Reminiscing

[pne]

(Warning: slightly rambling stream-of-consciousness entry ahead.)

For some reason I can't remember, I was looking at rahaeli's userinfo page, and read her offer:

If you want an invite code, write me a sestina telling me how much you want one and why you want it, and email it to the email address above. If you don't know what a sestina is, don't bother.

That reminded me of the first time I read that… it was before I had started helping out in support, and I only knew of rahaeli, in the sense that it was a name I had picked up somewhere. Maybe the support highscore list, I don't know. Somewhere.

And I read her userinfo page with that invite code offer. Even looked up what a "sestina" was. (I didn't need an invite code from her, though. I was simply intrigued by what this thing might be she was requiring.)

And when I re-read that passage just now, I thought to myself, weird; now I know rahaeli. Or at least, I've talked to her on IRC several times. I didn't know her at all then. It was an interesting experience.

Come to think of it, I did get some invite codes from reading people's userinfo. I saw an entry in someone's memory categories with pointers to invite code offers, and one of them mentioned someone's userinfo. They no longer have this offer on their userinfo, and have changed their name since then, too. But they had this offer then.

The offer was: one invite code in return for a haiku on the subject of "cheese". They reserved the right to post any haikus received on a website somewhere. Limie one code per person per month. I sent them a haiku and got a code. I don't remember which journal I created from it, though. A bit later, the next time I looked, they had changed the topic of the haiku. I thought it would always be about cheese.

Comments

[redfarmer.livejournal.com]

Haha it's too bad you don't still have the haiku! That'd be great to read.

tanka

[pne.livejournal.com]

Turns out I was wrong; it was a tanka (5-7-5-7-7) rather than a haiku (5-7-5) they wanted.

Here's what I sent in:

Edam from Holland
we cut into firm slices
Camembert is French
it's soft and creamy, not firm --
Yet both are called cheese. How strange!

Re: tanka

[pne.livejournal.com]

The date of her return email is 26 January 2003.

Re: tanka

[redfarmer.livejournal.com]

lol I love it!

[lovewithnoface.livejournal.com]

I thought it would always be about cheese

That's nicely put. We often happen along things and make them mountains in our mind, things that were always there and always will be. And we never realize that we just saw one snapshot of its existence.

*sigh*

[pthalo]

The first time rah PMed me I saved the conversation and posted it as a private entry to my journal. it was like "OH MY GOSH SHE TALKED TO ME!!!!ONEONEONE" yeah. 2 minute conversation. i've felt that way about so many people. it's odd.