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 “Was it me?”, she thought.

She usually didn’t take this way to the train. Ray would know how she got to the train, right? She would take the most direct route. There would be no reason to go down Polk Street, unless she wanted a cup of coffee. She took her coffee to work almost every day. Ray knew this. Or did he? He didn’t drink coffee. He liked the way it smelled when she brewed a pot in the morning, but that was the extent of his fascination with it.

 The sign could have been printed anywhere, by anyone. Sometimes when Ray would email her, he would say “haveta” and “gotta”. It was some kind of slang affectation. He thought it was cute, she assumed.

 What would he even be getting at? They hadn’t fought in a while. He had wanted to go fishing last weekend with his friends, but when she reminded him of the trip to see her mom, he seemed fine. Well, he seemed a little huffy. Was that it? He *knew* about the trip to her mom’s weeks in advance. So she’s being unreasonable? It’s *her* problem?

 And why couldn’t he just talk to her? What is hard about that? Now she has to read a note on Polk Street? Is that something a mature person does?

 “When I get home,” she thought, “I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.”

In 1999, I was a happy, new presence on the web, editing HTML files and uploading them to splotchy.com.  I talked about records I bought, milkshakes I drank, motel signage I fancied. It was the 90’s!

Then, after a long hiatus from having a presence on the Internet, I came back.  I started blogging in 2007.  I made blogger friends.  Some bloggers I met in person, some I only knew online.

I blogged pretty seriously (is seriously the right word?) for several years.  Gradually, many bloggers stopped blogging.  Some went to Facebook.  I know at least one died, though she wasn’t someone I knew well.  Friends of mine were friends with her.  Her old Twitter account still gets recommended to me from time to time, and it’s a mixed feeling of poignancy and uneasiness I get every time it happens.

One of my blogger friends deleted his blog back in 2009.  He said it was because of the new job he was getting. I still have his blog in Google Reader.  Google Reader will cache posts for a time.  I’m not sure how long it does, but his blog still sits there, even if it no longer exists in the blogosphere.

I noticed that there were 50+ posts in my RSS feed for his blog today.  Someone has apparently taken his blog address and is using it for spam.

Crap is what people will see if they visit his quirkily-named URL.  They won’t have any record of what was there.  But I still remember.

if being right is right, i don’t wanna be right
if being right is wrong, i don’t wanna be right
if being right is right, i don’t wanna be wrong
if being right is wrong, i don’t wanna be wrong
if being wrong is right, i don’t wanna be right
if being wrong is wrong, i don’t wanna be right
if being wrong is right, i don’t wanna be wrong
if being wrong is wrong, i don’t wanna be wrong