5/12/96 - Sullen Blond

[Hmm. To wait until after the entry to explain Lars, or do it now? Lars was my first. The one you never forget. He was the new kid from Ohio my sophomore year in high school. I'd been the "popular freshman" in band, and he was the "popular new kid" the following year, and he dated my best friend, and my other best friend had a crush on him. Needless to say, the four of us (two guys, two girls) hung out together all the time, and the sexual tension was...there needs to be a new word for "thick"]

[One day after school, he and I had sex. I was absolutely blown away, though I'd known I'd had same-sex ya-ya's since I remember having ya-ya's. It was just SO GREAT. We got together whenever we could the next couple of months, til one day his brother almost burst in on us, I freaked out, and the next two and half years of high school were awkward.]

[We went to colleges hundreds of miles apart, and I thought that would be it. However, New Year's 1992, a group of friends, including the aforementioned Sean and Jessica, ended up at a big gay dance club in S.F. (anyone remember the old Colossus?), and there he was, standing in a corner, as sullen as ever. We made contact, and even danced a bit, and separated. I was pretty stunned the rest of the evening, but it passed, and I went back to thinking of him only on those wistful rainy days when you think about stuff like that.]

5/12/96 - 1810 Chapala

Well, I knew it would have to happen someday, and it did. I ran into Lars last night in West Hollywood. I was at the Mother Lode with Max and Mike M., and saw this guy with a baseball cap and the right features. The odd thing was, I was already looking for him. I'd already seen a couple of sullen blonds in the bar, and there was a sense of inevitability when I saw Lars. It's not so odd, I guess, that I was looking for him: I usually do when I'm in L.A. How ridiculous, that in a city with millions of people, to expect to run into some random person who had such an impact. It's happened twice now.

I went up, made sure it was him, and he recognized me immediately. We talked a bit, but as usual (usual? I've seen him twice in nine years!), we couldn't find much to say. He said he still worked for the studio, just bought a house and was single. I told him my basic vital stats, and asked if he had thought about going to our 10-year reunion. He said it hadn't even occurred to him, which struck me as both ludicrous and totally believable. I told him I'd about decided to move to San Francisco, and he said if he could have his job and live there, he would.

Conversation began to lag, so I excused myself. I found Max and Mike, and pointed Lars out to them, probably having a "Monty Python" moment. Oh, well, Lars has always believed (on fairly strong evidence) that I'm a bitchy, gossipy queen, so what the hell.

Funny, I was not as shaken up this time as when I saw him five years ago in S.F. I couldn't think of anything I really needed to say to him, which makes me happy I never seriously tried to communicate with him on our ten year "anniversary," as I'd contemplated. There's just no point. I did trip on the whole encounter a bit on the drive home, but not as much as I might have expected.

He looked well: thin, tan, but I wonder what the baseball cap was hiding. Funny, the thing I did obsess on was comparing my financial stagnation with his success. Oh, never mind. I'm glad it happened, it's over.

[Lars never did show at the reunion in 1997. Our mutual friend Colleen tells me the cap wasn't hiding anything: the blond halo is intact. Lars is still living in L.A., and still single as far as Colleen knows. I'm thinking about starting a band called the Sullen Blonds.]

["Monty Python moment" will resurface and be explained later]

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