one in a zillion

1989- freshman year. Marq finds a perfectly round rock in the gravel of the Quad and we develop a shared worldview that highlights how special we are.

What are the odds right? It must be extremely rare that a rock is formed or eroded into a perfect sphere (the proof being that neither of us had EVER seen a perfectly round rock before).

Then add to it the odds that a perfectly round rock would just happen to be in the gravel path leading to our dormitory, and that we would be the ones to find it.

We spent the rest of the day reveling in our new found optimism, having learned from our discovery that the world is full of magic, miracles can happen and that everyone and everything in the universe was connected and in sync (it only took one rock).

Oh, the blissful Eden of ignorance! Our only mistake was to share our discovery. Had we kept it between the two of us, we might still be riding that cosmic high.

It was Adam who sent our new belief system back into the void.

He took one look at our treasure and he told us that it was a marble.

Disappointed would be an understatement.

i felt something intangible inside me collapse and shatter.

i knew as soon as he said it that he was right.

i realized there had been a voice inside my head all along; telling me that whatever the explanation for the round rock, that it was totally "normal"- i.e. not special.

Marq helped me drown out that voice.

In case anyone reading this knew/knows Marq, and has wondered what drew us to each other, I was very briefly able to see the world through different eyes because of her.

Because of her round rock.

This fleeting glimpse of a rose-colored world has helped me get through many things since then. I hope it's helped her in some way too.

if it's Borden...

I spent about 20 years carting around a can of Borden's chocolate condensed milk.

I must have moved about 45 times and it was always right there in my cupboard.
every one who had any reason to go into my kitchen cupboard asked about that can.

"what is that?"

I told everyone that it was my cure for a really bad day.

"what do you do with it?"

I told everyone that it was the recipe for sunshine in a can; just add can opener and a spoon.
the truth is i had never even tried it.
i don't even know where the can came from.
then one day, I DID have a really bad day.

and I ate it.

it was terrible.
it wasn't even very chocolatey.
needless to say, I haven't bothered to buy a new can.

it did improve my mood, though. I hadn't laughed in days, but I couldn't contain the ironic hilarity.
I was laughing so hard that I almost spit out the gooey mess at least half a dozen times.

it wasn't pretty.

a return to AVALON

no druids in this one... sorry to you fantasy folk who ended up here by mistake.

my 35th birthday! perhaps the Golden Age of my human lifespan? everything and everyone seemed almost balanced (except Lou who was temporarily out of the picture).

i convinced JJ & Big Mac to go to Boston to celebrate. John and Shaun might have been there too- and the Hawaiian Republican guy and possibly someone else?

we stayed at Ross's apartment just outside the city and drove into Avalon (now closed) on a Sunday night- just like i used to every week when i lived in the Harvard dormitory supply closet.

i remember doing some shots.

i remember some drag queen noticing that i kept puking in between shots.

i remember the crazy raver girl DJ played the house classic "Voices", a favorite of mine!

i remember the traditional end of the night trip to IHOP.

and then, just to emblazon the event in my memory forever, the very next day i ended up with the responsibility of telling everyone who spent the night at Ross's to check themselves for Phthirus pubis (crabs).

Yup.

a near miss for everyone but JJ, who had transported critters back across state lines.

it took about 6 months before he agreed it was a funny story...