On Finding Old Friends

Archived from November 2006

This incredible thing happened late Friday afternoon that I want to share with all of you. I was in good ol' Roosevelt 203A (where magic always happens) and I was goofing around on Myspace with my trusty student aid Lia. She was showing me how to search for someone and when I typed a certain name in, I happened upon a most wonderful sight. It was someone I hadn't seen or spoken to in 11 years, but it was a someone I really wanted to re-connect with. He was one of my best friends from Albany High School...met him on the ski bus when I was 15 years old. It still remains a mystery to both of us as to why we drifted apart, but I can promise you that it won't happen again. Old friends are the best! When people randomly complain about how technology screws up interpersonal relationships (I was just doing that today to justify some oddity to my boss) I, most often, balk. I've found my friend who stood by me in good and bad times..it was high school...what can I say! DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA! All those confusing adolescent emotions and moments that only those around you at the time could possibly understand. I look back now and regret nothing...I had an interesting, but moreover, blast of a high school experience. I met some amazing people at Albany High and even though I'd rather not live there any longer....it was a fabulous place to live in 1982. Maybe it was the decade or something in the air, but those years will always hold a fond place in my hard-drive of a mind. It gave my writing a voice...a special place to draw from. Some people never get that kind of life, but I've been blessed in many ways, surrounding myself with special people.
I've got itunes on..listening to an 80's shuffle, trying to catch a buzz on those crazy, mixed-up moments of the late, great 1980's. I remember I bought a Pat Benetar and Bryan Adams (Cuts Like a Knife) album (not CD..let's get that straight...I'm a vinyl kind of girl myself) with Michael in that cool little record store on Madison Avenue by the Price Chopper...It's no longer there. I think a hair salon calls that address home now....and Madison Liquor where I did some of my best teenage lying just to get some booze for the ski bus. I think Amaretto and Marlboro Lights were my drug of choice those days.
I could spend the entire night reminiscing about my wild youth, raging in a city that didn't deserve any of us. We (meaning me and my posse) were too good for that town and somehow made it down to the bright lights of the New York metropolitan area...some in Manhattan, others in Queens and some in Long Island. The odds seemed slim that we would see each other again, but thanks to a wonderful (often scary) website, we raged against the dark and made it to the light. And now it's time for the raising of a frosty libation, some quick words of wisdom and a puff of the smoke (oh damn it...I gave that up) before I bid you farewell.