"Delta Alpha November"

January 27, 2013; tumblr

It’s the phonetic alphabet for “Dan.” I figured I’d get that out of the way early because this is primed to be a long one.

I made my way onto the Harmontown message board. The layout is slick and clean like facebook back in the day though it’s a bit hard to navigate if you don’t have steady daily internet. Sadly, that’s me but this isn’t going to be much about me. Not directly anyway. So, the point of me bringing that up was because I came across a post that inquired how we essentially became Harmonians.

This isn’t the right place or way to start a new paragraph. Someone reblogged something from the tumblog HavingChanged. I don’t quite remember what it was but it led me back to Dan Harmon’s actual tumblr. I just remember during an eight hour shift, going all the way back to the first post and reading through it till I reached the end. This was around May of last year. The most recent post was in regard to his, well…yeah, being fired.

I knew almost nothing about Community but the man’s words resonated with me. I wasn’t even “on tumblr” at that point, yet I made frequent visits to his blog as well as the HavingChanged page because I couldn’t get enough. It was as if I’d finally found someone who saw the world like I did. Obviously he was “streets ahead” but it was still refreshing. In fact his words and experiences had touched me to the extent that I was hesitant to watch Community. I was afraid it wouldn’t measure up to the perceived ideal I’d created. And then, I entered “the dirt” and yeah, I saw his vision. The world he created. It was more beautiful than I could’ve hoped. I can’t go as far as to say it changed me but it did challenge me. It challenged me to make a change myself. It was as real and authentic as whatever that means gets. character development-wise of course.

So that’s how it started. It hasn’t even been a year yet and I’ve gone through all three seasons, numerous podcasts, all his accessible tumblog posts, numerous fanblogs and all in search of that which is lost. Yeah, cryptic right? I honestly don’t know what I’m looking for but I feel like, well just something following along in his steps. And that’s the thing isn’t it?

Something is better than nothing.