-Pixies, "Velouria"

That was my song when I was in college. My nickname on IRC was velouria. You see, I was an IRC addict during my college years. I'd chat with fez in Florida, tiedye in Massachussets, blair in Louisiana, and my fellow Pixies fan, debaser in Illinois. I met all of them on IRC. UNIX-based IRC, no less. It was much more fun in those good old days, if you ask me. I don't use IRC anymore and haven't, actually, since graduating from college.

I sometimes wonder what fez, tiedye, blair, and debaser are doing now, what their lives are like.

Mmmm. I'm all nostalgic now. It's kind of amusing to think of how much everyone morphs through the years. My college roommates Conrad, Eric, and Tim knew me as a crazy girl who wore a lot of plaid and said "I'm appalled" fairly often. That cracked them up.

A couple years after college, during a reunion at Tim's wedding, Tim told me that whenever he saw plaid, he thought of me. I was touched.

They also knew me as the girl who had her heart broken by Steve. They knew that I could have wrote Tori Amos' "Tear In Your Hand" about the break up.

All the world just stopped now so you say you don't wanna stay together anymore let me take a deep breath babe if you need me. me and neil'll be hangin' out with the dream king Neil says hi by the way I don't believe you're leaving me cause me and Charles Manson like the same ice cream I think it's that girl and I think there's pieces of me you've never seen maybe she's just pieces of me you've never seen well all the world is all I am the black of the blackest ocean and that tear in your hand all the world danglin'...danglin'...danglin' for me DARLIN' you don't know the power that you have with that tear in your hand maybe I ain't used to maybes smashing in a cold room cutting my hands up every time I touch you maybe maybe it's time to wave goodbye now time to wave goodbye now caught a ride with the moon I know I know you well well better than I used to haze all clouded up my mind in the daze of the why it could've never been so you say and I say you know you're full of wish and your "baby baby baby babies" I tell you there're pieces of me you've never seen maybe she's just pieces of me you've never seen maybe she's just pieces of me you've never seen well

(By the way, that song still makes me cry.)

Funny thing is I haven't said "I'm appalled" since my college years and, although I still have some plaid pieces in my closet, I don't wear it nearly as much as I used to. And I rarely think about Steve anymore. When I do think of him, I think of how much of a fool he was.

How times change.