Adventures in Gastronomy

One of the classes I’m taking requires completion of a group project. I was randomly assigned Mark (Veselka Slut) to be my partner, along with another woman. We were all supposed to meet on Monday for lunch to go over the project. Mark and I showed up at the destination restaurant, but she didn’t. That afternoon, she emailed us to say she’s dropping out of the class.

This means Mark and I are working on it together – one person shy of a full group (all other teams consist of three people). I hope the professor takes that into consideration when it comes to grading.

When I got home from work last night I played online to decompress from the day and stumbled upon a former co-worker from nearly 10 years ago. He left the company in the late 1990’s to open an internet cafe in Ptown (though, now he’s doing real estate instead). Anyway, we chatted for a while and then he mentioned another co-worker I also knew: Brian.

…and that brought back lots of memories. You see, I met Brian after I had worked there for a few months. Apparently, he had fancied me since the first time he saw me – but we worked in separate buildings and saw each other rarely. I never noticed him because I was new and was having enough time remembering the names and faces of the people in my own building – let alone the other building.

The first time we actually spoke was during one of my typically socially-awkward moments: I was walking down a corridor in his building while simultaneously eating a juicy plum. He took the corner at the precise time that I stuck the plum in my mouth because I had documents in one hand and needed the other hand to open a door. There I was suckling on a juicy plum with juice dripping down my chin.

We started chatting and developed a bit of a friendship. Actualy, who am I kidding – we developed a sort of flirty* friendship that was an ego-booster for both of us. Every time I went to the accounting department, I paid a visit to him (he was just around the corner from that department).

I was in a relationship with Matt at the time so there was nothing sexual about this friendship…just the flirtation. In fact, Matt and I went to Fetish Night at Manray with him and his cross-dressing room mate at one point.

Brian had a horrible background. He came out of the closet to his family and they essentially threw him out of the house. He moved to San Francisco and did some modeling before getting gay bashed. This created a permanent scar across his face which put an end to his modeling career (though he was still quite handsome). To make matters worse, he also contracted HIV in San Francisco before moving back to Boston.

But he was such a healthy looking guy. He was probably close to 6′-5″ tall and of a quite sturdy Germanic build. So it came as a shock when Tom (the co-worker I reconnected with last night) said the he was dead.

I hadn’t seen Brian in 7 years – yet it still gave me the sensation of my stomach dropping. I never asked how he died – I suspect it was AIDS related. But even though we lost contact so long ago – there’s still that little voice in my head asking “what if there was something I could have done to help him?”

*Speaking of flirtation…I was talking with my friend, Brad, yesterday and he told me that I’m the biggest flirt he knows! Of course, my immediate response was to be defensive…but maybe he’s got a point. Then again, we also concluded that it was like him calling the kettle black because he’s nearly as bad.

April 19th, 2006
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl

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