suchgr8heightsOG 2003

Alana Suarez — also known as Lana, LaLa, La, Llama (owing to a self-introduction that went phonetically sideways), and occasionally Alanis — arrived on eZabel in August 2003 already a walking study in contradictions she had fully made peace with. She was a Puerto Rican woman from Toms River, New Jersey, raised in suburban whiteness, fluent in Weezer and merengue in equal measure, who could quote Kanye West's All Falls Down at length, write a quiet poem about Island Heights at night, and then ask whether anyone wanted to salsa in her kitchen because the living room was too small. She was studying to become an ASL interpreter, commuting an hour each way to work, perpetually tangled in the emotional weather patterns of her social circles, and absolutely addicted to Dunkin Donuts coffee. She had a lot going on, and she engaged with all of it with a warmth and self-awareness that made her corner of eZabel feel genuinely alive.

Her state of mind across her most active period in 2004 was that of someone in intelligent motion — curious, emotionally alive, perpetually processing. She had just moved out on her own for the first time as a single adult, and she felt the difference acutely: "Going to the convention alone, the extent of your association being 'Hi, how are you? Good.' Pretending you had other people to talk to." She missed the old days when she talked through lunch so much she barely moved from her seat. But she didn't wallow. Instead she widened her circle with a kind of strategic intentionality, building friendships across multiple social groups because her interests were too varied to fit into any single one. Music one night, a Death Cab for Cutie show at Roseland Ballroom the next, an ASL meeting, a new congregation to navigate after moving. She made a to-do list that included "find a Deaf person to study with" and "procrastinate less" in the same bullet-pointed breath.

Alana's taste in music was encyclopedic and unclassifiable. She had seen Death Cab for Cutie and The Shins; she had concert history going back to Weezer and The Shakedown in 2002 (best show ever, she insisted). She bought En Vogue, Blackstreet, and TLC on CD at Princeton Record Exchange out of pure nostalgia. She could explain the origins of reggaeton in genuine historical detail — tracing it from Panamanian artists using Jamaican templates blended with salsa rhythms, naming Tego Calderon and Daddy Yankee well before either was a household name — and then turn around and quote an Aimee Mann album by title as what she reaches for when she's sad. Damien Rice and Death Cab were her grief music of choice, which she defended as genuinely helpful rather than wallowing: "I love sad music, it actually helps me get over sadness."

She was a poet by impulse, though she'd never have called herself one. Her posts were peppered with lyrics she loved and verses she wrote herself — the truck poem ("The truck has a bad driving record / It has yet to clear") is quiet and clever, a romantic metaphor that works without announcing itself. She wrote a short piece about Island Heights that reads like someone who notices things most people walk past. She also had an easy facility with Spanish that she deployed selectively, slipping into it to greet people or make a point more elegantly than English would allow.

On the forums, Alana was funny and direct in a way that could read as blunt if you didn't know her. She was quick to call out bad behavior — particularly a situation involving a guy who expressed serious interest, then retreated the next day citing privileges he was working toward, then turned around and approached her friend: "THINK b4 you ACT fellas." She was also genuinely curious about the mechanics of courtship, the psychology of friendship, and whether the right person could still be somewhere in a social circle that hadn't quite resolved itself yet. She talked these things through with socalgal and sunshyne more than anyone else, and those conversations had the texture of real friendship — late-night, circular, specific.

She loved her city and her state without apology. She missed Toms River when she moved to Roselle Park and loved being back. She loved fall more than any other season, loved long drives with the right music on, loved making up errands when she had nothing to do because sitting still wasn't something her temperament allowed for long. She would absolutely invite you to salsa in her kitchen. She would absolutely notice if you weren't having fun and try to fix it. She would also, if you hurt her or someone she cared about, write it down somewhere and be done with it in a way that felt more final than a confrontation.

eZabel Personality Type: ENFP. Warm, socially energized, emotionally perceptive, and genuinely enthusiastic about nearly everything she touches. She has too many interests to commit to just one social circle and wouldn't want to even if she could. The social worker mentality she mentioned — the one that summons her to help even when fleeing would be wiser — is both her greatest strength and the thing that occasionally exhausts her.