That Time
A few weeks ago, I spent a wonderful evening with Maria Melee. She was in town for business, and we had a glorious time at the Improv Asylum, then walking around Boston’s North End. She is, if you were wondering, exactly as advertised — smart, funny, completely down to earth and wonderfully accessible as a human being, and I just loved her, no bullshit whatsoever. The first time I ever spoke to her, my first thought was, “Of course, this is Maria.”
It’s always so refreshing when that happens, you know?
I lived in the North End when I was in my early twenties — it was my first home in Boston after college, second only to my summer sublet in Somerville for two months after graduation. I’m sure I’ve talked about it before, but the apartment was … special, and I mean that in the most ironic, un-special way possible. I’d originally shared it with my boyfriend at the time, though we called it quits after, I think, seven days. (SEVEN. DAYS.) We paid $800/month for it, which is hilarious, given that it probably goes for around $2500 now, but it was a lot for us at the time.
Ultimately, Eve, my best friend from college, moved in and … well, it was a two-room studio, and we had two queen beds in the bedroom that joined together into what we affectionately called The Unibed, because that’s what it was. One bed. Two women, who were single and heterosexual and … oh my lands, it was something.
Our friend Jenny lived with us for a month while between apartments, and for a little while, it was one bed, three people, and there was that godawful time when Jenny had an allergic reaction to alcohol and threw up in the bathroom sink, and it’s a miracle we didn’t kill each other that night, because if you didn’t know, three people were not meant to live in a two-room studio, and it turns out I have little tolerance for picking a squatter’s regurgitated chicken from my toothbrush.
I set fire to the stove once, in an ill-advised attempt to use a paper towel as an oven mitt, melting the avocado finish off of the cabinet and the skin off of my hand. Later, I got drunk and was too lazy to take out the garbage, so I dangled it out the window on a rope made of wire coat hangers from the dry cleaner. It got stuck on the fire escape, and I’ll never forget Eve, who was also drunk, announcing, “I THINK I PEED” as we tried to regain control of the rogue garbage bag, only to sit in frozen terror as we heard it crash to the ground three floors below.
In 1999, I got my first Home Runs grocery delivery service and had to choose a unique nickname for my account: Jonna Kay was taken, so I frantically chose “jonniker,” which seemed ridiculous and silly at the time.
It stuck.
I bought cheap wine by the jugful from the convenience store on the corner — one of the few in the city of Boston to be exempt from Blue Laws, for it wasn’t until recently that you could buy wine anywhere but a liquor store — and drank it in copious amounts, night after night, even on weekdays, because I was in my twenties, and never got a hangover, and why the hell not? Well, and if I did get a hangover, it was nothing bacon, egg and cheese on a bagel couldn’t handle, and no matter how many times I indulged in that cure, I never got above a size 4.
I went to bars and parties on weeknights, got hot dogs from vendors and drunkenly smeared mustard on my pants, went out with a guy (well, several, actually) who was a Bad Idea in every way imaginable, worked late for the fun of it and took crazy business trips with Internet executives who didn’t know enough to pull their pants over their ass cracks.
I’ll never have that life again, and that seems sad to me, in a way I can’t articulate. I wouldn’t want that life again, no matter how much you paid me, and the truth is that I’ve never been happier than I am right now, and that’s not an exaggeration. But walking around that night with Maria, it was like being punched in the face with the passage of time, and how far I’ve come from that place when I could just run downstairs and pick up a sub from Il Panino because I’d forgotten to get dinner, and when I had fewer responsibilities and even less income. It was a reminder of the inexorable fact that we really do only get one run at this thing, and we might as well make the most of it: have the hot dog, date the bad guy, get drunk on a weeknight, because you’re only young once. And later, eventually marry the right one, have the kid you always wanted, and just suck it up and enjoy the ride.
Because holy shit, time flies.
Don’t rush it, kid. Plenty of time for those later.
*Regina Spektor. I hate the damn song, but I own it, so there you go.
489 comments October 18th, 2010