Youthful Misadventures

5 am visits to the local diner radiohead on the jukebox, and another quarter pulled out from under his sleeve “no surprises”. Riding in his bright green beetle, the Lesbian, listening to his music collection. He introduced me to the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. Randomly running into him late at night in our college library, or by the campus cafeteria. I remember he was a scorpio, because we were born a couple of days apart. He used to ride a longboard to class and he had long shaggy dry hair he wore in a bun and square glasses that drew attention to his eyes. I miss the way we just picked up where we left off every single time, even when we first met it felt like we were just picking up where we left off. He had the potential to be the best friend I never had as a kid but always dreamt of having, only our encounters were always scattered, unpredictable and never fully sustained for long periods of time. He used to tell me about his crazy adventures riding his skateboard while holding onto a rope attached to a moving car, or his sexual escapades with his Hispanic coworker Javier with the thick stache, in the back room of the kitchen. That was the first time I realized he was gay, only I’m still not really sure he was. He wasn’t clear about his sexual orientation. I remember approaching him with a sunflower I picked off the sidewalk and rubbing the pollen against his cheek instead of saying hello as he rode by on his board. These kind of memories I have of so many characters I went to school with but never really got to know in depth. Like my other friend Harry, who I met at a party, I think he was performing with his bandmate Dave. My senior year of college sitting in a circle with a couple of friends, Harry and Adrienne were there. Adrienne was describing walking on campus shirtless and how powerful we both were as scorpio women, saying we could get guys to do whatever we wanted with just a look and Harry suggested I should come over to meet his dad on Saturday to have tea. I barely knew Harry. It seemed random. Harry didn’t actually go to our school but he performed in a band with Dave and took a circus skills class. We met up that saturday and Harry walked off into the woods. I followed trying to figure out what he was doing. He said he had to pick up an apple and I felt like I might want to walk away in the opposite direction, but there was an actual apple and soon enough he was smoking it. We took the school shuttle out to his dads neighborhood and on the way Harry stopped by a uniform store to try on chefs robes. We went to his dads place and listened to old records, his door was unlocked so neighbors could come by and say hello. I asked some questions about the family and soon Harry was finding out things he didn’t know about his relatives. We drank tea for about three hours while I got educated about the different processes of leaf drying to turn white, green, and black tea all made of the same leaf. One of my best friends Joe, we met late at night as he walked across from me with another girl holding a bag that looked like a flower pot wearing a flowery skirt. Talking astrology, climbing trees, going on lots of misadventures, and staying up till late at night talking and trying to avoid awkward off topic conversations. Somehow it always turned to why I wasn’t interested in anything more than a friendship, climbing out the building window onto the balcony and getting yelled at through a speaker by a cop to come down and yelling back that we weren’t going to jump we were just talking. Taking the bus all the way to New Paltz, I think the bus had the image of a puma or a jaguar, I can’t remember and hanging out with an old friend acquintance of ours Terry. Sleeping bags on his cold basement floor and a few local band concerts outside. On the drive back Joe said I was really warm but then I was cold, I don’t think he was talking about physical temperature, and riskier adventures with Joe. Taking a car ride to an unknown destination after sitting for several hours in Jen’s dorm listening to a MTF transsexual singing in spoken tongues and drawing with crayons. We drove for about an hour in her car and we got to Long Island. Where she led us onto a metal path by the highway and suddenly came to a halt standing completely still while facing the cars, she claimed that as both cars met in the middle coming from opposite directions of the road we should have been able to feel the resonance of the cars as a perfect pitch. I didnt feel anything just a strong vibration through my legs. I suggested we go to the beach. They went skinny dipping, only it was October. I decided to join them and three years later I was still seeing doctors for an ear infection I developed that night. When we got out of the water Jen said oh, yeah, theres a sign over there, it says the waters contaminated and you can’t go in. Since I got in with my clothes feeling shy, I had to take my pants off when I got out to keep warm. We drove to Jens moms house to get me some dry pants. Then there’s the guys who took interest in me in college. Gabe who walked me to a party late one night and left as soon as we got there, it was raining and he stepped out for a smoke. Greg who I met one of my first days at school. He had a lot of energy and a really beautiful intense smile that captured my curiosity. It took me a couple years to realize he was just excited to see a pretty girl and it wasn’t love at first sight. I gave him a tour around campus and took him to a special tree, the Elephant tree, behind our campus admissions building. He jumped up the tree and dangled from its most exposed branch. He reached his hands out and told me to join him and I said why should I trust you? I regretted not being more carefree at that moment and so many more moments that day with him for years later. That was the first and last day we ever hung out. I found him later that night amongst a bunch of guys playing frisbee and I approached him. I didn’t say anything, we just walked off together. We got to a certain spot overlooking a parking lot, we both looked over the stairs railings and you could hardly see anything it was so dark. I kept imagining over and over again how I tap him on the shoulder and give him a kiss, but I ended up saying lets go back to our dorms to sleep. Only I didn’t. I stayed up all night after walking him to his dorm room, talking to everyone I could meet. I was too excited to go to sleep. Later I found out he had a girlfriend and our meeting I guess didn’t leave a strong enough impression to keep a friendship going. My college experience was filled with these obscure impressions and interactions with faces, forgotten names, textures, strange moments splashing in the water on a winter night and laughing, walking in the woods without a flashlight and recording sounds of singing chants as me and Jen danced in circled and howled, talking late at night, rolling down the grass hill, acting like a child, acting like I’m cool or funny or interesting. College was investigative and curious and childish, it was fearless and confusing and heart breaking, it broke me in many ways and kept me seeking out answers and different interpretations for why things were the way they were. Constantly wondering what if and about quitting school midway and going on a cross country road trip. That brings me to Jonah, who did drop out to go on a cross country trip after I suggested we do it my freshman year. I tried guilt tripping him into starting a blues band but he never pulled through. The next time I saw him I forgot about it but he had already dropped out and done the cross country trip. Running into Terry on the bus and hearing from him he was dropping out to become a farmer, falling in love with Chris who got kicked out for doing too many drugs, and volunteering in Mississippi and New Orleans after hurricane Katrina hit. Making plans to travel with Liam back to New Orleans and not showing up to the flight. Cooking pasta for a room of over a hundred people volunteering to rebuild victims homes one night, singing with an old man who went by the name Grandpa Elliott, and being invited by him to perform at a bar that night. I miss how innocent I was but I wish I was more aware of all that was happening around me, all the opportunties I had, and how I really felt and what I really thought, and what I wanted, I mean why was I studying Psychology and was college even necessary? Sometimes I look back and it was a giant waste of time!