Old Friends Made New

One of my many creative side projects is a short film screenplay called "Redux." The film is about a guy who dies and gets reincarnated as himself. And by "reincarnated as himself" I mean he wakes up as a baby in 1930s and gets to live his entire life all over again with full knowledge of how it is going to end up.

Of course, what he sets out to do with his new lease on life is to correct all of his mistakes. So instead of being the eight-year-old lunkhead who jumps off the roof with a cape made out of towel and subsequently breaking his leg, the guy instead convinces his younger brother to jump off the roof, because, dude, that cape made out of towel is really magic.

The idea is similar to the one behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - the way to deal with your mistakes is to erase them. Or, in this case, to do them over. (This is also the secret philosophy behind Super Mario Bros.)

I have made a lot of mistakes in my life, and many of them involve losing contact with perfectly decent people.

Perfectly decent? I'm being too polite.

Totally awesome, kick-ass people who totally rock everything and who were once in my life but are no longer there.

Correction. WERE no longer there.

Thanks to the power of Facebook, I have reacquainted myself with Cyber D and Gyuss Baaltar, two great friends I fondly remember from my good ol' college days.

Here's how it happened:

I got this little note on Facebook that went something like, "Hey! It is Cyber D. Remember me? I was that devastatingly handsome guy in your dorm. I was the guy who the women all loved and the men all envied. But those the men couldn't envy me enough to hate me because I was so darn likable, and, to top it off, I loved Dr. Who." (And we all know that Dr. Who fans cannot truly be hated. It is one of the cornerstones of Newtonian Physics right up there with "Polkas are an acquired taste.")

And I responded with a polite little, "Of course I remember you! You drew that awesome picture of Gyuss Baaltar with his head stuck up his own butt." And then I clicked Send.

And then I had a little panic attack.

When we were young, we had to behave like juveniles thanks to Federal Mandate E.B.0/1144-07c, or, as we like to call it, the "Kids These Days" Act of 1954. But that doesn't mean I should treat this one juvenile act like it some sort of defining characteristic. It would be too much like a mean ol' high school bully going, "Dude, remember that time in second grade when you accidentally farted in the reading circle? And then we called you Farty Fart Farts until you graduated? Well the taunting won't stop now that you're a grown up! FARTY FART FARTS! FARTY FART FARTS! AH-HAAAAAAAA!!!"

So I sat in a big pile of fear, waiting in front of my computer for the response, fully expecting a cutting retort along the lines of, "Geez! Immature much? That was, like, over ten years ago! I'm a respectable member of society now."

Instead, the response went something like, "Yes! That was the best thing I ever drew."

And then I remembered not only why I liked Cyber D, but exactly how much I liked Cyber D.

And THEN, just to prove what an awesome, kick-ass guy he is, Cyber D wrote a totally awesome, kick-ass blog entry about me where he compared me to a girl next door who grew up to be an exotic dancer. (Which is an ironic choice of words, because in high school I was voted "Most Likely to Get Beaten Up by an Exotic Dancer's Thug Boyfriend.")

Anyway, the past few days have been a whirlwind of fond memories and wild blog entries. Because when Cyber D writes a blog entry about you, thousands of people from his blog comment on your blog. And you comment on the comments. And the comments get commented on. And that gives you an idea for a new blog entry.

It is good to reconnect. It is good to find old friends and let them know that I am ok and to see that they are ok, too.

The only drawback is that I wish Guyuss Baltaar included a recent photo so I could see if he still spends 45 minutes each morning perfecting his sleek pompadour and two-pronged goatee before throwing a feather boa around his neck and heading for class.

After all, we went to a Liberal Arts College. Such attire was encouraged.