Looking Glass

On the eve of a new month, let's do a weekend recap shall we? Tuesday was another showing of Sam's films, this time the "sadistic feel good movie of the year," as said by Amit. Wednesday I thought I would go to a panel about whether or not philosophy matters -- featuring some of the talking heads from Astra Taylor's Examined Life, including Cornel West -- but it must have been windy or something because I didn't end up going. When I arrived in New York three months ago, I was braver about going to events alone, but now I've settled into the "is anyone going to come with me" routine and if not, then I tend to not go. I best shake that so I can get out to things more.

Thursday was a pure highlight as I went to watch Phantom of the Opera. I can't recall if I've ever seen it on Broadway but I doubt it. I think I've seen Phantom twice in Los Angeles and once in San Diego. I think I was around twelve; it was my first musical and it blew my mind. My friend Justin and his family took me to see it over fifteen years ago and as Music of the Night spooled out on this night, I was reminded of how many seminal experiences his family provided me.

Justin and I met in fifth grade, the first day I started private school. We got along immediately as we were both new kids and more importantly, into the same dorky things. When I think back on it, hanging out with Justin gave me so many interests that shaped my identity. He got me listening to Guns and Roses (and Yanni); he lent me Dragonlance books; we played D&D, Magic, and every board game together; he showed me Herzog Zwei and Dune II; we swapped Game Boy games; we fashioned daggers out of wood and field tested a lot of slingshots. His house had a game room that was a kid's playground along with a pool and a giant trampoline outside. Justin was always taller, stronger, faster, and better at most sports.

In middle school, we liked the same red headed girl and I can still remember our exact conversation very clearly. It was eighth grade, in-between classes, when Justin announced, "I like a girl, guess who."

"I dunno."

"There's only two girls with her hair color in our grade." I knew immediately who it was of course, but purposefully guessed the other one.

"Nope," he said, then he said my crush's name. Somehow liking the same girl was cause for excitement at twelve years old, I'm not sure why. It never became a thing between us as he shifted crushes eventually while I was left hanging onto mine for years afterward. I was all about commitment then I guess.

Justin also once asked me: "Do you think you prefer when a girl is completely nude or skimpily dressed?" Having about negative interest in girls at the time, I blurted out an answer and then listened intently as Justin rationalized out to me why that was the wrong answer.

Eventually, when I did start to semi-notice girls, we developed a not so elaborate code for talking about them. It consisted of numerically tagging each one with their first and last initials. For example, "Melissa Bruce" was referred to as "13-2." M being the thirteenth letter of the alphabet and so on. Eventually we created codes and acronyms for a lot of things. It felt great to have a shared language and indulge in secrets, even if in retrospect they don't seem overly clever and I can't imagine now who we were hiding these things from.

During this time, Justin's family took me along on a lot of their trips and exposed me to things my family would have never done. Camping, house boating on Lake Powell, jet skiing, pancakes with powdered sugar in the mornings. Musicals.

Somewhere along the way, our best friendship was replaced by his best friendship with a new kid that came in around high school. I theorized that it was possibly because I lived further away from the two of them and they started hanging out with actual girls in school. I mean, the two of them went to dances and presumably had first kisses and stuff by the time we graduated.

I'm not even Facebook friends with Justin so I can't even find out what he's up to. Actually I just did a quick Google check and he's nowhere to be found, which is strange because he was one of the first people to get onto Usenets and was into computers way before anyone else I knew. Justin tested as a borderline genius and is probably really successful somewhere right now. Maybe one day I'll find out.

Friday night I went to two young adult books things, a reading in Brooklyn and a drinks mixer in Midtown. Saturday we went to a Bootie Mashup party in Brooklyn, which was both a success and a disaster. On Sunday I watched the Celtics take Game Zero of the 2011 Finals. The week didn't feel busy but I guess it was.