Been up four hours or so. First it was reading about Old Man Logan, Marvel Zombies, and other foofallah. Then Tumblr, where I discovered a long personal blog post cluttering my scroll of still images and the occasional GIF. It was from a Tumblr user who I’d followed some years ago and followed again during my initial reentry into the community, before I realized you can’t be who you were. I unfollowed most of those accounts but the ones who seldom post slipped through. It was too much work to pick them out in a list. Her post expressed contentment, an upcoming move, satisfaction with the yoga way of being. Her partner is a woman, which I always find to be a satisfying change for women who were confounded or disgusted by the nature of the men in their lives. I dug in, checked out the last four years of archived notes and images until about the time I stopped following. I could venture into her past, so I did. Then I dropped a cryptic anonymous line and unfollowed, which is why I will not mention a name. Fresh embarrassment will not allow me.

While in the midst of her personal essays, I noticed a reblog from Tumblr user beenthinking, whom I did not try to contact. I remember her name is Erica and her profile image was of a athletic young woman covered in mud. You know, something you remember for life. I remember her place in the writing community was firm, staked out and admired. Her writing always seemed slightly ahead. More knowing and rich with detail than most. I read some of her recent writing and it was too florid and family-centric for me to continue, which is only commentary on the path I’ve taken.

I stopped at a bit about Leonard Knight (RIP). It was a reblog from an earlier adventure in which she met him and expressed surprise at having never heard of his story. (I hadn’t either until the movie Into the Wild in 2007.) Her writing on Knight and his work was similarly florid and rich, and I similarly wished I could skip the essay and see him and his work and her experience with it. It was almost painful to try and read it all. Can’t say why.

I thought that with the sunrise an hour away I could catch up on other Tumblr users, but words started to come together in my head. I thought to put together meaningful, florid descriptions of my experiences with these experiences and forgot it all by the time I got here.