07-30-01 @ 6:49 am EDT

Seeing as the site I used to post about so often is now dead and gone for good, I shall at last refer to it by its real initials. I stopped mentioning it by name and recommending it to any "outsiders" a long time ago. At one time I was followed to the site by an online stalker of mine (I've only managed to avoid him by doing just that--AVOIDING him--letting him win, and not posting in areas where he posts, areas I once enjoyed--he hated me so much--well, he wins), who I believe found the place by following a link to it I had placed on my website. I took that link down, and thank God he was banned from the site--after signing up TWICE to flame me and anyone who defended me. He's done similar things for over a year, ever since I first came online as a newbie. ("Fresh meat!" I can practically hear him saying.)

That's another story, for another time...but I removed that link, and removed the link from my Yahoo! profile. When someone else asked what the URL for the site was, having read my writing about it, I declined to give it to her. At that point the site was in a state of massive decay. The site owner himself had misled everyone by saying he was leaving for good, as a cruel April Fool's joke, adding insult to injury by blaming his "departure" on another member there. (How mature is THAT?) The atmosphere brightened up several times since then, but judging from the outcome they were all false alarms.

I stopped recommending it not only because of what had happened with my stalker, but because I shared a lot of myself there, I laughed and cried, I threw lots of fits which I'd rather not everybody around the Net see. <:) I don't regret sharing so much of myself there. Yet I want for it to stay where I left it, and where it finally fell.

As the site is now dead, there is no harm in referring to it by its initials, even in the scant chance someone may still find it, cached somewhere at Google...Google only caches things for so long...

But the reason I bring this all up...yet another member of the site is now dead. This is the fourth that I know of. The first, H., was believed to have been murdered. His body was found in the woods...I believe it's still unsolved. That was the first time I carried a candle on my profile picture. Not that long after, another member, 3M, was killed in a car accident. I believe that was the first time I went to the Ribbon-O-Matic and wore the black ribbon for her. I hadn't known H. at all, and I had known 3M only slightly, but it was still difficult to believe.

Not that long ago...late June, I think it was...another member, S., very well known to all of us, committed suicide. None of us had any idea he was down so low...he always seemed so cheerful, even the day before it happened...he had just gotten married!...his best friend, and "brother," came to tell us, and I feel ashamed that I still wish to know HOW it happened, WHY it happened. But I will not ever ask. To do so is insensitive. All I know is he fought in Somalia, and he saw things that no one should ever have to see...lost friends that no one should ever have to lose. He hid it so well. He used to send me mail late at night when I was on the site, trying to chat with me; I chatted back when I could, though I wasn't good at it...unbelievable.

I wore the black ribbon for him as well, and that was probably when I felt its meaning most. I was still wearing it on my profile when the site went down. The black ribbon for S. was the last profile picture I would ever bear at KP.

Well...shortly before the site's demise, we received an influx of newcomers from a similar site that had just gone down. WH. WHS was one of those. He seemed very nice and genial; I would have liked to get to know him, if I hadn't been so shy and disillusioned with the whole place by then.

He joined the Yahoo! Club after KP disappeared, and was overjoyed to find some of his site friends had posted there as well.

We received a post today that he has been killed in a car accident by a drunk driver.

I cannot wear the black ribbon upon my KP page...and so it rests upon my Yahoo! profile instead. My KP picture will forever belong to S., although it was not what I intended. (I had planned on putting back up one of my own pictures...) So somewhere in some dead database, lies the black ribbon with S.'s name upon it...while my still-alive Yahoo! picture is now dedicated to WHS.

I'm hoping the ribbon won't stay up there forever. Though I do always feel a little bit guilty when I make myself take them down...as if you can't put a time limit on mourning, no matter how little you knew someone.

So unbelievable...


(I believe I will leave my signature here this time, it must be dropped into my journal entries for a reason...)