Accidental Reflections

Earlier today, when checking my GMail account on the Web, I reset my POP settings to deliver all the mail from the account, whether it had been delivered before or not. My thinking was that, if I should set up another computer with a generic mail program (or set up a new mail program on this one), I could still pull down the mail to all the machines. What happened instead was that every fifteen minutes, when the program pinged the server, messages I deleted from my inbox would coming pouring in again. Among them were some old LJ comment notification emails. And I began to read them again.

It's a strange experience, seeing traces of yourself from eight months before, seeing those things you thought needed saying, and what people said in response. A tangent about Aristophanes on one of my old words posts. A discussion of Vonnegut's rules about scenery-writing. A few words exchanged about bloodthirsty old folk songs. A few more about Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Comments on a story someone told. Solutions to mathematical riddles, posts to existential flame war games, tales of dreams, requests to friend, recommendations, effusions, ramblings, jokes, and a thousand things both bright and dull. A scatterbrained sampling of half a year of keyboard pounding and screen staring, with me in the middle.

Amazing.

Does anyone else out there save their LJ comment emails?