On the internet he exists alive in our hearts. ❤️

Dylan ignored his parents, mumbled back mono-syllables or occasionally talked back to his parents for the usual reasons most angsty teenage boys do. Frustration with his life, hating himself and hating them for nagging him about shit which would then remind him and magnify why he felt like a failure about himself. Not living up to their expectations let alone any of his own standards of success. 

That one is getting really old by now, dude.  Don’t you think? 

thedogdaysuniverse:

everlasting-contrast:

thedogdaysuniverse:

“Dylan’s friends liked his parents a lot. They were casual and convenient people, and one had to adore how close they were to both of their sons – without being too intrusive. Both Tom and Sue preached and practiced the values of empathy and loyalty to their sons. This was probably the reason why Dylan grew up to be such a courteous person who always considered what others would feel before doing or saying anything. He never wanted to disappoint his friends or make them feel bad. Dylan was interested in many things, but for some reason religion wasn’t a big deal for him. In contrast to his father, his mother was Jewish – although she didn’t try to force Dylan to be excited about the Jewish faith.”
– excerpt from “A lasting impression. The impact of Columbine” (2007)  by Sasha Huttunen. p. 46

It’s too bad this book is out of print and impossible to get a hold of now. Thanks so much for posting these excerpts at my request! 🙂

You’re very welcome! Your blog is always a pleasure to read.

Thank you! Enjoying your blog as well^^ 🙂

thedogdaysuniverse:

The impact of Columbine for Eric’s and Dylan’s friends
“Mark Manes and Philip Duran, the only ones sentenced in the aftermath, have paid their debt to society. They are free from prison, and although the tragedy will be a cross to bear for the rest of their lives, they are now continuing those lives, trying to move on.
Also Eric and Dylan’s friends, who were put through hell after the event, are now doing well. Brooks Brown has his own videogame firm, Nate Dykeman is living happily in Florida, Robyn Anderson became a mother a few years ago, Zach Heckler runs a technology consulting company and Devon Adams graduated from the university of Denver and is now [2007] working in theatre. Also she is successfully moving on with her life, though she feels that she can never leave Colorado. Because of Columbine.
“Since it happened I find myself more willing to tell my friends what they mean to me,” Devon says. “I’m more open about how I feel. When people ask me ‘how are you?’  and when I’m honest, it kind of freaks them out. I have anxiety attacks. I have flashbacks. I am less willing to implicitly trust someone. I have trouble making friends.”
On the other hand, Devon has also got opportunities and experienced things which she would have never got unless all this had happened. “I’ve done interviews with news sources from around the world, I consulted on a Hollywood film, I lobbied for stricter gun regulations in Washington, I met President Clinton three times, I met Michael Moore, whose film meant a great deal to me, I wrote an article for Newsweek, I wrote a book of poetry with my friends, and so on,” she lists. “These are things that would never have been an option before,” twenty-four-year-old Devon admits.
“But I also find myself unable and unwilling to leave Colorado. My connection here is too deep,” she ponders. Many of her high school friends have already left the state. “I have trouble with personal relationships. As with those first days and weeks, when I get upset, I don’t like to be touched. I hate being coddled. I am always lonely.”
Devon has understood the shortness of life. Therefore she wants to live it the fullest and make the best of every single day. There is not a moment to waste. “The one thing that has stayed with me so strongly is the sense that life is really fucking short. That each day is a beautiful, precious gift,” she says.
“My family pressures me to get a crap job, but if I’m not enjoying it, what is the point? I could die tomorrow and I already have too many regrets. I will not accumulate more,” she argues, with good cause.
Devon will not gainsay the influence of Columbine.
“Columbine changed my life. It is a part of who I am. I think about every day. I have not ‘gotten over it’ – but I also do not dwell on it. It’s a part of my past – it will affect my future,” she philosophizes. “But it is not an excuse.” “
– excerpt from “A lasting impression. The impact of Columbine” (2007)  by Sasha Huttunen. pp. 294-295

thedogdaysuniverse:

“Dylan was sitting in his room. He was alone. It was Monday.
A peaceful Monday evening.
He stretched for an empty notebook from the shelves. Sitting himself in front of the large desk, he took a yellow-covered pen from a circular penholder. He had so much pain and emotion inside him that he just needed to get it out on paper.
Even though Dylan had snapped the desk lamp on, it was dim and some areas of the table were covered in darkness, a depressing darkness. The angular desk lamp mainly let off light on the spread of Dylan’s virginal notebook. However, it didn’t shed light on his face. Dylan’s face was dark, like his soul, unknown and shadowed.
The pen was moving and chafing against the cover of the notebook.
Dylan was writing.
“Fact: People are so unaware. Well, Ignorance is bliss, I guess. That would explain my depression.”
Dylan saw here, there and everywhere people who were naïve. They weren’t real. They weren’t thinking. They didn’t understand the problems in the world. Sometimes Dylan felt he was the only one who understood the reality. Others were partying, happily ignorantly, but Dylan couldn’t because he was thinking too much.  […] Philosopher Francis Bacon once said that “Knowledge is power”, but for Dylan that power had turned into pain. He turned the first page and marked the date: March 31, 1997.
“This is a weird time, weird life, weird existence,” Dylan began.
[…]
The problems he saw weren’t just social or worldly. He also saw his own weaknesses and felt he himself had failed as a human, and hadn’t been able to meet other people’s expectations. It felt like no one needed him and he was doomed to be depressed for that.
He had done all kinds of things to cleanse himself spiritually. Trying to be more extroverted. Trying to get drunk more often. Trying different kinds of personalities. But nothing helped. It was like he had this eternal stamp on himself; no matter what he did, what he said, or what he was like, the result was always the same. […]
The past haunted Dylan’s mind. Did he make some mistakes that led to this sorry state of his today? Were there some things he could have done differently?”
– excerpt from “A lasting impression. The impact of Columbine” (2007)  by Sasha Huttunen. pp.52-53

thedogdaysuniverse:

Support for Dylan’s family, memorial site for Dylan
“One day while researching, Tish felt strange while reading about Dylan Klebold. She saw something familiar in him. “I had found a lot of information on Dylan, and realized that he and I had a lot of things in common, such as music and other things,” Tish ponders. “But even to this day, I cannot explain why I became intrigued on researching Dylan and his family.”
Eventually, Tish decided to create a memorial website for Dylan Klebold in order to preserve the memory of who he once was before becoming a broken school shooter. She also wanted to do it in support of the Klebold family, which Tish felt much sympathy towards.
“Dylan’s mother is such a sweet human being; I know this personally,” she says. “I saw over the years how horribly Dylan’s family was and is treated. There is no sense in anyone being treated this way. People don’t understand it, but they are doing the same thing to Dylan’s parents that kids at Columbine High School did to Dylan. They don’t see that.”
Although it is highly controversial to make a respectful memorial website to a person who murdered innocent people, according to Tish there has been more positive feedback than negative. “Surprisingly,” she admits.
“I get several e-mails all of the time from people thanking me for the great work I’m doing, even e-mails from older people. The most rewarding feedback of all is from Dylan’s mom herself,” Tish says. “She and Dylan’s family very much appreciate what I do for their family and the work I do on the website. That means the world to me. The best thing of all is that I know I am making a difference.”
Besides the website project, Tish was also inspired to a more traditional project, in order to be compassionate towards the Klebold family. She decided to start collecting supportive letters fro people – letters which she would send as a big stack to Klebolds.
The response has been gratifying.
“It has been outstanding,” Tish smiles, delighted. “I have received many cards, letters and e-mails for the project. When I receive enough, I will be creating a nice layout of them into a binder, and will be sending it to Dylan’s family – to raise their spirits.” “
– excerpt from “A lasting impression. The impact of Columbine” (2007)  by Sasha Huttunen. pp.259-260

thedogdaysuniverse:

“Dylan’s friends liked his parents a lot. They were casual and convenient people, and one had to adore how close they were to both of their sons – without being too intrusive. Both Tom and Sue preached and practiced the values of empathy and loyalty to their sons. This was probably the reason why Dylan grew up to be such a courteous person who always considered what others would feel before doing or saying anything. He never wanted to disappoint his friends or make them feel bad. Dylan was interested in many things, but for some reason religion wasn’t a big deal for him. In contrast to his father, his mother was Jewish – although she didn’t try to force Dylan to be excited about the Jewish faith.”
– excerpt from “A lasting impression. The impact of Columbine” (2007)  by Sasha Huttunen. p. 46

It’s too bad this book is out of print and impossible to get a hold of now. Thanks so much for posting these excerpts at my request! 🙂

Mhm, yes I rely on my impressions and intuition to bridge the gap along side the in-depth, continuing research. So, more like a medium rare?  arh arh  😉  

Dylan probably would’ve reeeeally liked to have traveled if he could’ve but I don’t think that was something his family did much , oddly enough.  It kind of seems like both boys’ families did not travel out-of-state or if they did so, it was a rare occasion for seeing relatives or something along those lines. It kind of seems too that traveling out of the country was something that they never got around to as a family either, but then, here in the US, many American families can’t afford such a trip or the luxury of time off from jobs to fully explore across the pond.   It’s really unfortunate because traveling could’ve opened up Dylan’s world for him, literally broadening his horizons by giving him new experiences to nourish his mind and new people to meet and socialize with. New people that wouldn’t have known him for who he was known as, set in stone, back home in that little rigid box known as Littleton.  

According to Devon Adams, Dylan really seemed to enjoy getting away in March ‘99 (one month before the massacre) when he took a trip with his family and Nate Dykeman to Arizona to look for college dorms. It’s almost as if he was sampling this alternative reality in the Southwest, might he have chosen to stick life out a bit longer and opt for college thing.  I think the change of scenery for that entire week was good for him. He probably saw it as his last big adventure vacation of his life and in that span of a week he forgot his troubles, being thoroughly distracted with the trip and in good spirits.  Being a gifted kid meant he would get bored easily in one place with the same ‘ol so I think traveling regularly would’ve been an excellent aid in keeping him stimulated with new environs and cultures. To feel good and enriched, he’d need to explore and have those adventures that his brain was craving but was being utterly deprived of in the hum-drum, routine-like suburbs. And I think because he was raised in such a stifling, insular culture all his life, he didn’t really have much of a learned opinion about other cultures, like for instance, as you’d asked  Latin peoples, – well, other than the racial stereo-types drilled into his perception.  There was just not enough diversity to shake up the ignorant, narrow-minded bigotry seeping into his brain by way of peers. Though, I think if he got out there and traveled and had those opportunities to experience landscape, people and cultures dissimilar to himself, he’d would’ve grown exponentially mentally and emotionally as well an all the intellectual stuff he’d eat up like a sponge.  So, to answer your question, sadly, Dylan likedly didn’t travel much in all of his seventeen years. He was stuck in the white-bread, Christian suburbs of Littleton, Colorado. Like the majority of American high school students, he took the usual language classes expected. In high school, he took French and in middle school a bit of German but he never practiced enough or had the opportunity to apply any of the text-book languages he learned enough to be considered multilingual.  He spoke English basically. Where would he have liked to travel?  Any damn where other than Littleton I’d say would’ve been good enough for him as a starting point. lol   To start with, those teenage road trips across the US states would’ve been a good antidote to distract him from his depression and trips with friends anywhere in the UK and Europe would’ve been wondrous and potentially life-changing food for his soul. 

Well, Dylan was part Jewish himself and he didn’t seem to have a problem with that about himself lol so no, I think it would be a non-issue.Plus, it would more depend on whether he was attracted to the girl physically and personality wise and if she was actually friendly and spunky enough to flirt with him a little then all that other stuff would just fall to the wayside. He’d be a goner.

Hmm..it be a little over three years now.  Why do you ask? 

Naah, I”m just his twin with flaming hair.  😉 

Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it too. It’s like someone they knew on a friendly bases was in their awareness and that nice person they liked was bearing witness to the two of them doing horrible things and so in the midst of that very awkward exchange where John was tentatively asking Dylan what exactly he was doing in a trembling voice, it sort of pinched Dylan and Eric incrementally back to their senses. The exchange must have been as bizarre and surreal for Dylan and Eric as it was for John who thought it ‘chilling’.  The bombs not blowing, Eric busting his nose and now this kill joy incident of a friend caught in their cross fire, John the nice, sort of innocent, Mormon guy who had a smile for everyone – and in his eyes looking back at the two was sort of like him symbolically holding a mirror back at them when he said “well are you going to kill me too?” Sort of a ‘am I also a lamb to your slaughter when I thought you two were nice guys?’ kind of accountability thrown back in their faces.  Just another incident to take the wind of their sails when they planned to be remorseless killers destroying everything in their path and having nothing but bad ass fun.

Ahh, but you haven’t read the latest one from today.

Be thankful I spared y’all. 😉

I’d say, probably not very often. Slept and showered with it on, yes.

I’m not angry at you; I just don’t dig what you were doing. The title of your blog too, very much seemed to imply exactly what I was not liking even if you protested otherwise. And no, I didn’t block you and no, I don’t intend to. But I hope you can at least try to appreciate my feeling on the matter. Thanks for being respectful of my wishes. 👍🏻❤️

I highly doubt they’d let those continue to circulate. Before the school was even reopened in the fall, all occurrences of textbooks belonging to the killers and victims would’ve been removed and replaced with new ones. People tend to throw out unsubstantiated claims all the time on the internet to win them attention. But I’d go with the standard rule of thumb ‘pics or it didn’t happen’ and even then, people might attempt to imitate Dylan’s writing in a textbook as proof. But the way his handwriting looks lol let’s just say I could tell if it was genuine or not. Not too long ago, someone posted two tapes with poorly faked “REB’s TAPE’ on one of them and scrawled Jeffco case numbers. I’m not sure if they were actually claiming they knew someone that had the basement tapes or were just spoofing. It looked so ridiculous I thought it had to be a joke yet people ‘liked’ the heck out of it. Idk if some people bought it but I thought it was amusing either way, if it was a joke or if they were actually attempting to convince people they glimpsed The Tapes. 😉 Basically what I’m saying here is, don’t believe everything people claim at face value especially when there is no proof we can look at to validate it for ourselves.