The Urban Elf

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Last night was a strange one. Mostly delightful, occasionally a little nervous-making, all in all a good time spent outside my usual and predictable realm of socializing. The evening began with the unexpected and very happy news that our darling lesbian duo is expecting. They will no doubt be wonderful parents however the two of them pushing a moppet-laden stroller at the Pride parade might just exceed all tolerances rolling directly into cute overload. There was the impromptu reunion of those who had passed through the doors of the same university so many years ago – some departing possessed of credentials others not. This far out though that seems much less important to anyone but the Alumni Association. Scars and memories, lasting bonds and wistful delusions, a certain underlying commonality of philosophy, we all left with those things no matter the degree to which specifics vary. It was a time. It was a place. I digress. Anyway, much to my surprise included among the sheepskin wielders was my friend Michael whom I hadn’t seen since we passed for a few weeks nearly sixteen years ago as I moved into and he moved out of Boston. Time and memory… there is little sense to either of them. I found myself in constant flux, vacillating between the feeling that we had spoken not more than a week previous and that I knew almost nothing about him. This was I’m sure thrown into higher relief by the presence of his adorable and talented partner Tom whose arrival in town had precipitated this little gathering. We had congregated at this particular bar in this particular shadow of MIT to attend a performance, Tom’s “Boston” stop on his cross-country tour. A singer songwriter in his Subaru headed from the northeast to the west coast and back by way of Nebraska, Texas and any number of other places that summon up images of Kerouac and The Hills Have Eyes. Now that is indeed an adventure. What more and what else transpired? Details. Discussions of discovery probing for current or future social crosspollination. Talk of food, whiskey, music and “big gay drinks”. Promises of continued or renewed contact. How all nights end, we parted our separate ways dispersing into the night each of us remembering a different evening than the ones remembered by the others with which it was shared.