This Star Won't Go Out

[11:13:08 PM] JULIAN GOMEZ: Last DM I have is from ncacensorship

[11:13:10 PM] ARIELLE LINDSEY ROBERTS: Julian did you see my tweet to searchlight?

[11:13:15 PM] JULIAN GOMEZ: YES

[11:13:21 PM] ARIELLE LINDSEY ROBERTS: how awesome would that be?

[11:13:35 PM] JULIAN GOMEZ: Very haha

[11:13:37 PM] ARKA: holy crap how many people are in this chat?

[11:13:45 PM] VALERIE: 21!?

[11:13:46 PM] JULIAN GOMEZ: We tweeted at the same time

[11:13:49 PM] ESTHER: MANY AWESOME PEOPLE

[11:13:54 PM] [MORBLES.]: 21?!?!

[11:13:54 PM] BLAZE MITTEFF: over 9000

[11:13:59 PM] JULIAN GOMEZ: 1337

[11:14:00 PM] [MORBLES.]: I feel special

[11:14:03 PM] ARIELLE LINDSEY ROBERTS: no one comes to florida =(

[11:14:04 PM] [MORBLES.]: but lame at the same time <3

[11:14:09 PM] ESTHER: LAME?

[11:14:12 PM] BLAZE MITTEFF: I came to florida >:(

[11:14:16 PM] JULIAN GOMEZ: Sounds like a personal problem, Morgan

[11:14:19 PM] [MORBLES.]: hahahaha

[11:14:22 PM] [MORBLES.]: thanks Julian

[11:14:24 PM] ROY DUKE: I just got searchlights CD, it’s AWESOME

[11:14:28 PM] KATIE TWYMAN: LEAKYCON. FLORIDA. WINNN.

[11:14:28 PM] JULIAN GOMEZ: np <?

[11:14:30 PM] ARIELLE LINDSEY ROBERTS: sorry correction no bands come to florida



“The Four Corners of My Life,”

QUINCY, MASSACHUSETTS, 2009


As happens with any large group, people drifted away from our carved-out corner of the Internet. The twenty-five or so who remained would come to be known as Catitude. Skype chat rooms can be given a name by anyone in the chat, and this feature was often abused by us for comedic value. It was very late at night (when we’re at our silliest) that the title was changed to “Cat-I-Tude” and the few of us online couldn’t stop laughing about it. Whenever someone would change the chat name we would change it back to Catitude. Ultimately, once John Green and Andrew Slack began referring to us collectively as Catitude, it just stuck.

You could sign onto Skype at almost any hour and someone would be there to greet you. Many of us had trouble sleeping, so we kept each other company in group calls or video conferences, playing multiplayer games online until the sun came up.

Katy said, “We were united by some common factors: a slight addiction to the Internet, a love for John and Hank Green and nerdfighteria, and we all knew Esther. She really was the lighthouse of Catitude. She created the open environment; she had this wonderful way of drawing you in, of making you feel like you were the only person who mattered.”

We talked easily and endlessly about our common obsessions, making stupid jokes that only we would find hilarious, taking quotes out of context and posting them on Twitter. Everyone was acutely aware of how Internet friendships are generally perceived and we mocked the connotation constantly. We would call each other “stalkers,” some even going so far as to write details about the group in their own “stalker notebook,” and routinely joked that one of us was actually a forty-seven-year-old man.

We watched A Very Potter Musical together, counting down in an attempt to hit play at the same moment, then cast each other in the roles of the musical. Esther and I ended up as Voldemort and Quirrell, respectively, mainly because the characters share a robe back-to-back the majority of the play and we thought our height difference would increase the hilarity. Soon after, she sent me this letter and illustrated poem:




For several months none of us knew Esther was sick. We had seen a few pictures with oxygen tubes, but whenever someone got up the courage to ask her about it she would just say she had “breathing issues.” During one of our late-night video calls I remember thinking, “How does Esther’s hair always look perfect, even at three a.m.?” It was, of course, a wig.

The Internet was one of the only places Esther could go and not be treated as Cancer Girl. Looking back, I am extremely grateful I had that time to get to know Esther, the real Esther, free from the constraints that are inevitably put on a relationship when something like cancer is thrown in the mix.

Then one night we decided we didn’t know enough personal details about each other, so we took turns posing and answering questions. This excerpt begins with Esther’s answer to the question, “What do you want to do with your life?”

9/12/2009

[10:01:19 PM] ESTHER: I’ve always been really interested in the medical field. I have a lot of health issues that have resulted in me spending a lot of time around hospitals, and curing people is such a great thing. I just don’t know if I’d be able to deal with the other side of the medicine industry, like the death and stuff. I know there are jobs that have you not have to deal with that side constantly, but yeah. not sure what I’m doing with my more obvious future.

[10:01:45 PM] KATY: what health problems have you had, Esther?:/

[10:01:54 PM] KATY: slash do you have

[10:02:02 PM] TERYN: :/