It was New Year's Eve, almost a decade ago now. We were at Ami's house, which was tradition for a number of years in high school - and my friend Dan Strauss was not having a good night.
It was late, that period where everyone is lying down but not quite ready to sleep. Some couples had split off to other rooms to go hook up in private, with the rest of us all in Miri's (Ami's sister's) room, talking and laughing. And even though we weren't all actual couples, somehow everyone had paired up with someone to lay down and cuddle with for the night. In my case it was Ashley Houghton, a friend from high school who I think liked me at the time, but was on her way into a relationship with another friend - even if she was in denial about that happening. They got together soon after. So nothing happened, but it was nice to have someone just not to be alone with. Everyone had someone that night.
Except Dan.
He stood in the middle of the room, looking at these bodies laid out on the bed and the floor and even though none of it was 'real,' seeing all his friends with someone on NYE and him without - he got angry. Real angry.
And when Dan Strauss gets angry things get funny.
At first I thought it was a joke, but I found out later it wasn't at all. Just a mix of exhaustion and frustration and loneliness that coalesced into the greatest monologue I have ever heard. I wish I could remember it word for word, but it's been too long and lost to the ether. But it started with a loud declaration of intention and then -
"I'm a plane. A pink plane. Searching for a hangar."
And for twenty something minutes, with all of us nearly crying laughing so hard, Dan told the story of himself as a small pink plane, wandering through the sky looking for a hangar - the smallest, pinkest plane - unable to stop, not finding any place welcome, no place to rest. No one to be with, no where to be - just searching. Searching desperately for a hangar in the sky.
A pink plane, all alone.
Then, sad and defeated with a final sigh about his pinkness, he walked to the bathroom.
All we could see was the open doorway and the sudden sound of Dan screaming a bloodcurdling cry of rage - then two half naked bodies trying to put on clothes while running away down the hall with Dan screaming "Have you no respect! Here! HERE! How can you do this to me!" from the bathroom.
They had been hooking up. He walked in. It was just too much for him.
It may have been the funniest thing I've seen in my life.
We woke up the next morning and I tried to convince Dan to come out for pancakes, but he was having nothing of it. He was still a pink plane looking to be loved, and pink planes have no time for pancakes - they have to stay on the move. I was insistent (it would be fun!) and followed him to his car all my stuff in hand. I was distracted for a moment and looked up to see him already driving away - mid conversation.
He said that looking in his rear view at me standing in the middle of the road, holding blankets and pillows like an abandoned puppy was the saddest thing he had ever seen.
I'm going to Dan's wedding in two weeks. He's marrying the love of his life, and it's a pretty amazing story.
He's marrying his first crush from high school, but they didn't get together then. He was totally into her and it never happened. He even wrote a song about it (Drowning Max's Burned Out) which I still have memorized. It was a classic story of the nice guy not getting the girl and watching her go off with someone else. I wrote a song like that. Every guy who ever made music wrote a song like that. The girl you end up holding an impossible torch for for years to come.
And then it actually happened. In college, they got together. Dan actually lived the dream.
But beyond living the dream, they live reality. The actual reality of true love, that mix of the movie romance we all dream about and the practical maintenance of the day to day that relationships need to function beyond the glow - that delicate, imperceptible balance.
It would have been easy to end the story at guy pines, years later gets girl, send em home happy.
Instead they've had ups and downs, good times and less so, real moments of doubt, real moments of joy. Because they are real people. As real people they are together in a real, meaningful way and now they are getting married.
I can't tell you how happy I am. How much I respect Daniel Strauss as a man and as a friend. Because I have such a tremendous respect for him it is almost intimidating. He's without a doubt the funniest person I know. One of the most intelligent, driven, and talented. To see him find happiness and put in the work to keep it - he deserves Rachel very much. He deserves his dream girl. And I don't know her as well but she's awesome and a class act and very much deserves him too.
And on August 20th I get to watch as that pink plane gets the all clear to stay awhile.
I woke up this morning after having the latest in a series of dreams about my ex. Some people get nightmares about zombies or snakes. I have conversations with people I love but can't be with about how much I love them and then can't be with them.
It's my body's way of telling me that even though my brain is able to focus on and do other things throughout the day this is where my heart is. Unresolved.
I put on the Foo Fighters because I woke up with a song in my head, and was caught off guard when the album got to Headwires. I love the song. But I was hit by an instant and unexpected piercing pain.
Years ago, I was driving with Ashley (from NYE) when Everlong came on. She told me she always wanted to have sex to Everlong. I listened to it, and I don't care if it's cheesy, I did too. If I was making a 300 list then it would have been number two (after a new year's kiss). So when I started dating my first girlfriend, we did. It was pretty great. The Foo Fighters in general, especially 'There Is Nothing Left To Lose', makes great background music. And Headwires in particular became the song I most identify with her, with us, and being together.
It's incredible just how powerfully a song can bring you back to a specific moment in time, a specific feeling in your body, remembering the smell and feel of hair and skin. I wasn't prepared for it this morning, so soon after my dream - it caught me off guard, to be transported back. I loved her, but I'm over her. What made me feel even sadder is that I don't have any songs like that with my current ex - who I'm not over.
No music that brings me back to what we had in quite that way. In other ways, absolutely. Through other senses, absolutely. But we never slept to music, and while that may seem inconsequential to some people the fact that I had sex for a year and a half and never to music is a sign of just how much of my soul wasn't working for far too long. It's a regret, and if I could go back I would create a memory with a trigger that sonically deep because that is what she means to me.
Because I miss her.
Instead I sat there in my room and listened and thought.
I am a pink plane, and I'm looking for a hangar.
Something in between reality and dream.
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