April and Chris

She's getting married tomorrow. To the man she danced with at his senior prom, the guy she used to gush and giggle about with me in Ms. Ryan's computer class. It's like a fairy tale.

I first saw April in my 7th grade gym class. She was wearing a white tee shirt with a cookie on it.
Neither of us were very good at gym. (Thankfully, in a high school built on the high holy virtues of academia, it didn't matter and we were often excused to sit on the side lines and cram for Latin exams.*)

That night,  I noticed she was also in the Tuesday night CCD class for all of us public school kids in West Roxbury. I don't remember who approached whom, but we started talking, and soon our desks were pushed together.  We lived in the same part of town (separated by The Woods and The Quarry), loved doc martins, fishnet tights, and The Offspring (before and after they 'sold out').
Very quickly, very clearly, we were inseparable.

April and I both kept journals in those cheap, cardboard covered composition notebooks you can get at CVS for a dollar. Every few days we'd trade journals, spending time in class or on the bus reading one another's most secret thoughts. Sometimes we'd write responses directly into the other one's book. Sometimes we'd use the journals to have entire real time conversations in class or study hall.
Because of that, for a long time April and I were like two halves of one mind.

We vacationed with one another's families, referred to one another's parents as "Second Mom," and "Second Dad," had sleepovers, fell in and out of love with different boys, watched The Craft or Empire Records at least once every few months, and created a fantasy story about what our lives would be like as grownups in a notebook separate from our journals, which we also passed back and forth. You know, like all teenage girls do.**

Although we shared a very close core group of friends, April was my closest. In all the time we spent together, I do not remember a single fight.***

During our senior year she and  Chris started dating. Chris was a guy she had known she she was eleven, and had hated until recently re-meeting him. I liked Chris, and I liked her and Chris together. They dated until almost Thanksgiving of our freshman year in college, and then - and here's where the fairy tale gets complicated - they broke up.

Unfortunately, by then, April and I had also drifted considerably. I didn't even  know that she and Chris had broken up until long after it happened. Through the next five years April and I lived very different lives, separated by geography and newly evolving interests.
While we were both seniors, Chris and April got back together and started dating seriously again.

April and I are also back in touch.
I can barely begin to express how blessed I feel that I will get to be there tomorrow when she and Chris stand up in front of everyone and promise each other the rest of their lives.

Congrats, April and Chris.
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* I don't know how the gym classes are now. But that's how I remember it, at least.
** We figured we both be in a rock band. So the story was about life on the road. And boys.
*** April, you can correct me if I'm wrong here... but nothing really jumps out at me.

LOST

This entry is not about LOST.

I never have never even seen a minute of an episode of LOST.
But Liz C. is in town and in the spirit of friendship I now find myself sitting  Shannon's house gearing up to watch the very last episode ever.

I was wearing a surgical mask to protect me from cat dander* which I had to take off to eat our order of "Wings". We ordered Wings over Amherst all the time in college and have taken this tiny reunion as an opportunity to munch on chicken together even though Shannon's boyfriend Ted doesn't like the franchise's recipes as much as we do.

As we watch the official LOST recap that is airing right now I am struck by a few things.

First of all, I kind of wish I had been watching LOST all along. I guess I did miss out on a huge cultural phenomenon. Years from now I will have to admit that I didn't watch it and people will look at me the way I look at them now if they say they never saw the episode of Punky Brewster where Cherry locks herself in a refrigerator and almost dies.**

But mostly I am struck by how lucky I am to have the friends I have. I love to sit here by the window in this apartment, a black cat at my feet (a bottle of fexofenadine by my hand), and Liz and Shan on the couch across from me trading jokes about LOST. And in between jokes about LOST, just trading stories.
 A minute ago two other close friends who live upstairs stopped by the window behind me and I made faces at their baby. Ted is delivering a rant about season three. We are going to eat ice cream soon. Then I'll put my surgical mask back on.

I'm happy.

I'm not going to understand a single thing that happens in the next two hours. And honestly, when the show starts I am probably just going to sit here and continue working on the script for Gorefest.

But I am glad I came here. I always am.

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*I am not the most stylish person you know, but I am the most fun to take places.
** RIGHT?

my city's still breathing but barely it's true

Wednesday was the kind of day at work where I suddenly would realize I'd been holding my breath and I wouldn't know for how long I had been doing it but how could I have possibly gone that long without taking a breath -

and then I would exhale. But then a little while later it would happen again. For twelve hours I had to keep reminding myself not to hold my breath.

Yesterday wasn't a much slower day. It became apparent even before 8:00am as I moved past another nurse in the hall.

"You just sighed," he pointed out, "everything ok?"

"Oh that, " I replied reluctantly, "that was just me breathing."

I got out of work late, tired but restless. I pushed through the throngs of people waiting outside of BMC for the bus and decided to walk to the next stop. Then the bus caught up but all those people from the BMC stop were already on it. So I kept walking. I missed two more buses and before I knew it I was at the Mass Ave bridge. It was now 5pm, and I had spent most of my walk talking on the phone to my mother.

I wondered if I had been breathing much. I guessed not.

So I stopped on the bridge. I put the phone away.

The sky to the East was a muted, periwinkle blue, but pearly and back lit, and it perfectly matched the color of the ice covering the Charles. Despite the wide semicircle of dark buildings dotted with glowing lights, splitting the sky from the water, it was possible to view the two as one entity. The regularity of the car lights coming and going against the neat rows of building lights gave the scene a methodical, orderly feel that was altogether reassuring. Still the effect of constant sparkling against the dark concrete and steel frameworks hinted of faery lights, mischief, and magic. The old John Hancock Building (now the Berkeley Building) lit its weather beacon as I watched lights turn off in the offices on floors below. Behind me the sunset was tinging the clouds light orange behind the Citgo sign.

I stood there for a very long time. In the middle of the city that I love, walkers, joggers and bicyclists passed me by. I put my hands on the railing and watched the ice and the sky fade at the same rate.

And I just breathed.

Ten Years of M I S C H

I realized that I came up with the spelling of my nickname exactly 10 years ago.
Since the decade is almost over, I've started thinking about other things like that.
What is in my life that I had ten years ago? What didn't I have? What did I lose?
What would happen if 1999 Misch met 2009 Misch?

2009: Hop in!
1999: Nice car.
2009: Was that sarcastic?
1999: No... I like it. Purple-ness.
2009: Good. Because I was going to point out that you don't have a car.
1999: Blah blah blah. Are you just going to point out the obvious material differences between us? We could also talk about my long hair or how awesome Napster is.

(silence)

1999: Sorry. Thanks for picking me up. Where're we going?
2009: My place. Cambridge. Figured I'd make us some dinner.
1999: Cambridge? Really? Not New York? Not Paris?
2009: It's actually really great. Not far from work, close to Improv Boston...
1999: You perform at Improv Boston?
2009: Sometimes. A ton of my friends do. Mostly I'm on the mainstage at Improv Asylum.
1999: What!? Where we went for Josh's birthday? That's ridiculous! When... uh, do I get funny?
2009: In a couple years you'll get tired of just playing Anne Frank all the time and start to tell jokes.
1999: Cool. So... what college do I pick?
2009: UMass Amherst. By the way, when one of the instructors from your Broadway in Boston workshop says you should skip college, move with him to the city and get famous overnight... try not to get too wrapped up in the whole thing.
1999: Right. So... theater major?
2009: Nursing.
1999: Ha. You got the comedian thing down pat.
2009: Seriously. I'm a nurse.
1999: Misch, I HATE the sight of blood and I almost throw up when I even think about throw up.
2009: Mind over matter. You kind of force yourself over it and then before you know it you're covered in bone marrow but thinking about lunch time.
1999: Gross.
2009: Yep.

2009: You want the radio on?
1999: (makes a face) I brought some music.
2009: Hmm.. Op Ivy, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Phish, Blue Oyster Cult, The Goo Goo Dolls -
1999: - from before they sold out...
2009: Uh huh. Reel Big Fish, AFI, The Vandals, The Cardigans. The Cardigans?
1999: I also have this mix CD April made me for my birthday.
2009: Let's go with Pink Floyd for now.
1999: Oh crap, it's Saturday. I have to go to church in the morning. Do you.. want to come?
2009: Of course.
1999: (visibly relieved) Oh good. So that doesn't change.
2009: Some of it changes. The way you think about the same old things.
1999: Well you're clearly not in a convent so I'm probably going to sleep better at night.
2009: There's still time.
1999: Eep!

2009: Jeepers. I forgot about "eep!"
1999: What else did you forget about?
2009: I forgot how weirdly you dress. What is that? Is that a tablecloth? The safety pin in your ear is a nice touch. You're like a Janis Joplin had a baby with Sid Vicious. We should go to the Garment District while we're over here.
1999: I don't know, I should watch it. Dad and I have been fighting about my clothes.
2009: He's not really upset you know. He just doesn't want people to think you're on drugs.
1999: I know. But I'm not. I'm straight edge for life!
2009: Right. That was fun while it lasted. Anyway, towards the end of high school, into college things get much better with you and them.
1999: And now?
2009: Things are fine.
1999: What?
2009: What, "what"?
1999: You made a weird face.
2009: Oh. I didn't mean to. Never mind.

2009: You know what your New Year's plans are yet?
1999: Adam's coming over and we're hanging out with Liz and Ross and Tim.
2009: Heh. I remember that night. I still see Adam around. Good guy.
1999: Oh hey - do Liz and Ross end up married?
2009: Not... exactly. Liz... changed a bit. Go home and check out johnnyblazes.com.
1999: How about you? Do you... do I end up with Tim?
2009: Ha. You don't want me to spoil the rest of your year for you, do you?
1999: Kind of.
2009: You do, and it's great but no, it's not forever.
1999: Good he's gross.
2009: Please. You can lie to everyone else but you can't lie to me.

1999: I guess that's true.
2009: Exactly true.

1999: Do you remember when you had to write about where you'll be in 10 years?
I didn't know what to write so I just wrote "happy."
2009: Which was a cop out, but yeah. It's all I could think of.

1999: So, are you? I mean, with everything? Family, relationships, work... are you really happy?
2009: (silence) Yeah. I really am. In ways I never could have imagined. I'm really, really happy.

1999: Finally.