll keep my little shack, here in this weird ghost town. And I'll try to visit more often - brush off the dust and hang up some new drawings/photos/thoughts. Some of the ideas I first posted here have taken on a life of their own - on their way to becoming movies, and children's books and keeping me very busy. So even though you're probably all gone, and I'm just a crazy hobo talking to an empty lot - a heartfelt thanks for enjoying my stuff and encouraging me over the years. It grew into something more.
And someday, bored at work, you might wander back to old Xanga - and I'll be here, still hanging the occasional drawing on my shack. And we'll recall those weird frontier days when a whole new universe opened up - and we ran across it barefoot and reckless and full of dreams.
Because every abandoned place has a story. And I'm not quite ready leave this one behind.
doodles from honeymoon beaches:
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listening to: Tinariwen
