How I met Jessica (and a little bit about Yaron, Lisa, Paul, Mike D. and Peter). Second in a series.

Jessica has finally got around to doing that meme I hit her with weeks ago. And it got me thinking to revive the series that I began with my story of meeting Ivan Lenin.

I met Peter in August of 2001. It had rained all day and I had spent the entire Saturday playing Risk at my friend MD's apartment. I had recently moved into MD's building and enjoyed living an elevator ride away from his apartment where all my friends would hang out. That Saturday, there was a group of us wasting the day together. At about 11pm, my friends decided to go see a movie. I didn't feel like it and I headed home. I was home for not 15 minutes when I started to get itchy to go out. I called my friend Carolyn. We were both Anglophiles and Britpop fans and had decided to go to Don Hills, a bar downtown that played Britpop on Saturday nights. At around midnight, we got to Don Hills.

This is the short version of meeting Peter, and probably the only version we agree on: I saw a guy looking at me. I smiled. He smiled. Then he came over and introduced himself. He was there with his friend Paul. Turned out, he was in a band called 'Soft'. Much as I love my Russian friends from Brooklyn, and I do love them a lot, it was rare that we ever liked the same music. I was excited to be around people who liked the same music as me. I asked him if his band was performing soon and he told me it would be the following week. I said 'can I come?' and he said 'uh, sure'. I don't know if his trepidation was because I had also told him about being a Republican or because some random girl had just invited herself to his band's first show.

I showed up to their show, at a dive bar, Desmond's, on Park Avenue of all places. I had seen Peter two or three times before his show and we really liked each other. I was very nervous to meet his band. I'm very outgoing but I had met this indie rocker guy at a hipster bar and he's in a band and I was just picturing snotty poseur musicians who would scoff because I didn't own the latest hip cd. I freely admit there have been many times in my life where I have said 'I could not have been more wrong' but this one really took the cake. I met Mike D. (who sometimes comments here), the bassist and R the drummer, two of the nicest, coolest guys around. And I met the beautiful Jessica. We got on like a house on fire. It was instant. We were totally fascinated by each other and spent many of our early conversations exclaiming 'me too!' I knew she was technically 'Peter's friend' but I knew I had to steal her for myself. She has been my girl ever since. Through her, I met Lisa and Yaron, both of whom were also at that first 'Soft' show. Lisa and Jessica met in high school in Lawn Guyland and you can check out Jess's meme for how she met Peter and Yaron. It's pretty amazing that we all found each other in a city like this. My big theory of friendship during college was that it was near impossible to make actual friends in adulthood. I had made most of my close friends before I turned 20 and had made a total of one friend in college that I still speak to (hi Toby!). Meeting these people really proved me wrong.

Hey, it's Friday, I'm allowed to write about random mushy stuff, right?