credit where credit is due
once upon a lifetime ago, in 1997, my parents drove me up to chicago to take an engineering exam for the slim chance i might win a scholarship to boston university. we stayed at the rich suburban hotel where the test was held, along with several hundred other bespeckled, calculator-carrying nerd-dites and their doting parents.
the morning before the exam i wandered around nervously, munching on pineapple from the free fruit bar, and then - i spotted sean leaning against one the hotel walls. i remember he had a ton of pins and patches on his backpack and probably had the default band t-shirt and wallet chain on as well. vive la punk!
a kindred spirit found! although i was at the time the third-wave skagirl, brit-popping, shoe gazing, antithesis to his vegan before all else, emo adorant, southern hardcore supporting mandate - we became fast friends in a few hours. our good-ole-southern-boy fathers talked business, and we swapped music, religion, and high school antidotes.
months later, we were still exchanging emails. neither of us got the scholarship. i got accepted into bu.
sean decided to stay in alabama. he visited me in saint louis with a friend over the summer and had to stay at my dumb-as-rocks skinhead boyfriend's house since my parents still didn't allow boys to stay over. i still feel horrible about that.
years later, i had dropped out of bu, moved to chicago and had finally decided i needed to be a writer.
funny thing is, so had sean. he had slowly changed his major to literature, spent a lot of time abroad, and became something of a renaissance man - always with some lovely foreign bird on his arm.
he came to visit me again in the summer of 2001 (before the bottom fell out of blithely idle america) and i showed him the town. the record stores, the clubs, and coffeeshops. pictures were taken and sent electronic, as these things happen and among them was a certain picture of the two of us smiling demurely over cups of coffee. i think it's wonderful.
the picture has followed me to boston, and has taken on new meanings with different people.
and then a few days ago.. sean sends me this comment....
October 5, 2005 1:32 PM
once, when i used to frame other people's pictures for a living, this old woman came in and wanted me to frame one of her daughter's wedding pictures, only she wanted me to cut the groom out.
"i don't want that sunnuvabitch in my house, " she explained. "besides, they got a divorce."
i unceremoniously cut him out of a mysterious and now lone bride's life forever. pictures made of ones and zeros are even easier to slice and dice, without even running the risk of opening your up thumb on the cutting machine.
would you like to tell me who had the honor of receiving that warm regard one spring day in chicago so long ago?
it was certainly you, my dear old friend.
i'm dreaming of paris in the spring.
the morning before the exam i wandered around nervously, munching on pineapple from the free fruit bar, and then - i spotted sean leaning against one the hotel walls. i remember he had a ton of pins and patches on his backpack and probably had the default band t-shirt and wallet chain on as well. vive la punk!
a kindred spirit found! although i was at the time the third-wave skagirl, brit-popping, shoe gazing, antithesis to his vegan before all else, emo adorant, southern hardcore supporting mandate - we became fast friends in a few hours. our good-ole-southern-boy fathers talked business, and we swapped music, religion, and high school antidotes.
months later, we were still exchanging emails. neither of us got the scholarship. i got accepted into bu.
sean decided to stay in alabama. he visited me in saint louis with a friend over the summer and had to stay at my dumb-as-rocks skinhead boyfriend's house since my parents still didn't allow boys to stay over. i still feel horrible about that.
years later, i had dropped out of bu, moved to chicago and had finally decided i needed to be a writer.
funny thing is, so had sean. he had slowly changed his major to literature, spent a lot of time abroad, and became something of a renaissance man - always with some lovely foreign bird on his arm.
he came to visit me again in the summer of 2001 (before the bottom fell out of blithely idle america) and i showed him the town. the record stores, the clubs, and coffeeshops. pictures were taken and sent electronic, as these things happen and among them was a certain picture of the two of us smiling demurely over cups of coffee. i think it's wonderful.
the picture has followed me to boston, and has taken on new meanings with different people.
and then a few days ago.. sean sends me this comment....
October 5, 2005 1:32 PM
once, when i used to frame other people's pictures for a living, this old woman came in and wanted me to frame one of her daughter's wedding pictures, only she wanted me to cut the groom out.
"i don't want that sunnuvabitch in my house, " she explained. "besides, they got a divorce."
i unceremoniously cut him out of a mysterious and now lone bride's life forever. pictures made of ones and zeros are even easier to slice and dice, without even running the risk of opening your up thumb on the cutting machine.
would you like to tell me who had the honor of receiving that warm regard one spring day in chicago so long ago?
it was certainly you, my dear old friend.
i'm dreaming of paris in the spring.