Category: Friends

The No One Else Meme…

Published on by Andy Affleck

Carla writes in The No One Else Meme… about items you have that no one else I know has.

What the heck. I’ll play along:

Name a CD you own that no one else you know does: Kaserei Musei. When I was still working at WebCT, one one of our lunch excursions, I found myself going with a few others into a German sausage store on Route 1 in Peabody (I shit you not, an actual German sausage store). They were selling for $10 a CD of actual accordian oompah music. Check out that picture. You can see why I just had to get it…

Name a book you own that no one else you know does: This one was pretty tough. I have a ton of books and I know a lot of them no one else has, but they’re all boring. I mean, so what if I have a 10 year old copy of Adam Engst’s Internet Handbook (I only keep it because I’m mentioned in it) or something like that? Instead, I am borrowing one of Ann’s books since we both own everything and all that. It’s the original, pre-Disney One Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith. How’s that? I can be more obscure and say “Among Madmen” by Jim Starlin. He was my sister’s neighbor out in Chichester, NY and the book takes place in nearby Phoenicia (see below).

Name a movie you own on DVD/VHS/whatever that no one else you know does: Kind Hearts and Coronets: This is a wonderfully funny classic Alec Guinness movie in which he plays a large number of the characters in the movie. My mother gave this to me a few years ago and it is truly a fantastic film.

Name a place that you have visited that no one else you know has: I was going to say Phoenicia but it turns out that a good friend of mine from summer camp goes there every year. What are the odds? So, I’m going to go with the alabaster chapel in S’ant Antimo, just outside of Montalcino, Italy. This is a small chapel that was supposedly built by Charlemagne and was vacant for centuries. It was taken over only about 20 years ago by Franciscan monks from France. The interior is all alabaster and when the sun hits it… wow… it was the most spiritually moving place I’ve ever been in my life.

Old Friends

Published on by Andy Affleck

I haven’t seen Jim in 10 years. Almost exactly, in fact. I’d had a bad breakup, a get-back-together, a re-breakup, followed by a torrid affair and I needed to get out of Hanover in a hurry and recharge my battered batteries. Hey, it was 1994. I was melodramatic. I had to make the narrative fit.

Anyway, I got in my car and drove south, stopping to visit people along the way. I saw my sister in New York, Chris and Anne-Marie down in DC along with Peter and a few other people I knew from College and the Fraternity. Then I drove on to North Carolina to visit Jim.

So, it’s 10 years later and we’re finally getting together again. Life’s sure different now. Spouses, kids, the works. But it should be fun. We’re having a mini reunion tomorrow with Chris, Daniel, Sumi and various and sundry friends and relations. And, I’m sure, a whole heck of a lot of cicadas.

Cicada Musings: they really are everywhere. And it’s really a lot of fun. Walking in Arlington near the office I had two land on me and crawl around. I let them. I figured they needed a rest. If you’ve ever watched them fly, you know what I mean.

OK, they’re here. I must stop this and let them in.