Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Old friends
Just coming in from New York last week, I checked the messages on my land line. The message was:
Dear God, you could have knocked me over with a feather.
For those who don’t know TJ was my roommate my senior and his freshman year of undergrad at UIC. My first impressions of this living situation were not good: I walked into a room with a cheeseburger sitting out on the desk, Icehouse boxes taped to the wall as décor, a lot of metal music and the door wide open with nobody in it.
Of course by the end of the semester we were each other’s most trusted friends. And that's bot sarcasm.
Why shouldn’t we have been? Though there was a superficial divide between the gay and straight thing, we shared a firm value in friendship, and --most importantly -- a love for a raging party and debauched time, the ties that bind. It was the most unlikely friendship ever.
Over the years I've though of him from time to time and would have liked to catch up, but haven't been able to find his contact information. (I wasn't sure how or why we ended up loosing touch but once I move from Chicago, we simply lost eachother's information.) But here he was, looking me up after all these years – it’s been about 8 years since we’ve even spoke. I guess it's the force of destiny.
We were able to hang out over the weekend; I was able to meet his very cool fiancée, down the hooch like old times as though not a day passed. But, dear God, a long time has passed: the last time I saw him he was 18!
Hey, this message is for Matt. I’m not sure if I have the right number [I
still have not been able to figure out how to personalize my greeting] so if
it’s not, just delete this. If it is: hey man, this is TJ, your old
college roommate.
Dear God, you could have knocked me over with a feather.
For those who don’t know TJ was my roommate my senior and his freshman year of undergrad at UIC. My first impressions of this living situation were not good: I walked into a room with a cheeseburger sitting out on the desk, Icehouse boxes taped to the wall as décor, a lot of metal music and the door wide open with nobody in it.
Of course by the end of the semester we were each other’s most trusted friends. And that's bot sarcasm.
Why shouldn’t we have been? Though there was a superficial divide between the gay and straight thing, we shared a firm value in friendship, and --most importantly -- a love for a raging party and debauched time, the ties that bind. It was the most unlikely friendship ever.
Over the years I've though of him from time to time and would have liked to catch up, but haven't been able to find his contact information. (I wasn't sure how or why we ended up loosing touch but once I move from Chicago, we simply lost eachother's information.) But here he was, looking me up after all these years – it’s been about 8 years since we’ve even spoke. I guess it's the force of destiny.
We were able to hang out over the weekend; I was able to meet his very cool fiancée, down the hooch like old times as though not a day passed. But, dear God, a long time has passed: the last time I saw him he was 18!
# posted by otas : 8:35 PM
