Crossing Paths In The Oort Cloud
Let me tell you about my friend,
mermaidinparis.
We go pretty far back together; in fact, we go all the way back to the misty year of 1987, the same year my guitar was manufactured over in Japan. I was the new guy in school, and I met a group of people that, while drama was one of the orders of the day, they were all basically decent people. As for the drama... show me a thirteen-year-old who doesn't claim to languish under the whip of the Drama Llama and I'll show you a pathological liar.
She and I became friends and in high school, I don't think it would be such a stretch to say that we probably saved each other from going off the deep end a few times. In fact, I know we did. That's what happens when you're trying to be true to your artistic (or in my case, merely creative) core while also trying to get along in a rural high school that has just over four hundred people. Total. Not our class; I'm talking about the whole kit and kaboodle. Along with another girl who rounded out our power trio, we all kept each other's heads above water and tried to do our best to steer each other past the whorls and eddies so common to teenage life.
When we graduated, we all promised to keep in touch. We didn't. That happens sometimes; I know you're thinking that we probably should have just emailed each other, but we had no Internet access in our home town to get. Seriously. Hell, there was barely even an Internet at all back in 1992, much less one we had access to in Winters, population Not Very Fucking Many. I think there were promises to snail mail each other, but it didn't pan out. Things go like that sometimes.
People say that you lose most of the friends you had in high school. That's true. What's also true is that there's a few who you lose that you really, really wish you'd been able to keep in touch with. I remembered that she had been dating a guy back in high school who turned out to be a complete douchenozzle, and I was hoping that she'd been able to avoid making that same mistake again over and over like so many other people I knew. People like me. Mostly, life went on. I had many things to keep me occupied in Chico and she had her life to lead as well. A good one, I hoped.
In my fourth year of college, we somehow got in touch again. She actually came up to my apartment and I gave her the not-so-grand tour. I tried to put a good face on things, but the truth was that I felt fairly empty and miserable, not to mention lonely and somewhat like a budding failure at age twenty-one. Despite my best efforts, things weren't going very well for the home team. She was in the same boat.
Before she left, she cried. She thought she was never going to see me again, and I told her she would. Somehow, at some point in the future, our orbits would cross again. I had absolutely no evidence backing that up as it had been almost half a decade since we'd last grinned at each other in person, but somehow I believed this. I don't know if she believed me or not, but she went back to her life again, and I to mine.
I Googled her name every now and then, wondering if she was still using the same one, to no avail. When I set up a MySpace account, I was hoping that somehow it might lead my friend back to me. Over three years later, it finally did.
My friend is back in my life.
Sometimes, the home team pulls one out.
All right, there is also a meme here, courtesy of
dawning_star. It goes: List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your LJ along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they're listening to.
Got it. "The Frayed Ends Of Sanity" by Metallica. "Practice What You Preach" by Testament. "Motorcycle Driver" by Joe Satriani. "Manthem" by The Bouncing Souls. "So Far Away" by Dire Straits. "Having A Blast" by Green Day and last but not least, "Living After Midnight" by Judas Priest.
Okay.
mermaidinparis,
vg_ford,
lesliemoniot,
hihankara,
yuppiesftw,
emilia_romagna and
marieb, what's in your iPod today?
mermaidinparis.
We go pretty far back together; in fact, we go all the way back to the misty year of 1987, the same year my guitar was manufactured over in Japan. I was the new guy in school, and I met a group of people that, while drama was one of the orders of the day, they were all basically decent people. As for the drama... show me a thirteen-year-old who doesn't claim to languish under the whip of the Drama Llama and I'll show you a pathological liar.
She and I became friends and in high school, I don't think it would be such a stretch to say that we probably saved each other from going off the deep end a few times. In fact, I know we did. That's what happens when you're trying to be true to your artistic (or in my case, merely creative) core while also trying to get along in a rural high school that has just over four hundred people. Total. Not our class; I'm talking about the whole kit and kaboodle. Along with another girl who rounded out our power trio, we all kept each other's heads above water and tried to do our best to steer each other past the whorls and eddies so common to teenage life.
When we graduated, we all promised to keep in touch. We didn't. That happens sometimes; I know you're thinking that we probably should have just emailed each other, but we had no Internet access in our home town to get. Seriously. Hell, there was barely even an Internet at all back in 1992, much less one we had access to in Winters, population Not Very Fucking Many. I think there were promises to snail mail each other, but it didn't pan out. Things go like that sometimes.
People say that you lose most of the friends you had in high school. That's true. What's also true is that there's a few who you lose that you really, really wish you'd been able to keep in touch with. I remembered that she had been dating a guy back in high school who turned out to be a complete douchenozzle, and I was hoping that she'd been able to avoid making that same mistake again over and over like so many other people I knew. People like me. Mostly, life went on. I had many things to keep me occupied in Chico and she had her life to lead as well. A good one, I hoped.
In my fourth year of college, we somehow got in touch again. She actually came up to my apartment and I gave her the not-so-grand tour. I tried to put a good face on things, but the truth was that I felt fairly empty and miserable, not to mention lonely and somewhat like a budding failure at age twenty-one. Despite my best efforts, things weren't going very well for the home team. She was in the same boat.
Before she left, she cried. She thought she was never going to see me again, and I told her she would. Somehow, at some point in the future, our orbits would cross again. I had absolutely no evidence backing that up as it had been almost half a decade since we'd last grinned at each other in person, but somehow I believed this. I don't know if she believed me or not, but she went back to her life again, and I to mine.
I Googled her name every now and then, wondering if she was still using the same one, to no avail. When I set up a MySpace account, I was hoping that somehow it might lead my friend back to me. Over three years later, it finally did.
My friend is back in my life.
Sometimes, the home team pulls one out.
All right, there is also a meme here, courtesy of
dawning_star. It goes: List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your LJ along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they're listening to.
Got it. "The Frayed Ends Of Sanity" by Metallica. "Practice What You Preach" by Testament. "Motorcycle Driver" by Joe Satriani. "Manthem" by The Bouncing Souls. "So Far Away" by Dire Straits. "Having A Blast" by Green Day and last but not least, "Living After Midnight" by Judas Priest.
Okay.
mermaidinparis,
vg_ford,
lesliemoniot,
hihankara,
yuppiesftw,
emilia_romagna and
marieb, what's in your iPod today?