Just sent out a mass of emails. Somehow it made me feel better than I should. I was up again at 4am, but not doing shots like the other day. Just playing Fishdom, the video game that has swallowed a big chunk of my life the past year and more.
I wrote to two people to ask if they remembered the name of the girl I was talking about yesterday, the Perfect Person. One was Pete, a friend from school. The other was Suzette, a woman whose name and e-mail are in the alumni magazine as a person to send alumni updates to. I actually remember her as the friend of another friend, Stacy G. But I don’t think we ever had a conversation. Stacy and I corresponded for years after high school and college. She signed all her letters “Love and Laughter”.
The Perfect Person who died in the horrible plane wreck was Stacie Sierra. I never, ever would have remembered her name without asking others. The details were every bit as horrible as I thought. The plane, piloted by her father, fell apart in midair and landed in a snake-infested swamp somewhere in Alabama. God, what a horrible way to go. I found a few stories about it on newspapers.com, which confirm what I remember people saying about her. She was saint-like. Studying Computer Science and, by all accounts, just as perfect a person as God could make. I know, of course, that sympathies might cause survivors to embellish their memories. But the incident really did have a profound impact on those she knew. I remember getting the Tampa Tribune story in the mail and just sitting still in my college room, frozen in shock. A particular poignancy about the Tribune article (as best I can recall) was how it ended with familiar names of people I knew from school, but with the words “pallbearer” and “honor guard” appended. It was a sobering moment for me in realizing how quickly things can happen, and how our roles in life can suddenly change. No way were any of those guys on hand at the funeral anticipating the role they would play. And, not for nothing, but it’s pretty damn cool that she, a woman, was studying computer science in 1988. Then more than now the field of computers was a sausagefest.
In other randomness it sounds like a bartender friend from New York is going to be in Key West the week Pete is playing in a band at a Saloon there. There are 3 webcams at the bar. It would be hilarious if Chris (the bartender from here) could get to that bar and I saw both him and Pete on the webcam. Worlds collide. Don’t know if it will happen but it sounds like fun, at least for me.
Pete talked a bit about the 30th high school reunion, which I guess happened about a year ago. I guess he never got my message in which I commented on the fact that the band he was in back in high school played at the reunion. My comment was that I didn’t understand why they didn’t call me to see if I’d be interested in performing Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.” Yeah, right.
I had no interest in attending the 30th but I was for some reason added to an email list where a few dozen alumni discussed the scheduling and reservations and everything. Being added to that email list without asking made me feel similar to how I felt as a student back in 1982-1986: Like I was not supposed to be there.
One time someone on the list made a comment about how our high school “formed us as men”, or something like that. I was drunk but not drunk enough to respond as I would have wanted, saying that our high school had formed me into a degenerate alcoholic goes to church only to masturbate and record lurid podcast episodes.
A correspondent of 20+ years did something I did not think she ever would. She sent me a picture of herself. She is cute. I always suspected as much, based only on the way she talks about herself and how easy it seems to be for her to find men. I think she’s 52 now. I also surmised she was a hottie when she showed me a picture of her daughter, who I thought was pretty as hell. I never said that, of course, since it could have been interpreted as a little creepy even though that was the farthest sentiment from my mind.
Tom stopped in to show the bathroom to a contractor. Any time Tom comes by he pounds the door so fucking hard I swear it’s going to bust open. Even when I know he’s coming it is startling as hell.
At the Windmill. Kids in the schoolyard on the other side of the fence are playing and screaming but not paying me any mind. That is their plan, to lull me into complacency so they can ambush me in a moment of peace.
I should feel worse than I do but the lack of vodka shots this past 4am seems to have salvaged my clarity. I’m actually fearing that the basketballs these kids are playing with might sail over the fence and smack me in the head. It actually just came close to happening. Think I’ll go to the relative safety ghetto coffee shop.
…
Hah, more memories from high school. It sounds like the alumni rep and I might have sat at the same table at that Sadie Hawkins dance or prom or whatever it was where Stacie Sierra was Prom Queen or Homecoming Queen. Suzette was good friends with Dan, who was a year ahead of me. Real nice guy. My date and I did not exactly hit it off so I ended up talking to Dan most of the night. Hah. I actually thought he went on to become a priest but it may be a case of someone else with the same name.
I also asked if she is still in touch with Stacy G., who I looked up a long time ago. At the time she was married and living in Georgia, I think. Think I said this already but Stacy G. and I corresponded for years after high school and college.
Thought I was feeling better than I should but then it started to hit me. Yugh. I did not drink especially much but it was on top of not much food. Might take a panic pill later. Thinking I do not want to drink at all during the Tampa trip. This would go against everything the Sunswick friends think they know about me.
I had one beer at Gleason’s last night. I have not been there since the week they opened, which was in 2009 and not 2008, as their sign claims. They were supposed to open in 2008 but that didn’t happen, for whatever reason. The one time I was there was to celebrate with Tina’s husband on her getting pregnant. I barely know her husband, then as now, but it was a nice gathering. It’s funny how it fit exactly with my memory of being there that one time. The bar stools are just a little too high, like a quarter inch, and the image of Jackie Gleason has me asking once again how that place gets away with using his name and likeness. Is there an arrangement with the estate? I somehow doubt it.
I remember a band in college named itself Igor Stravinsky. They were issued a cease and desist order from the Stravinsky estate. In a similar spirit I knew a composer who titled a piece of music “International Business Machines.” IBM wanted badly to sue but they could not because they owned a trademark on “International Business Machine” singular, not the plural. Or maybe it was the other way around. Who cares…
