feel the kind of happy you feel when you're a stranger somewhere and you can't even remember what you were sad about because you're not alone at all.
April 03, 2006
For the past few months I've been enjoying reading The Dubliner, a column that appears in the Philly Weekly every couple of weeks or so. A couple of weeks ago writer Katie Heagele described the riots that occurred on O'Connell St., and I got that tickle of recognition in my stomach when she wrote about "That man playing his drum with a brush in front of the Molly Malone statue, her round metallic boobs near to popping out, perpetually near but held back, just." I thought to myself, �Hey! I totally know that man!� (Although I guess he's kind of hard to miss, and I was always relieved whenever I got to his corner. It was one corner in Dublin I got to know really well, and getting there meant I was no longer lost.)
In last week's column I had another one of those, "Hey! I've been there before" moments, except "there" was not a place, but an emotional moment. �I dragged myself in here feeling the deep, resonant kind of sad you get when you're a stranger somewhere and you can't even remember what you're sad about because you're so totally alone,� Heagele wrote.
I�m sure everyone�s been �there� a few times, but it just completely reminded me of this one awful/wonderful night in Philly, where I think I must have been completely out of my head, and where I couldn�t remember what I was sad about, but felt so totally alone until the host at The Bards (is that place still around? I can�t remember) followed me out onto the street and asked if I was okay, and offered to get me into a cab. And then there was Jing suddenly, unexpectedly running in the opposite direction on the other side of the street, on his way to a cast party. But he turned back and took me home, and stayed with me till I felt better. Jing and I have at many times taken each other for granted, as good friends often do, but that night is something I�ll always remember him for.
Anyway, read the column. It�s good stuff.