1. Delete it as obvious spam.
2. Open it immediately since it must be fan mail.
3. Leave it alone until you've looked at everything else and then decide.

I'm an option 3 sort of person. I got email today from an unknown female with the aforementioned subject line. I read all my other mail and decided that it was possible it wasn't spam because I do, in fact, occasionally receive email from fans of Aries Moon who are strangers to me. What the heck, I decided as I finished my coffee, it doesn't have an attachment and I'm in a good mood. Even if it's spam it won't bug me. I opened it.

It was from one of my best friends in college. I haven't heard from him in, oh, twenty years. It was an enormous blast from the past just to see the name on the page. He identified himself by reminding me of what instrument he used to play, you know, in case I'd forgotten four years of hijinks and string quartets at the Music Building. This guy was one of my crew, you know? We smoked joints in the Ethnomusicology Department after hours, we climbed all over the campus roofs in an effort to discover new vistas, we went on road trips, we went to concerts together, we gave concerts together. I shared my very first apartment with his sister. I was absolutely boggled to hear from him.

He had found me by typing in a mutual friend's name and discovering this web diary. This is how everyone finds me these days. I write about all the people I ever knew and eventually someone wants to find them and finds me instead. He mentioned some of the other musicians we went to school with and wondered if I'd kept in touch with any of them. I was practically squealing as I read through the list of names. Some of them I knew about, but most of them had dropped out of my consciousness completely after so much time. It was like little explosions going off in my head reading the names: what did happen to so-and-so, oh my god I remember him, holy cats I haven't thought of her in years. I was, as they used to say, wigging out. I simply do not know anyone from those days any more. Only last week I talked about how no one thinks of me as a musician. That track veered off into another dimension a long time ago, passing out of view, taking with it everyone I was in college with and a huge part of my identity. And now here it is again: my own history, my late teens/early twenties self, brought to life by this letter from my friend.

But wait. Wait. This email is from a female. My mouth drops open. My head explodes.

He is now a she. Left the music industry, is in the process of the physical transition, lives a quiet life in a quiet place doing something utterly non-musical. I very nearly cannot take this in. I had no idea. No clue. Never guessed. Would have called you a liar if you'd said this one would rather be female. Would have called you worse if you'd said this one would give up music. He was so talented, such a good cellist. She may still be if she takes it up again but I sense there are many complications there. I can understand that. I did my own time away from music.

Still. Head explosions all day. So hard to deal with all at once: old friend thought lost forever reappearing, names and memories from my distant past, and a pretty major piece of news. Boy am I glad I didn't delete that particular piece of mail as spam. I have to write her back, I'm looking forward to writing to her and chewing over old times, but I wrote this instead. I kind of needed to work through it first.

Diaries are dangerous things. They engender information. Be sure you're ready for it.

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