Saturday night, and another truly boring evening at home. Ok, I wasn't bored, but I sure looked boring: sitting at my computer, the Oregon Ducks game over my shoulder, working on websites and generally being alone and not the least bit exciting. This is how my life goes; it's my normal state of affairs most evenings. I'm cool with it. Now and then, however, something happens to stir it up a bit.

I got an email from Cindy Bredy. Cindy is one of my old high school era friends from back in Billings. She went to West and I went to Senior; we knew each other through church, the youth group and choir. We were friends but not that close; in a big group you don't get close to everyone. But it turns out she's been living in Seattle for the past 20 years, which would include, of course, 1995, when I lived there for most of the year. If I had the web presence that I now have, we might have gotten together then. But thanks to Google and all the different things I do online, I have now popped up on her radar.

But it's not just Cindy. Unlike me, she's kept in touch with a couple of my other old friends from back then, Brenda Mulvaney and Doug Savchenko. Talk about a double wow. I've since gotten emails from both Brenda and Doug, and their little circle of three has widen just that bit to include me. And Julie Hopper, who I remember, perhaps incorrectly but, damn, that was thirty years ago, as Cindy's best friend. (I'm sure Cindy will correct me if necessary.) Julie also went to Senior; we were in choir together there and no doubt a number of other classes, but I sure don't remember. And Bobbie and Patti Jenkins live in the Seattle, along with their mother, May, who remains the only Republican I've ever voted for.

And suddenly, my world has expanded that much, back into the faded past and into a present that has been going along quite nicely without my awareness. Doug and I didn't get to see a lot of each other, even in Billings, but we were good friends. Brenda's family was terrific to me, and back then she dated John Graves, another great friend whose family was one of my surrogate families in my post-divorce days. I've gone all this time with almost no contact with my high school friends; the only people I've seen in all that time are Gail Wyman, and her not since the early 90s, and Werner Seibert, who lives just an hour up the road but might as well be a world away, given our inability to get together. I did visit Billings once, but that was awful and shall not be spoken of at this point.

So as I see not only that three old friends have re-entered my life but want me to be an active part of their lives in some way, I return to an old, on-going project that I've never gotten right. That's auto-biography, or memoir, or something akin to that. I didn't keep very good notes over the years, and my memory, being stored in a strenuously solipistic container, is not a good source of material. But I was along for the ride, so I do have some raw materials to use. I just have to figure out the best way to do so.