facebook

The next logical step in my social wading pool was facebook. I created my profile, popped up a picture, said where I worked. Again, not really seeing the value, especially since I didn't have any "friends". How did people spend hours here? What was there to do??

The next day my MaybeTuesday bass player found me using the "friend network". That was kind of cool. A couple days later an old college buddy found me. Again neat. He's married now, with kids. Amazing what happens in your twenties. Then I did a search by my high school grad year and saw the faces of people I haven't seen in years. A curiosity of mine was answered when I saw our trumpet player posed with his horn...guess he's still playing. :-)

I saw the profile of a girl I was friends with my senior year. I tried to find her in college, but there was no web then, barely email, no way to find people. I wasn't connected to too many people in high school - I was a pretty guarded, timid soul, scared of my peers. The second half of my senior year I shared TA duties with this girl, Holli. She was a super sweet, super cool girl. Just beautiful, eclectic. One of the few girls not afraid to dye her hair, or wear punkish makeup, or striped stockings. Much cooler than I ever was. Despite our mornings together in the quad grading papers, sharing the Yogurt Delite she'd bring from work the night before, and swapping boyfriend stories (we were both in love with boys named Mark)... Well, the last week of school, our last day of TA together, she had brought in the yogurt to share. I told her I was going to spend the period with Mark in his band class. I was so obsessed with my boyfriend that I was oblivious to the fact that we had a real friendship. I don't even know if we said goodbye.

I wonder how much time passed before I realized what I took for granted. Probably a few years, after Mark and I broke up and I took my head out of the clouds (or some place more anatomical). But when I did, I felt true regret.

And there she was. Picture and all, living in New York. Still beautiful and with lots of friends.

That's what facebook is.