I am lucky because in addition to having a caring family and a loving partner, I also have wonderful friends. One of them, who rises above the generic label of friend into some nebulous description no one has quite succeeded in defining, is Danny.
I have known Danny for 14 years since we both attended summer camp/school at a prep school in Connecticut the summer before our senior year of high school. In the same program, we ate dinner together with a bunch of our classmates one night when the dining hall served chicken. The chicken was a little undercooked, so Danny and I took the lead in trying to reincarnate the birds, figuring they were closer to living than to dead. You can see how that would cement any friendship.
We spent a lot of time together during those six weeks. He dragged me on an amusement park ride I didn’t want to go on at Riverside. I got both of us in trouble at The Met in New York.
We kept in touch through first letters and then phone calls senior year (my mother probably really wished I’d made good friends with someone in the local calling area), and then it became de rigueur for me to drive up there on Saturdays. We saw a lot of movies and spent a lot of time at the mall, hanging out in the inadequate bookstore and watching snippets of videos at the Disney store.
We adopted a cat together, which we then had to give up (he, because his grandparents wouldn’t let him keep it, and I, because I was too chicken to ask my folks, although the kitten did come home with me for the night, much to my own cat’s dismay).
We invented a rule of absolutes that would suffice as a universal law for why things had to happen the way I said they did. This came in handy with math proofs. (It does not come in handy with Rudi, who refuses to believe that I should be endowed with such power.)
Danny and Karen gave me my nickname, soe, although they are amongst the few friends who do not use it.
We made a pact that neither of us is allowed to die, regardless of whatever stupid things we do or that happen to us. (This rule makes some other people feel left out; it is not meant to. It also is meant as more of a fail-safe than as carte-blanche to test its boundaries.)
Our friendship has survived late night phone calls, hurtful emails, four years of college, self-destructive behavior, secrets, revelations, a cross-country move, a vacation, two car breakdowns, my senior prom, and family woes.
We have a bond that is unlike any other I have — one that is bound through time and space and lifetimes. We are lucky to have found relationships that are accepting of and unthreatened by this bond, but I suppose that’s part of why we picked the men we did — because they could respect such a powerful love.
So, Danny, I wish you a happy birthday today. It’s been a wonderful friendship so far. And luckily we have the rest of eternity for it to continue in.
Nice comments. Wasn’t there also a skating injury and an emergency stick driving lesson. …Trouble? Met?…Cat visit? Happy birthday, Danny.
Comment by DOD 07.08.05 @ 1:00 pmDad’s right. I had given Danny a few lessons driving stick on my Tin Can before I had a rollerblading accident that necessitated that he drive me home. Ultimately, he did fine, but I never went back to rollerblading (although I did eventually move onto the street that I had the accident on).
Comment by soe 07.08.05 @ 1:18 pmAh – rollarblading, it seemed like such a good idea for entertainment mixed with exercise. We learned two important rollar-training lessons:
1) The first thing that should be taught about rollar blades is how to stop. 2) It’s important to become comfortable practicing on a flat surface before attempting to play on a hill.
Of course we learned these lessons not through trial, but the other one. My summer apartment was halfway up a steeply sloped street. It seemed so logical at the time to ask: Do we want to start out with easy and have to work hard to get back, or do the hard part first and then have an easy ride back? Up, up, up we climbed, tiring ourselves out fighting gravity. We pause to decide whether we have had enough of uphill… or rather, I paused, and wondered where Kirstin was going. Screams followed, and something about “I don’t know how to STOP!”
The street we were in was not particularly busy. Main street, the cross street at the bottom of the hill, that was another story.
Main street was avoided by a high speed turn onto another unbusy street that ended at the apartment. High speed turn became high speed tumble.
When dealing with someone who has recently impacted the asphalt at high velocity, wearing rollar blades, who keeps fainting, there’s lots to think about an do. Get her our of the street, get the wheeled foot apparel off her – check. Take the wheeled foot apparel off your own feet before trying to be a crutch to lean on – missed that one. Find first aid supplies – uh.. college summer apartment? We could have packed her scraped knees in macaroni, but I don’t think there was anything like rubbing alcohol or sterile gauze any closer than Peltons Drugs. She says she’s okay, but still keeps fainting, and wants to go home – good thing we’ve practiced driving stick a second time since that near-accident at the West Farms parking lot where we learned that enough gas will make the emergency brake irrelevant.
Today’s driving lesson was that while First and Third are relatively close together, and the car really wants to stall if you are starting in third, once again, this too can be overcome with enough gas. (Now I have my own stick shift, which I got so I wouldn’t be one of those people who only sorta kinda knows how to drive one, and I’ve since learned that they are more forgiving for putting things in the wrong gear the more you have worn out the clutch. And that when the get really forgiving like that, you should have them replaced BEFORE you lose all power while driving uphill on the freeway on the way to the mechanic so you don’t have to use AAA to tow you the rest of the way).
Other lessons we learned:
Fish really like sugar wafers, but are not so keen on Doritos.
Mueseums typically don’t want you to touch stuff, nor do they want you to sit on their front steps.
Thank you for the Birthday Wishes, Kirstin. In my speech to the East Hartford High graduating class of 1992 I told them to “Keep their innocence.” I’m not sure how well I have done at following my own advice; I think I’m much more cynical and “grown up” than I would have liked to imagine for my future at 17. Despite that, there’s still a part of me that believes in unicorns, and to get to that part all I have to do is think of you.
Comment by Grey Kitten 07.13.05 @ 6:47 pm