sustained

I'm so excited to see my old friend richard! OMG! I'm too excited to make up a pseudonym for him though I'm sure I've used one to talk about him before. I wish I'd known in advance he was coming to town. On the other hand it was way cool to get a phone call out of nowhere "I'm here! La!" So I'm going to try to haul ass on my homework and housework, and go meet Richard and his wife for some early morning tide-pooling!

I have my binoculars and 'pacific intertidal life" and bird book all a-quiver!

Why don't I make more effort to be in touch with Richard? He's so lovely and goofy! We have a weird history going way back. Suddenly, we're middle aged!

Last time I saw him, I think I wrote that smelling his scalp was like the fountain of youth - he smelled exactly the same, which made me strangely happy. And he talks in that same sententious way. All his strange, heavy, mysterious Theories about love and friendship! His wack-ass sense of humor! Suddenly I miss him, and I also miss G. like crazy and his mad writings. why do we let things pull us apart? Are we really apart? I still think of R. and of G. all the time as sort of intellectual reference points but this is actually silly as their real existence has diverged so far from when we used to know each other.

Comments

[Jo]

TOtally. Grok. What you're saying.

[Steph]

I don't think we are really apart, and I know exactly what you're talking about because I have those same (well, some of the same) memories and feelings about those same people. We're reference points for one other.

Did I write to you that I went to a random party in Brooklyn and met a random person who taught at Richard's college and had been interviewed by him? Very small world.

Say hi for me.