The Internet

I have to post something about the internet, since it has been such a huge part of this trip and this adventure for me. I am continually amazed at what we can do. I wonder if people had similar experiences in the early days of the telephone???

Aside from the obvious things that the internet has done for me which were not available when I moved to Japan - getting information about the country, booking flights, finding an apartment, etc., since I have been here, my internet experience has been almost as exciting as my real life experience, sometimes, even more so.

I've been able to use the internet to get references and find services I need - chiropractor, acupuncture, spa, specialists, conversation partners, food, medical information, hotels, etc. I am keeping up with the news and the circus of the presidential election, I am staying in touch with friends and family (well, marginally with family - because it has to be two-way). But the most amazing thing that has happened in the past few months is that I have reconnected with a whole host of people from my past. It is almost surreal.

First, it was through facebook that I got connected with two of my early "loves of my life". These were two guys who I was madly and foolishly in love with. Both were in relationships with other guys and I was sort of a "mister" on the side. Both relationships were very painful for me and both guys moved to New York and we lost touch. I reconnected with one of them back in 1994 when I was in NYC and looked him up in the phone book, but the other, Tim, seemed lost forever. It has been great to catch up with them again and see who they have become. Along with them, I also reconnected with a few people who were my buds when I was in Art School in Philly.

Then I got an e-mail from a former high school classmate telling me that our 30th High School reunion was approaching. I couldn't go, of course, but since then I've been in contact with a few of my former classmates. Very weird to communicate with people you have not seen for 30 years.

I found out that one of my friends from elementary school just died, at the age of 48. We were friends in elementary school, but when we got to high school he became the valedictorian and I became kind of a dick. I was friends with other people who didn't like him and we kind of tortured him. After we graduated we lost touch. And now I find out he just died a few weeks ago, that he was living in Florida with his partner (I had no idea whether he was gay or not, though I suspected), and his death seems totally mysterious to me.

And now today, I got a message on Facebook from a good old friend from Philadelphia who I used to work at the Philadelphia Inquirer with. We lost touch when I moved to Japan in 1989. She is now in Singapore and her husband is working for the US Embassy there.

I don't know if it is because I have so much free time and am on the internet so much, or if something is happening as the internet becomes more and more sophisticated, but it is weird to be reconnecting with people that I thought I had lost contact with, and it is especially weird to be doing it from Argentina.