Blast from the Past

You never know when you're going to run into some old friend when you live in the same place you grew up. Of course, if you're from a city as big as DC, your chances of seeing some long lost remnant of your past are relatively slim... however, it does happen, and it happened to me yesterday.

I got out of work around 5 pm and decided to go over to Miguel's apartment to work out at his gym (which is far superior to the gym in my mom's apartment building). I got on GW Parkway and was cruising to 395 when I ended up somehow, very bizarrely, in the Pentagon parking lot.


May I make a suggestion? Never end up driving around this warden of roads. They lead straight to hair-pulling frustration and near-death experiences.

After accidentally turning onto a one-way road, nearly colliding head-on with a fat lady in a mini-van, and then redirecting myself the other direction, I found myself mistakenly in the "slug" lane in which drivers can pick up waiting passengers going to various marked locations in order to take advantage of the HOV (high occupancy vehicle) highway lanes, which move much faster than the other lanes on the road. Of course, I was only going about a mile away so I had no interest in picking up a slug rider, and I embarrassingly and weirdly had to drive at 2 mph by all of the people on the curb, picking up no one.


Uhh, sorry, can't pick you up tonight!

By the time I finally made it to Miguel's, I was sweaty, exhausted, and ready to take a sledge hammer to every car in the local area. It was after I parked and started to walk to his building when I realized that his apartment keys were back in my mom's apartment in Arlington. On the verge of screaming aloud, I skulked back to my mom's car, furiously threw open the driver's side door, and plunked back in the driver's seat. The thought of driving anywhere at that point nearly made me nauseous. However, I proceeded to drive the 15 minutes back to Arlington (which I had passed on my way to Miguel's in the first place), found a parallel parking spot after 20 minutes, and then raced up to my mom's 14th floor place to fetch the keys. I was on the verge of suicide at this point.


A nice rendition of my mental state yesterday evening.

But finally... ahhh, finally, I made it back to Miguel's and headed straight to the gym. So here I was, burning off some extreme stress, trying to relax, reading my book, and I looked up to see my 10th grade high school homecoming date lifting weights across the room. I had to triple check to make sure it was him (hoping no one noticed me ogling strangely and crinkling my nose to get a better look), but lo and behold, it was none other than Chris G. He was never my boyfriend, and I never really talked much to him after homecoming, but I was happy that someone had asked me that year, especially since I wasn't much of a looker in high school...

Here we are in 1989...

Big hair, braces, and frosted lipstick = 80s hotness!
Also notice the very awkward body posture... hands in front and hands behind. There would be noooo touching between these two people!

Sorry the picture isn't clearer, but I had to take a digital photo from an old album. I have several other treasures to share in coming days...

Oh, and BTW, I did talk to Chris, and he lives right down the street from Miguel. He looks pretty much the same, just 17 years older and wearing wire-rimmed glasses now with thinner, spikier hair, plus he's married, has two dogs, and works for Deloitte and Touche. We're going out for a beer or coffee sometime in the next month just to catch up.

I suppose if I hadn't gone through hell getting to Miguel's, I never would have seen Chris. And as nice as it was to see a face from my past, wouldn't fate be kinder if it surreptiously led me to millions of dollars or a Porsche Carrera or a plane ticket to Bali... ?? I'll keep dreaming...