It was the summer of '99...

Last night I had a best-friends date with First String. It is right in between our birthdays, so we decided to take each other out as a little celebration, because it's just been too long!

I went over to his house, to see some of the work he and his wife have been doing and to play with their doggies, and we hung out for a while, talking with the missus (yes, that's Mrs. String). We ended up really discussing my trip to Seattle and the, um, "interesting" (read: codependent, unhealthy, and insanely annoying!) relationship that my brother and his girlfriend have. It was super fun to just get to chat with them, and his wife and I REALLY never get to talk, but we had a Fake Date to go on! (Yes, I know, dating married men again... but at least I know this one is married [ummm, hello, I was in the wedding party!] and his wife saw us off!)

After some deliberation, a few wrong turns, much goofiness, and First String having to "pull this car over" (I'm bad!), we ended up at a fun Mexican restaurant for dinner. (Mexican food is my favorite!)(I got to pick where we went for dinner, and he got to pick the movie.)(Fair!) In the car, First String had informed me that a book he had written years ago just got picked up by a publisher. YAY, congrats First String!!! (I may end up pimping the book, here or offline, when it comes out. Stay tuned...) We started the meal discussing his book and its genre, but then our conversation veered to our other friends, high school, and some of our favorite memories. We both (immediately) agreed that the summer of '99 was the best we could remember, but neither of us could pinpoint the exact reason.

The Summer of '99
(This will be updated as I remember things, or as First String reminds me...)

° First String dating "The Divorcee" (who was later nicknamed "The Stalker" after she spent on entire day at the beach, waiting for us to show up, when First String made an offhand mention that we might be there)
° me going on dates with First String and "The Divorcee," without either one of us considering how she may have felt about that (we blame it on a mix of obliviousness and apathy)
° getting our first tattooes (for my 18th birthday, the boys took me out to do ALL the things that I could legally do now that I was 18...)(I got my first tattoo and then, a little later that summer, First String got his [only] tat, too!)
° when First String went to go get his tattoo, it was me, him, our other friend, and The Divorcee. First String squeezed my hand hard enough to crack the bones (I, on the other hand, had not been a giant pussy like that when I got mine, but that's neither here nor there! Heh heh heh.) and his "girlfriend" looked on, pissyfaced because he was crushing my hand and not hers. Then, when we got outside, our friend gave her a lecture on why she shouldn't be jealous. Looking back on it now, we were laughing our asses off... and kinda wondering why she would put up with us at all...
° my "Summer of Love" with our other best friend, BJ (we were BORED!)
° going to movies, hanging out, eating Mexican food (every. single. day!!!)
° taking the dogs to the beach
° going to the Fair
° playing the Roxanne/red light drinking game with Jonny (We only talk about Jon sometimes, not rarely but not often either. It is draining and sad and filled with hurt and missing and, honestly, some bitterness too. We brought him up last night because there is no way he can be left out of talks of the past, he is in all our memories, and he was always there. First String still has dreams about him. I do, too.)
° mostly what we remembered was having so much energy-- working all day at our various jobs, then hanging out all night, AND dating and hooking up and just running amok as best friends do in the last summers before everything changes
° We were inseparable, this dynamic bunch of friends, and we look back and wonder. What would it be like, now? It wouldn't be the same, we know that, but those days and nights are among our sweetest rememberings...

The dinner, obviously, was a long one. An emotional one, too, without being dramatic, just letting emotions gently ebb and flow and roll from one into the next, as they are all interconnected. Laughing, softly and then harder, staring off, lost in a memory, and trying to see those long-past sunshine-y days, sadness, fondness, love, all of it just surrounding us, reminding us why we are still so close, even after 13 years.

When we came back to 2008, we looked at the time and were surprised to see how late it had gotten! There was talk of abandoning the movie but, damnit, it was First String's turn to pick, and we don't do this nearly often enough, so we made our way over to the movie theaters. After looking at all the options, he chose "The Strangers" (I knew he was going to do that-- his wife HATES scary movies, so he and I usually end up seeing them together! Even though (shh...) I am freaked by them, too). We had a few minutes before the movie started, so we watched the first ten or so minutes of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and saw HIMYM dude's penis three times in just those first ten minutes!

Entering the movie theater for our movie, we both instantly beelined straight for the back row, remembering that that's where we always used to sit, when we were 18 and 20. The movie started and by the first glimpse of the guy in the weird sack-mask (that's in the commercials, it's not giving anything away!), I knew I did not like this movie. I spent the rest of the hour and a half with my shoulder pressed against First String's, one hand holding my jacket up to half-cover my face, and the other grabbing his wrist at the jumpy moments. I was seriously so tense throughout the freakshow that I felt like I was going to throw up. And the movie wasn't even GOOD! It relied a lot on cheap scare tactics and gore. (Oh, and the ending was HORRIBLE and unnecessary.) That didn't stop me from freaking out, though!

After we said good night, and after First String kept saying scary things in his "creepy" voice, I got into my car and immediately called the SS Hottie. I knew it was late (after midnight), but I had missed a call and text from him, and I knew he had been at a show, so I was hoping he would be awake. My call went to voicemail, though, so I left a message telling him I was okay, just being a baby about being scared, and to call me if he was still up or I would talk to him tomorrow. Then I called Funny Man and made him stay on the phone with me until I got home and got inside safely (and walked through the entire house, poking things with a broom, checking for people wearing creepy masks). He reassured me that I would be fine, made fun of me gently for a bit, and then distracted me with talk of birthday presents!

I hung up with Funny Man, surprisingly feeling better, and decided to take my dog for a quick walk. Normally I would not be excited about wandering around close to 1:00 am, after seeing a scary movie, but my dog is tough and I had bigger things to contemplate-- like what I want for my birthday, and what I want to do for my birthday, and what I can convince all my friends to do for MY BIRTHDAY (did I mention that I have a birthday coming up? Hee hee hee!)-- so we ventured forth into the night. (And we were fine.)

However, when I came back into the house, my phone, still on vibrate from the movie, was buzzing to let me know that I had 4 missed calls and a bunch of texts. What the hell? It was SS Hottie, and he freaked me out when, working back from the texts, I read that he looked down at his phone as I was calling (he was driving), looked up in time to hit a semi, and totalled the front end of his car. Holy shit! I called him back and he told me that he was okay but he was in the tow truck, having his car towed to his mechanic, and he would call me back if I wasn't going to sleep right away. Ummm... fuck no! I wasn't sure that I would be going to sleep the rest of the night! He called me back later, as I had worked myself into a true freak-out imagining all sorts of horrible things (despite knowing that he was in a tow truck and not, say, an ambulance!). He assured me that he was fine, told me to stop apologizing for calling and promising (threatening?) not to call anymore, and reminded me that this is why he has insurance. He sounded calm, not at all stressed out or worried, and that calmed me, temporarily. Until he said good night, and promised to call me tomorrow, and for whatever reason, I lost it as I hung up. I sobbed into my pillow, crying because I will never be 18 again, and because I am not getting married (and I don't even know if I want to!), and because there are people I miss SO much it aches, constantly, and because I don't like scary movies, and things can never be the same, and what if someone DID want to get into my house?, and because I live alone and the only person into whose bed I wanted to crawl was hours and dreams away, and because sometimes SS Hottie worries me, even though he was okay, but what if? and what about? and how come? and because, sometimes, there are just too many emotions.

My dog crawled up to curl up tightly against my chest, put her paw on my arm, and sighed as I cried myself to sleep.