2010-01-28

A Diet Pepsi for Keith.

It's been two years, friend.

At some point this evening, I am going to buy myself a Diet Pepsi, even though I hate Diet Pepsi. I'll do this for you, Keith, but I won't enjoy it - at ALL - and you wouldn't have had it any other way.

I was at a gathering of the JP Progressives last night, and I met Governor Patrick. I'm sure you would have had a few choice words about that, but I imagine your immediate response would have been: "There is not one RIGHT thing about that sentence." And I would have laughed. Because while you and I never, EVER saw eye-to-eye on anything regarding politics, I respected your opinion, because you came to it having done your damn homework.

I was walking to the subway station this morning, and I thought, "These days would be the BEST days to have been Keith Ryan." I would have listened, quite seriously, to what you would have had to say about everything that is going on in the Commonwealth, in the country, in the world at large. I would have welcomed an argument with you because I know you wouldn't just mindlessly parrot terms you heard on talk radio, throwing them around because that's what everybody else is doing. Your thoughts would have been yours, Keith, and I would have listened. I probably wouldn't even have rolled my eyes. Much.

People pay money to see me stand onstage and read from my high school diaries. The stuff I read about you always gets the biggest laughs. Some of that stuff is from nearly 25 years ago, and when I close my eyes I can still see it all. You never betrayed me, never mentioned my embarrassing crush to the crush in question, listened patiently as I jabbered incessantly about it during our library "dates." He knows about it NOW, because he came to the last performance and TRIPPED ME as I was heading backstage. It was awesome. You totally should have been there. Maybe you were.

What is it about the people you spent those four years with? All of my friends then shaped me more than anyone since, really. I generally don't allow much time to elapse without being in SOME sort of contact with some of them. Others I only got back in touch with because we all descended upon Hingham to remember you. We're all older, maybe a little puffier around the eyes, but you don't forget those connections, and you don't forget who you are with the people who knew you when you were arguably at your most obnoxious, but yet love you all the same. Not a day goes by that my longstanding friendships with these "kids" don't wind up somewhere at the top of my gratitude list.

So I'm going to buy a Diet Pepsi tonight, Keith. And I will try to drink the whole thing. Operative word being "try."

lisamcc at 10:40 a.m.

1 comments so far
Kim
2010-02-02 17:45:56
Thank you for reminding me of the mock seal clubbing. I can't believe I had forgotten that--what a great memory of Keith to resurrect! My memory of him is more abstract; dressed up but askew, striding with purpose, engaging in his uniquely hilarious, acerbic, but HONEST, way. I can't believe that amazing human being is gone.
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