copy whatever you want, almost

it took me most of the year to understand that a copied page and a copied life are not the same problem. #

Another girl has borrowed enough from the blog that somebody else messaged me about it before I noticed.

And I realised I’m tired.

Not angry-tired. Finished-tired.

I think the Valerio situation changed something because that was the one that really got under my skin. Not just because I thought things looked copied, but because Bambolina was in there and Bambolina had a specific origin for me. Yuri calls me that. It came from my actual relationship. Seeing it there, especially when I hadn’t even known this girl existed until Valerio showed me her weblog, made the whole thing feel invasive in a way a blue header never could.

She denied copying me.

I believed what I could see.

Nothing more came from arguing.

Since then I’ve seen girls take a graphic idea, a heading, a phrase, the little italic line, a sidebar arrangement. Sometimes maybe it was deliberate. Sometimes perhaps not. Everybody online is looking at everybody else. Influence is inevitable.

But here’s the thing I didn’t understand in May:

You can copy my blue.

You can copy the HTML.

You can copy `Bambolina` as letters.

You cannot copy Yuri saying it.

You cannot copy the smell of Angel in my hallway when Mom’s colleagues are downstairs talking about work and I’m trying to escape without being asked about my future.

You cannot copy Edo in Lecco sending me an MP3 at two in the morning with `LISTEN` as the entire introduction.

You cannot copy Tia laughing at me in Genova.

You cannot copy Dad, the train, the sea.

You cannot copy Hikari’s exact expression when I say something she thinks is stupid.

So yes, I still think copying somebody’s personal writing is pathetic.

I just don’t think it deserves my entire Friday anymore.

Which is fortunate.

Because I’m going out.

Remember me, Eclipse.