They jumped off a bridge. What was I to do?

[mrissa]

I wasn't going to do this, but then greykev and scottjames did it, and if your high school friends do something you totally have to do it, right?

Whatever.

"If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, even if we don't speak often, please post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be anything you want -- good or bad. When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people remember about you."

Comments

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

I remember seeing you leave middle school, having been picked up by your mom, with the doglet who matched your hair, licking your face (or at least trying to). And talking about spaghetti sauce from my parents' kitchen floor.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I remember the spaghetti sauce. Yes. That's one of our oldest ones, isn't it? Spaghetti sauce and Earth Day every day.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

Earth Day Twice a Day!

Yes, spaghetti sauce is pretty much one of the oldest.

[morr.livejournal.com]

Ray Stevens, in middle school, computer lab round table... with the lead pipe.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hee.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

I remember sitting in the waiting area of the Park-Nic urgent care clinic in St. Louis Park, having this wonderful conversation with you. You had picked up Sherry and I and taken her to urgent care even though you hardly knew us.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

She needed to go.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

The first time I met you (which wasn't that long ago), I walked into the Tea Source and saw you sitting there with a book. You looked up, and the first thing I noticed were how enormous and dark your eyes are. The second thing I noticed is that you took a double-take and seemed extremely surprised by something about me.

I didn't say anything at the time; I must not have looked like what you expected, I assumed.

Later, I found out about your superhuman nose and wondered: did I fart right before I came into the shop?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ah, no, um, I had thought of something storyish at just that moment. But you had to get tea, so I had time to write it down and still behave like a polite grown-up human being.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

And I'm too much of a weenie to post the same thing to my journal; sorry!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No biggie; I'm not your high school friend, so you can watch me jump off as many bridges as you like.

[madmanatw.livejournal.com]

Obviously I don't have much in the way of distant memories to draw from.

Getting a random IM from you one day, and having a nice chat.

(Also, an email conversation after a meme one or the other of us posted, a reply to which is still sitting in my "drafts" folder in gmail, because I got bogged down and never finished replying. It's been in there for months. I don't even remember what it's about, now.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

About memeishness, naturally!

I don't mind getting e-mails months late, and I also don't mind e-mails getting dropped if Life Intervenes. I am not easily offended on the e-mail front.

[madmanatw.livejournal.com]

And so I decided what the heck, dug out the email, finished it, and sent it off. :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Cool!

[gaaneden.livejournal.com]

I remember you meeting my foster kittens and how much they adored you.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Who knew that kittens were so different from cats?

[gaaldine.livejournal.com]

One of my first (though not *the* first) memories of you is your coming into my lovely Wahlstrom closet of a room, your pointedly peering at the shelf that held my books, and then your muttering something along the lines of "well, at least you're articulate."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That was in our "You'll love this; I hated it" phase, yes.

[gaaldine.livejournal.com]

I think you always felt that more than I did: I remember you giving me your copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and my thinking, "why does she think I'd like this?"

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, you did give me Jon Hassler, so I don't think this is all one-sided.

Unless -- o horror -- you like Jon Hassler. In which case it was a bit of an alarming inauguration into the contemporary "attempting to find stuff we like in common" period.

[gaaldine.livejournal.com]

I think I like one or two Jon Hasslers. Or can handle one or two. I don't tend to keep up with his work, or run out to get whatever he has just written.

After one or two, they are just All The Same to me.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

I remember that I first wrote you about moomins.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ah. Yes you did. I remember.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's all right -- I'm bad at phones, too.

[profrobert.livejournal.com]

You and Mark had invited me to dinner when I was visiting California, and we sat down, joined hands and said grace. I'm not religious, but for some reason that moment struck me particularly -- what sweet people you are, and how kind you were for inviting a relative stranger to your home for a meal.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks; hospitality is important to us when we can do it, which isn't always.

[jim0052.livejournal.com]

I remember being struck by the sight of you strolling along the edge of the Seine that overcast Sunday afternoon near St. Germain-des-Pres, reading Proust and munching on a baguette, while humming the love theme from "Les parapluies de Cherbourg." Or am I thinking of Simone de Beauvoir?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks a lot, Jim, now I have "Les parapluies de Cherbourg" in my head, and who ever wants that?

I console myself that at least it isn't "Un homme et une femme," or worse, the sequel.

Denoive of some people!

[jymdyer.livejournal.com]

=v= What's a simple umbrella-vendor from Cherbourg doing in Paris? Must've run off with some rich guy or something.

I remember it like it was yesterday!

[jymdyer.livejournal.com]

=v= There I was, an American dancer visiting Rochefort for the first time. I walked down a cobblestone street because I noticed a bunch of people on those wonderful European folding bikes, and there you were. Plus, your sister looked exactly like the woman from Cherbourg!

Re: I remember it like it was yesterday!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sigh.

Re: I remember it like it was yesterday!

[jymdyer.livejournal.com]

=v= Well heck, I had to make something up. Otherwise it would be something like, "And then I clicked on a link in Zed's blogroll, which was a different shade of blue then than it is now, and if I recall correctly, a different font size as well." And nobody wants that.

[eileenlufkin.livejournal.com]

Sitting on the living room floor at Blaisdale Poly. You heard my name and said "Oh, you're my friend!" I don't remember what I managed to actually say, but I was feeling something like "Already? Lucky me! What am I doing right?" I was so flattered and pleased it cheered me up for the rest of the party; even when it turned out that you meant you recognized my name because I had friended you on LJ. I was impressed at your memory too, because I don't think I'd commented to you yet.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yes, dd_b's 50th.

I used to get bothered by blurting out things like that, because it made me feel about four years old, but it turns out people are not upset by me being four years old from time to time, especially as it doesn't mean that I spill my apple juice down their blouse and wail.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

I remember the look on your face when Michael plopped down to look at the toad as you showed us around Gustavus.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

He was so very Michael that whole trip.