Borrowing an entry writing style from two of my favorite siblings/friends I’m going to write about a recently rediscovered old friend.
Once upon a time, there was this kid, who was really bright and loved to write. He was also the biggest geek and was fascinated by the quickly developing pace of mobile technology, PalmOS, PocketPCs, WindowsCE, wireless communications, digital intellectual property, mobile writing, and a host of other things. He read Jeff Kirvin’s Writing on Your Palm, and it wasn’t long before he scraped his pennies together to buy a Handspring Visor with one of those nifty folding keyboards.
Being a Visor fanatic, he quickly joined the ranks of VisorCentral users and became an avid supporter of that device and a prominent member of the community. But as you can imagine, there weren’t many other young teenagers/pre-teens involved in the PalmOS community. Because doncha know, most teenagers have better things to do then organize their schedule and contact information on a dinky little computer with a resolution of 60 pixels by 60 pixels.
But there was another.
And they became attached, IM-ed eachother daily. But like all good things, it was a finite affair.
Our protagonist moved on to other fancier devices and loved it, and took a different track. During this phase of his life this kid did lots of cool stuff for someone who was 14. Like, be an executive editor for a radical ebook publishing company called Free-ePress. Contribute to the website that started it all Writing on your Palm, Various freelance articles for places like, Suite101, PalmPower Magazine, and the gem of the bunchPocketPC Thoughts.
But these two young characters still talked occasionally, but as they had ideological differences they started to fall out of contact.
One of our protagonist’s editor’s, told him that he needed people who could dedicate more time to the site, basically that he needed people who could be in front of their computer during the day, which virtually obliviated the need for a mobile computing solution. When this editor also told him that there was no way he could compensate our protagonist for any of his work, our protagonist finally bowed out, realized the idiocy of having a mobile computing device and sold his HP Jordana, bought a cellulose based calendar book, and at the ripe old age of 15 retired from the field of mobile computing.
He used what he had leared to develop an awesome website, and he wrote a book, and generally enjoyed life.
But he hadn’t forgotten his partner in crime, who still clung to the vestiges of their former commonality. Despite the growing rift between them they still talked but one day something happened.
They talked about sex, as adolescent males are prone to. It was awkward. Our protagonist had very little (nothing to boast of, as someone who was still very much discovering his sexual orientation) and his friend somehow was able to boast of something. Trivial really. After this event which our protagonist probably has logged somewhere, he mostly lost interest. They completely stopped talking and went about their lives.
Then, just recently, our protagonist, got bored and opened an unused corner of his buddy list, found his old friend online and said, innocently enough “Hello”.
And guess what. His friend turned out to be gay too. And doing the same academic program (IB). And interested in a school in his area. And they have similar interests that don’t involve visors. And similar life experiences that despite the disconnect in their communication.
Isn’t life just funny like that sometimes?