debauchery, unfulfilled sexual tension, and furniture
If you ask any of my old friends about the summer and fall of 1996, you're likely to hear about Shelter parties, a series of massively debauched gatherings that Tony, Jason and I held at our apartment in Kenmore Square. You might've heard how we played host to a hundred out-of-town goth kids during the opening hours of Convergence II. You might've heard about our legendary 5AM breakfasts, feeding cheesy eggs, and garlic fried rice to our exhausted and nearly sober guests. You might've heard of our 4th July roof deck barbecues, watching fireworks burst over the river and feeling the shockwave of their explosions. You might've heard about the papasan couch.
You might've heard how the couch was magical, how innumerable numbers of strangers met while sitting on that papasan, and somehow wound up making out by night's end. You might've heard how Jim met Emily there and that a year later, they got married. You might've heard about the stains and the curious portions of worn fabric. And if you wondered if the magic was wearing off, you probably never heard how Tony was sitting on it during a party last year when he first met Whitney.
It was about seven years ago to this date that a friend of mine in college asked me to go with her to Pier 1 Imports to help her pick up a green two-person papasan couch. It wasn't the sort of job that actually required two people, but she wanted me to come along anyway, for the company and conversation -- such was the nature of our friendship. Two years we'd known each other, the first of it was occupied with sarcastic, cutting bickering that doubled as friendly banter; the second was taken up with subtle and not-so-subtle attempts at flirtation that clumsily and uncomfortably went nowhere. Now, we were beginning our third year as friends, and both resolved to just keep it as friends. Just friends. Nothing more. Really.
We setup the papasan in her dorm room, next to her single bed, and over the next year, I found myself crashing in it more times than I could count. I nestled into its comfortable, womb-like hollow while she sat in her bed, and we watched Deep Space Nine, or worked on term papers, or nibbled on Whoppers that we picked up at the 24 hour Burger King. And I'd wake up in the morning, bleary-eyed and not well-rested at all, and I'd stumble back to my dorm room, to the bemused grins of my roommate, who asked me with a knowing look, where I was and what I did. And I'd say that nothing happened. Nothing at all. Really.
She graduated the following year, and put the papasan in storage. We fell out of touch after that, both being bad long-distance callers and worse penpals. But she came up a year later, to see me graduate, and to get her stuff out of storage. The papasan was too big to take home, so she gave it to me, a reminder of too many evenings with too many conversations.
I setup the papasan in my bedroom in my new apartment in Kenmore Square, and the rest are the stories and exaggerations that my friends and I have devised to frame our post-college coming-of-age. I don't quite know if my papasan was magical when we bought it, or if, as you might suspect, I enchanted it with my many nights fetally curled in its hunter green cushion, letting hours of unspoken sexual tension leech into its fabric and stuffing ... but it does make for a good story, yes?
You might've heard how the couch was magical, how innumerable numbers of strangers met while sitting on that papasan, and somehow wound up making out by night's end. You might've heard how Jim met Emily there and that a year later, they got married. You might've heard about the stains and the curious portions of worn fabric. And if you wondered if the magic was wearing off, you probably never heard how Tony was sitting on it during a party last year when he first met Whitney.
It was about seven years ago to this date that a friend of mine in college asked me to go with her to Pier 1 Imports to help her pick up a green two-person papasan couch. It wasn't the sort of job that actually required two people, but she wanted me to come along anyway, for the company and conversation -- such was the nature of our friendship. Two years we'd known each other, the first of it was occupied with sarcastic, cutting bickering that doubled as friendly banter; the second was taken up with subtle and not-so-subtle attempts at flirtation that clumsily and uncomfortably went nowhere. Now, we were beginning our third year as friends, and both resolved to just keep it as friends. Just friends. Nothing more. Really.
We setup the papasan in her dorm room, next to her single bed, and over the next year, I found myself crashing in it more times than I could count. I nestled into its comfortable, womb-like hollow while she sat in her bed, and we watched Deep Space Nine, or worked on term papers, or nibbled on Whoppers that we picked up at the 24 hour Burger King. And I'd wake up in the morning, bleary-eyed and not well-rested at all, and I'd stumble back to my dorm room, to the bemused grins of my roommate, who asked me with a knowing look, where I was and what I did. And I'd say that nothing happened. Nothing at all. Really.
She graduated the following year, and put the papasan in storage. We fell out of touch after that, both being bad long-distance callers and worse penpals. But she came up a year later, to see me graduate, and to get her stuff out of storage. The papasan was too big to take home, so she gave it to me, a reminder of too many evenings with too many conversations.
I setup the papasan in my bedroom in my new apartment in Kenmore Square, and the rest are the stories and exaggerations that my friends and I have devised to frame our post-college coming-of-age. I don't quite know if my papasan was magical when we bought it, or if, as you might suspect, I enchanted it with my many nights fetally curled in its hunter green cushion, letting hours of unspoken sexual tension leech into its fabric and stuffing ... but it does make for a good story, yes?