In which Matthew documents real life

On Facebook a couple days ago, this woman randomly appeared who I met once or twice in high school. We'd met at a speech and debate tournament in Philadephia; I would have been fifteen at the time. I can't imagine how she remembered me, or found me on Facebook, in the first place. Then again, I am shockingly attractive, so the ladies tend to keep me in mind even after the most brief of meetings.

Shockingly.

It took a bit to jog my memory. Was I on the forensics team in high school? Didn't we meet for dinner at Windows on the World (the restaurant at the top of Tower 1) when she and her mom visited New York? I had long hair, right? And didn't I go off on her when her mom told me she'd given up the chance to see Rent while she was in town? Ah:

I've definitely never been able to pull off long hair, but it was long*er* at that point: it took a while for me to realize that I couldn't pull it off. And YES, now I remember -- that dinner was the first and only time I've ever eaten rabbit, and the second and last time I ever had occasion to be in the World Trade Center. Your mom is a nice lady, if memory serves. Rent remains one of my old favorites, though it's lived on Broadway well past its expiration date (as has, well, everything).

Jonathan Larson lives on, and on, and on. His short life's work (the life was short, not at all the work) is still going weak on the Great Multiethnic Way, but man, that shit is catchy. It's been twelve years now, and still Ara and I are like trained monkeys: the simple (and quite common) phrase "it's true" turns us Pavlovian. It JUST happened today, actually:

SHE: Are you aware that you haven't done the dishes?
ME: I am.
SHE: This is your turn to do the dishes, right?
ME: It's true.
SHE: I'm leaving now for Santa Fe. It's true you're with this yuppie scum?
ME: You said you'd never speak to him. Again.
SHE: Not now.
ME: Who said that you have any say in who she says things to at all?
SHE: Please stop, I hate it that we do this every time.
ME: Who said that you should stick your nose in other people's--
SHE: Who said I was talking to you?!

We used to have this fight each night. He'd never admit I existed. Wait. I mean: the whole rhythmic-talking-whining thing has just been set into our blood, and years after a Spice Girl and an N-Sync boy have both played lead roles and gone on to host a reality show together, we're still locked in as Rent rats.

And yet. Last year, Ara's 15-year-old cousin invited us to come see her church youth choir sing. And they sang a series of songs from Rent -- not the annoying (and bowdlerized) medley-mess my high school chorus sang, either. Halfway through "Will I?" I started sobbing uncontrollably.

Think about it: when I was precisely these kids' age, fighting my little endless fight for a queer identity, I saw this very new piece of theater for the very first time, and sang my heart out, and told everyone I met about it... and now, there we were, in a church, and Ara's cousin has two loving gay parents, and her school's homecoming queen and king that year were two boys, and we have just come such a very, very long way.

That's poetic. (That's pathetic.)