ICQ - 9/10/16

In the 90's it seemed like an innocent chat program was changing people's lives- it was ICQ. You could meet people on it, get to know them, become friends. People were meeting other people online, leaving marriages, moving to god knows where to meet god knows who. I remember becoming friends with this one woman online. She was moving to Northern New Mexico and I was living in Santa Fe at the time, and she wanted to meet people in Northern New Mexico. She was moving there from Georgia. So she moves to Northern New Mexico and we keep chatting but she's living in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile I am meeting and sometimes visiting other women all over the state of New Mexico, making up for when I was a student living in the dorms at St. John's and never went anywhere. I wanted to see the state of New Mexico and if some woman was in some remote corner of the state I was game for driving hours to meet them. Anyway the woman from Georgia one day says she's met some guy on the chat program in Australia and she's leaving to go to Australia and I can come over to her trailer and take anything I want because she can't take anything to Australia with her except her son and a suitcase. So I drive out to her trailer and it is in the middle of nowhere but it is smack dab also in the middle of this incredible view, one of those New Mexican views where you can see to the horizon in every direction and it's very dramatic. So I fill my car with her book collection, everything except the recipe books, and she asks why I don't want the recipe books, and I say "Have you seen how many recipes there are online?". The son looks dubious about making yet another move, this time to friggin' Australia. So that was the first and last time we ever met in real life. I wonder what ever happened to her. Chat programs seemed like such a big deal in those days, but now I don't chat online much anymore. Probably because I'm married!