Owed a "Hot Chat Topping Session"

So last night, I had the fortune of spending 45 minutes on the phone with Scarlett O'Hall. This is the friend I first made on my own, when I moved up here to the Bay Area. Scarlett (Name have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent) was a fascinating character I really had to good fortune to meet through a BBS.

Okay, for you youngsters fairly new to the internet, a BBS was a Bulletin Board System back in the dark ages of the internet, long before there were images, ebay, amazon or even AOL. Yes, I was an early geek. Anyway, back in the 90s when I first moved here I was a lonely 28 year old and longing for any sort of company. When I found out there was a BBS for lesbians, well I jumped to log on.

Scarlett was the first person I met through the internet and our friendship was fast, furious and funny! Her apt was on the way home for me so often after work, I'd drop in on her, calling through the intercom "Short girl bringing Tall Boys". Tall boys were the long tall Buds. I used to get soooooo drunk with Scarlett.

It was through Scarlett I met Lone Wolf who remains a close friend to this day.

Anyway, Scarlett was a bit down in the dumps because it was the anniversary of a memorial service for a close friend of hers, one I had known. We talked, and I was able to commiserate with her, due to the sudden death of JoEllen when she had just turned 30. Apparently she and her significant other has experienced a ton of deaths lately and she was wondering if that was all life had to offer anymore.

I pointed her gaze to the future, where her little girl was poised to take over. Her child is 4 and there are so many more firsts in her life... that's where the future is. Death is inevitable... the 80s and 90s taught me that. To see it as the future is to condemn yourself to a future of closing doors. Yes, it will be that, but that's not all.

Oh, the title of the post? I was telling Bratworse about Scarlett's and my history together and I told her how I stopped playing on the BBS when my GF at the time asked me to, but before I stopped, I engaged in a "Hot chat" with Scarlett and how I was promised a return chat which never occurred.

I SERIOUSLY doubt that anything like that will happen nowadays, with all of us older, wiser AND more tired. lol