"It's too late/tonight/to drag the past out into the light" - "One," U2

Every once in a while when it's too late and I have too much time on my hands, I open up old chat transcripts and read over them. It's not that I consciously save all of my transcripts so much as I never changed the default setting from trillian so that it wouldn't save.

It's come in handy at times. Directions to houses. Phone numbers. Using words as nails for crucifying someone. Drawing conclusions and making inferences. Self-torture. Self-soothing. Remember that at one time, someone gave a damn. Having a good laugh. Learning lessons.

I open a window, browse the words and feel the air slowly leaving my chest, but not through my mouth. It's like a sucking chest wound and not even a plastic bag can keep my lungs from collapsing. The pen is mightier than the sword, but what about the word processor. I'm impaled into my chair in Times New Roman. I'm not pierced by scornful words or observations that hurt because they're true, but by the chat sessions where I'm told of the good qualities that I posess. Word by word, my heart is broken all over again. Perhaps it's devestating even when positive simply because the truth hurts?

Most of my conversations read really good on the screen. This means that not only are most of you surprisingly good looking, you're quite eloquent too. Except for you jerks who pollute my screen with a plethora of "lol's," "oic's" and "how r u's?" You bastards.

Ultimately, I'd have to say that having the transcripts are better than not having them. They're a valuable resource on night's like tonight when I'm at a roadblock in the progression of thinking up characters and how they act, react, etc. What better way to develop a character study than to actually sit down and study a bunch of characters...