tell 43 true and semi-interesting stories about my life

The Story Of Mike.
He is an amazing, intelligent, hilarious, and caring human being that I’ve known for about 10 years now. I met Mike online. He was one of the first people I’d ever decided to meet in person off of the internet. He lived in Chattanooga, and I in Knoxville. He was heading that direction for a baseball card convention of some sort, so it wouldn’t be out of his way to take some of a couple of evenings and hang out.
Mike was sort a catalyst for migrating away from the close-knit group of friends I had been surrounded by. I felt suffocated by the fact that I couldn’t date anyone I hung out with, and yet if I hung out with anyone outside of said group, I was suddenly neglecting my sacred circle. It was frustrating. I was actively seeking new friends, people who weren’t so controlling and overbearing with regards to everything I did. Mike was really the first person I hung out with outside of that little group, and we became fast friends.
The first time we hung out, we went to Denny’s, and I learned of his “issues”. He always brings his own salt & pepper shaker when he goes out. He also cleans his silverware in the bathroom before he uses it. We had an absolute blast. At the end of the afternoon, we ended up on the UT campus, near a little creek-ish type thing. We sat in the damp grass and talked. We laughed for hours at people, the world, and life. I realized this is what I had missed in my other friends. Not only variety, but someone who was just as cynical and jaded about the world and the people in it as I was.
Over the course of many many months, Mike would come over to the apartment I shared with my then-roomie Emily, and we would plop in front of the television and watch Fraggle Rock epsiodes until we fell asleep against each other, or we decided it was time to seek out food. Either way, Mike would end up staying the night, and nothing ever happened. We were wonderful friends, and falling asleep next to each other was comforting at a time when things didn’t feel so okay.
Mike started making his trips every weekend. It didn’t really matter much that I was “neglecting” the old crew, as I had been told I was no longer a welcome part of them anyway. One weekend, I was extremely sick, and could barely crawl out of bed. Mike insisted he come over anyway, and he brought what he called an “Ali Sickie” care package with him. Soup his mom made for me, saltine crackers, NyQuil, and Cherry 7up. It was perfect, and I was flattered his mom made soup. He also brought with him a number of CDs, all of them Billy Joel, Toad, and some comedy stuff he had recorded. We laid in bed all day & most of the evening, listening to those CDs, laughing, sleeping, hugging each other, and just existing. When I think back to moments where I knew people truly cared about me, that is one that stays with me.
The next weekend, Mike returned again, but this time, something had changed. He was more…touchy. He put his arm around me as we watched He-Man episodes. He kept kissing my forehead…something he had never done before. When we went to bed that night, I was a little confused with his behavior. Then, in the shadowy darkness, Mike gently pulled my lips to his, and he kissed me. He kissed me the way you always wish a first kiss would feel…I swear I heard fireworks. One thing led to another, and we were very nearly close to having sex. He whispered to me, “I’ve never done this before…” and I was a little shocked. But it was sweet. No, of course it wasn’t the best sexual experience of my life, but knowing it was with someone so special to me made it a very special moment to me.
We fell asleep in each other’s arms that night, like we had so many nights before. This time, though, there was this undefinable connection that kept us locked together until morning. I feared how things would go when we woke up. Would he regret it? Was this a step toward something more? I knew I cared about Mike, but I had never explored anything beyond friendly association.
Over the next few weeks, we were kind of an on again-off again couple. He couldn’t decide if it was worth risking the intimate friendship we had, and I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was falling in love with my best friend. It made for a number of awkward moments. There was the dance he asked me to attend for his mother’s work, and introductions of “my best friend”, and then we went outside for some air and kissed under the moonlight. There were months like that. After awhile, the mixed signals started to really mess with me. We talked, and decided to take a break and stop hanging out with each other for a bit…in hopes that we would figure out what it is we wanted, and could move forward from there.
After about a month, Mike and I both decided that our friendship was far too important to muck it up with something petty like an early 20s relationship that we both knew would never work out in the end. Doing that also meant a little bit of time away to mend the heart back up. We both loved each other, this was mentioned many many times, but we didn’t want to hate each other in the end.
Then I met Sam. Sam proposed, and I accepted. I called Mike to tell him, and of course ask him if he’d come to the wedding. He spent a good 45 minutes on the phone telling me I was insane, and he wouldn’t support it for any reason…and if I had half a mind I would call it all off. In retrospect, I wish I had listened. At the time, I just thought he was jealous.

I lost touch with Mike for a couple of years, and then we ran into each other when I was in Chattanooga visiting a friend of mine. I had been divorced for some time, and we had lunch together and talked about everything that had been going on in our lives. Mike had turned into a bit of a manslut…he was getting around the girls of Chattanooga fairly well. Whereas I, on the other hand, had not become an uberslut, and had actually been waiting for “the right guy” to come along. It was interesting to see how our lives had forked.
Mike and I stayed in touch in touch after that. Sometimes we’d talk once a week, sometimes it was every day…other times, if we were particularly busy, it was once a month. But we always made a point to stay in touch. The last time I saw Mike was two weeks before I left Atlanta. The timing was horrible. He and his friend Andy were coming to ATL to register at the Art Institute, and we met for lunch. At this point I had decided to move back to STL. Mike talked about how great it would be to hang out again (“just like old times”)...and I told him of my intentions. I don’t know if it was defeat in his eyes, or if his plans were more than friendly, but he seemed crushed. I hated hurting him, unintentional or not. The day I left town, I called him to say goodbye. Our conversation was short, and he said, “I’m never going to see you again, am I?” and I told him I didn’t know. I had hoped we’d see each other again. He’d been in my life for so long, I wasn’t quite sure how I’d feel without him in my life at all. Before I hung up, he said, “I hope you know I have, and always will, hold a special place in my heart and soul for you. I love you.”...and then dial tone.

I hadn’t heard from him since.

About a year ago, he found my on MySpace. I very nearly fell out of my chair. We talked on the phone from about midnight until roughly 5 this morning. Playing catch up on our lives and taking a stroll down memory lane. He apologized for leaving me dumbfounded when I left Atlanta, and he thanked me for all of the years of friendship I’ve given him. His comedy writing has done well for him. He has a production company, and has signed with an agent. He’s doing what he always wanted to do, and he thanked me for always supporting him and telling him he could do it. I didn’t see what I was doing as anything special. He is a funny, funny, guy, and I knew he could be successful.

We’ve promised to keep in touch this time, and hopefully the next time I make it to Atlanta we’ll get to see each other again.

It’s good to have such a wonderful old friend back in my life.

I moved to Lawrenceburg, TN when I was in high school. I went from being a regular city kid, being a little left of center with my fishnet stockings and blue hair, but being considered normal enough…to a school where camo was the style and guys skipped school to go hunting. It was a strange move, and I didn’t fit in at all. I had to find clothes that were semi normal and fit in as best I could…and eventually I did. I won over most of my classmates and went back to being the fishnet & colored hair girl.
I had a crush on a boy, whose name I didn’t know. He was tall. Silent. Mysterious. I passed him in the hall every single day. One day he bumped into me. He looked down and smiled. I was a teenage girl in love. With a boy who had no name.
After making some new friends and hanging out with them one particular weekend, he and a friend of his stopped by the house we were hanging out at. We were introduced. “Jeremy, this is Ali…Ali, this is Jeremy.”
That started a relationship that lasted until the last two months of high school. Jeremy broke up with me – no reason, no explanation. I was heartbroken. I hurt in ways I never thought were possible. At graduation, he wouldn’t speak to me. We were face to face and he walked away. I thought I had done something horrible to him without knowing.
Fast forward to 2005. I meet up with my best friend, Kim, in Lawrenceburg for a friendly, but debaucherous weekend.
Jeremy was still living at home with his folks, and came out with us. It was tense at first, but liquor always makes things a little easier. We had a quiet moment, where he held my face in his hands for what seemed like forever. He kissed my forehead slowly and sweetly. We started talking and sharing old memories of time together and things we did. The best part for me was the closure. It was a relationship that haunted my other relationships – I was always afraid of doing something wrong and never knowing what it was.
As it turns out, I did nothing wrong. Jeremy was on the verge of asking me to marry him, and he knew I was about to go away to college and make a life for myself. He realized I would’ve stayed and married him – and he wanted to see me go to college and make a difference like I’d always planned. It was a sweet sacrifice, and I thanked him for it.
We talked about rekindling things for awhile, but we realized our lives have done nothing but grow further apart over the years. We talk a couple of times a year, and I worry about some of the things he does & the trouble he gets himself in, but I suspect as long as he’s a part of my life, no matter how small, I always will.
I can say with certainty that Jeremy was my first love, and someone who taught me a lot about who I am and who I was back then. He’ll never read this, but I hope he knows how grateful I am for being my partner during such a crazy time in our lives.

My first word was tsi’s’qua, which is the Cherokee word for “bird”. My father was so proud of me. As I started walking, I would love to hobble over to the window and watch the birds flying around between the trees. When my dad would come home in the evening, I’d squeal and yell “Daddy! tsi’s’qua!” and run to the window. He’d follow me there, asking where the bird was. I’d giggle and run to another window, pointing and saying “tsi’s’qua”. He’d do this with me for what seemed like hours. I’m sure it was only 20 minutes or less, but as a child, it is one of my fondest memories. In fact, I have a line drawing on my right shoulder blade, taken from a picture, of him & I playing “tsi’s’qua” in honor of him and our bond. It was finished about two weeks before he died. We both cried about it, and I know he understood that I wanted to honor not only his role in my life as a father, but as a friend.
All grown up, I often thought about how tired my dad must’ve been when he came home. He was a cop, and worked part time at a nuclear power plant to help pay the bills. I’m sure when he came home, he just wanted to relax. Instead, he took the time to play with me – and I never really took the time to thank him for it. I hope he knows now just how much those little moments throughout my life meant to me.

Spending the last two years of high school in a rural town was a huge change for me. I moved from St.Louis to a dot on a map in middle Tennessee. My senior year, I became the “token freak” that all of the cooler kids liked. I think it had something to do with the fact that I was fairly smart, and fairly friendly (at least compared to my regular group of friends, who acted like they didn’t like anyone, including themselves).
My first class of the morning was World History. I was surrounded by some of the more popular kids, and they always loved to gossip about the weekend. This one particular morning, Jill, the girl in front of me, tells me that one of our classmates has now been nicknamed “Ham sandwich”. As it turns out, this girl and her boyfriend were having sex at a party (real smart), and in the middle of the sexual encounter, she got up and made a ham sandwich. At the time, I thought it was hilarious, but unfortunate.
At my 10 year reunion, I had the opportunity to talk to “Hammy” (as she was called the rest of the year), and she admitted that she did, in fact, leave her sexual escapades for a ham sandwich. Two reasons – 1) He was terrible in bed and 2) she was more interested in having a sandwich than sleeping with him.
Me? I wasn’t cool enough for a nickname in high school, other than “Ali”, since my full name is Alicia.