Ancient History come to life

Ramblings Post #150
Life is full of regret. I regret my instinct to buy that shirt. I regret not getting the caramel toppings. I shoulda just said yes and got in the Ferrari. I mean, if you have no regrets, then you probably haven't made very many choices, because the odds of all the choices you have made turning out in your favor are slim to none. You can't dwell on them, but use them as tools to learn to live better. But every now and then you have to wonder how things would have changed if you had...

I would be getting old. Older.

Singe is a mother.

Now I've never actually met Singe, or even talked to her on the phone, or anything like that. We've only ever conversed over the internet. But oh what a hot little virtual affair it was. A decade or so ago, wandering the internet back before the rise of Google and Yahoo, back when finding stuff on the internet meant actual forethought and diligence, when Netscape Communicator was a viable browser, I found a little...well, internet gated community.

This was pre-MySpace. Back when Geo-Cities was the lick, and you had to actually look for your adult entertainment. It was a little off the beaten track message-board, one sitting on a server because somebody got bored and wanted a place to just talk shit. Now a decade later its still there, still kicking along. People have come and gone, but I still check in almost daily just see what's up. There are few things I use on the internet enough to feel compelled to contribute to it's upkeep, but that message board I have actually sent real money to so the owner will keep it functioning. That reminds me, in January I need to tighten her up again.

That's where I "virtually" met Singe. This was 2001 or so, and thinking back, she might not have even been of legal drinking age when we first started chatting and I guess virtually flirting. I remember when I used to work the overnight at this one job, and our conversations floated in and out between actual work, sometimes keeping me from setting that joint on fire. From the pictures she frequently posted to the board, the consensus was that she was, um, cough, "fiyah" and from her posts about as opinionated as you can make a New Yorker. For some reason we hit it off immediately.

When the message-board put together a pass around soap, each member writing a section that the next would have to pickup and continue, we quickly became a virtual couple in the story. Online we flirted and acted like we lived down the street instead of half a country away. Sure, we both had actual lives, and real life partners who wandered in and out those lives, and this was just online play, but there were times she appeared to express actual real jealousy when I did certain things. She actually mailed me stuff . Not email, real mail. The power of internet connections is mystifying. It was weird, but nice.

Plane tickets aren't that expensive you might think, and since I'm in Atlanta and she is in New York, and there are at least eight flights a day on Airtran alone, Singe and I should have at least shared a meal or two over the course of the last decade. I don't think it ever occurred to either of us. And, after as somebody put it on the 'board: "special actions usually create the expectations of special favors" the idea was a definite no. On a business trip, Spanky and her hooked up to hang out, but that didn't go well and I think they still don't talk to one another.

We're facebook friends now. Although she's still a member of the spot, but doesn't visit anymore. And its been six or seven years since we've flirted like that.

The new baby, by the way, is beautiful.

Life keeps giving me these reminders that at some point that other people are living on the own schedules, got their own agendas, their own life plans.

Makes you wonder what if?

In both directions. Forward and back.

Barkeep, I'm gonna need a tall drink for me, and fruit juice for shorty over here.