Hey Jakey,

I guess there's no way of knowing how my life would've been different if I had never met either of the two men pictured above. I took that photo back in 1990. We were all still in college, at least I was, and so was the fella there on the left.

This is part of the movie set for Back to the Future III. The three of us one weekend drove out to the mountains, where they had built an entire little fake town just for the making of the movie. The public was invited to tour the place and play around in it for a couple of days before it was razed.

There was a year or two when the three of us were inseparable. Then, as always happens when roommates are involved, the whole thing just kind of dissolved. These two guys moved into a place together, and things fell apart soon after. They began to hate each other. I stayed friends with both of them, and saw them separately quite a bit. Then I didn't see the guy on the right (J) for a long, long time. Then I never saw him again. I know people who see him occasionally, so at least I know he's all right.

I lost touch with the guy on the left (D) a few years ago, and that makes me sad. It's my fault entirely. I have no idea where he is or what he's doing now.

We all met in high school. J and I had Spanish together freshman year. I still remember introducing myself to him in Mr. S's little modular classroom out behind the real school. J sat in front of me. I tapped him on the shoulder the first day and said, "Hi! I'm K!" Real obnoxious-like.

I wound up going to two proms with J, later on during our high school career. Oh Gawd, I'll have to find those photos... Even though it's been about 11 years since I've seen J, I have a feeling that if we meet again, we'll still be buddies.

I met D during high school also. He was one of J's many nerdy friends. I never thought about him too much, until after graduation, when he and J would invite me on all sorts of weird adventures.

At which point, I fell in love with him. It was entirely unrequited. Boyfriends came and went, but I was always in love with D.

It came to a head in '92 or so, with the dreaded "drink & dial." My college roommates were out of town, I had the apartment to myself. I can't even remember what I was drinking. But I drank. And I dialed. I confessed my undying devotion. He told me he had figured that out long ago. Great. I got the "we're the best of buddies, though!" routine. I asked him if my phone call would change everything between us. He said no, it wouldn't. And to his credit, things did not change. We continued to hang out, we continued to have three-hour-long phone conversations, we continued making the four-hour trek from my college to his and vice versa to see each other.

Our phone calls were always epic. He used to call me up at 11:30 pm, and we would watch the entire David Letterman show while on the phone. There was that one year when we spent all of New Year's Eve on the phone together. What in the world did we talk about for so long?

The year after that, I met your daddy. I continued to keep in touch, and we managed to visit for several years after that. That your daddy and D have actually met and shook hands still blows my mind, when I stop and think about it. Two different worlds, two entirely different eras in my life, the two loves of my life.

There are a dozen reasons why I finally stopped contacting him. None of them good reasons, a few of them quite shitty. There was a year or two when he would email me with a short, forlorn "Are you still there?" and I never answered.

I want to talk to him again. All I have is an old email address. I guess that's a start, but for some reason, I have just not been able to bring myself to mail him something, anything.

Here are a few quirky things that I remember and love about the quirky D:

* He loves to dance.
* He hangs his towels on hangers in his closet.
* He likes to eat to-go Chinese food straight out of the paper boxes, with chopsticks. He thinks it makes him look very metropolitan.
* He has a photo of a crane, autographed by Kelsey Grammer.
* He had a compulsion to spit in the ocean, whenever we were near one.

Wherever he is, I wish him happiness and much love. I hope he found the woman of his dreams. Actually, I hope he realizes now, too late, that *I* was the woman of his dreams, and he just didn't know it.

Jakey, take it from momma. Life is short. Never pine for another longer than one season. You'll never know who or what is waiting to happen to you if you're stuck in dreamland! Love you, sleep tight!