Friends

This evening, I went to visit Pat. I almost didn't...the rain and the long work day almost got the better of me, and I even concocted a whole list of imaginitive ways to cancel...but. It occurs to me that I cancel a lot. Not for good reasons, but because I'm too tired or don't want to deal with it. This time I decided I had to suck it up.

And basically..I'm just so glad I went. It took me FOREVER to get there, between having dinner with my dad and waiting for HIM to finish and then ending up sitting in the tunnel when the red line stopped like a mazillion times. But...I got bubble tea upon arrival, so everything worked out. It was really great to get back to Northeastern and remember everything just as I left it, as though I hadn't been gone at all. Everything, from the ding of the green line to the ubiquitous invisible puddles was so familiar. It occurs to me that Northeastern has screwed me over so much but basically nothing will ever make me fundamentally dislike it. I'll love being there for as long as I live.

So I got to see Pat's shiny new room on Huntington, and his bling new computer. Justin was there also, and we had a mini anime marathon of some anime that began with a B...I don't remember what it was, but it was decent enough to keep my interest. The anime didn't matter though. It was just being there that was amazing, being around my friends and seeing them again after what FEELS like an eternity even though it was only two weeks. It was just so enjoyable sharing their company and it's a strange realization to me that I have actually made friends this past year that can actually make me feel this way. In some strange sense, I'm still shocked that I'm capable of making new friends. The Crew is different...it's always been there, and it always will be there, and with such a strong foundation I sometimes find myself wondering if I'm capable of moving outside it, but seriously, I love Pat and Justin and everyone else. So, so much. It profoundly saddens me that I'm going to be leaving them but that doesn't make me any less glad that I came to know them in the first place.

Basically, the moral of this story is that I'm going to have to visit them a lot before they go off co-op >>

The only downside of visiting is having to take the late train back, because I hate the train anyway and being surrounded by sketchy drunk people makes it even worse. But tonight something interesting happened...I put my head deeply into a book, trying to tune out the rest of the raucous passengers, when suddenly a little pamphlet and card slipped onto the text, and I saw a short black woman had just handed them to me from the side. It was a folded page saying "what's your legend?" with lots of photos of women. Unfolded, it had lots of messages about beauty, and unfolded further, it proved to be an ad for a transgender society. At first I was confused, but then remembered that there are pins on my bag announcing myself as GLBT, so she must have noticed. I looked up, and smiled, and she winked at me, and it was just a cool moment. People who don't live with public transit, it might be hard to understand why two people on the train having a shared moment like that would be extraordinary, but it was.

It was a nice little cap to a wonderful night.

Hoy Ya Me Voy Amor

I love this song. It's really refreshing. While there are SO many songs that talk about the pain of having someone leave you, of trying to overcome a lost love...this kind of turns it around. She's singing about the pain of having to leave, not for the more generic reason of "you treat me bad so I gotta leave you even though I wish I didn't", but instead because she's with a loving partner and she sadly doesn't return their feelings.

It's good to have a song like this, I think.