I have been here for five years.
These last couple of months have been an interesting time for me. I started university this September. I'm enjoying being here, although I've had some doubts about my course. I'm still glad I'm here.
One of the coolest moments of the first week was strolling through the stacks of the university library, seeing books all over the place that I knew of first or only from e2 - Brautigan (good), Persig (bad), Bukowski (everything in between). It made me realise how much the formative years of e2 are a product of a collegiate environment. I suppose it's a lot like the internet as a whole in that respect.
I've realised that e2 is very much a home to me. And not only in the sense that it's my homepage. There's a portion of me that comes from here as much as it comes from anywhere that I've lived. It's a weird thought, but I think it explains many of the reasons why I like it here and why I keep coming back. It's home.
What occurs to me is that this is going to make my midlife crisis really interesting. Of course, by then, people identifying places that don't physically exist as home will probably be boringly commonplace. There'll probably be a specialist for me. I struggle to imagine what the kids of the day will be up to. Let's just hope that have places as good as e2 to grow up.
I reckon Heisenberg is providing an invaluable service to e2 by finally bringing us the voices of the authors we've been reading for years. It's almost eerie. I don't mind admitting I got a shivery little feeling when I heard these words drawled in the latest podcast: "This is dannye, in the southern United States.
As if you couldn't tell."