{"id":9143,"date":"2009-03-09T12:29:26","date_gmt":"2009-03-09T16:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9143"},"modified":"2022-10-12T22:50:04","modified_gmt":"2022-10-13T02:50:04","slug":"is-that-no-it-couldnt-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9143","title":{"rendered":"Is that \u2026.? No, it couldn\u2019t be."},"content":{"rendered":"

TWENTY PLUS YEARS AGO<\/strong><\/p>\n

He wasn’t in the theatre department, but he was peripheral to it, somehow – perhaps he took a couple of acting classes, or worked in a scene shop, or dated someone in the department – I can’t remember. He came to all the parties, he was one of us … and yet NOT one of us …<\/p>\n

Because he wasn’t 100% ensconced in the hothouse atmosphere of our department, he was kind of a rare commodity, and sightings of him thrilled us, and everybody LOVED him. We would get excited when we heard he was coming to a party. “Mark’s coming? Oh, cool!” we would say to each other.<\/p>\n

He had the easygoing funny energy of a boy who was always coming off an awesome game of ultimate Frisbie on the Quad. A real Rhode Island type.<\/p>\n

He and I once played an impromptu chase game through the lobby of the theatre, and instead of saying “Go” to begin the chase, it was decided (by whom?) that one of us had to shout, “Cracker Barrel Cheese.” So poor random students, who had nothing to do with the theatre, but were just cutting through the building on their way somewhere else, had to dodge the whizzing lunatics racing around columns shouting, “CRACKER BARREL CHEESE.” at each other.<\/p>\n

He was a peripheral person to the department, but very well-liked, and we all remember him fondly. “Hey member him? Wonder what happened to him?”<\/p>\n

A COUPLE WEEKS AGO<\/strong><\/p>\n

I posted a bunch of pictures on Facebook from a Halloween party we had in college. I’ve posted some of the photos here repeatedly<\/a>. Of course, all of my friends are on Facebook, so I put up all of these crazy pictures from the party, and tagged everyone. Hilarity ensued. Memory Lane blossomed forth. There is one photo from that party of Mark bobbing for apples. He was with a girl who appeared to be dressed as a woodland nymph. And he had some insane wig on. Mitchell, Jackie, other friends – were all commenting, “Where is he now? He was so great! Look at how adorable he is. I wonder what he’s up to now!” There was one comments section in particular where we all just sat around (virtually), reminiscing about how much fun he was.<\/p>\n

THREE DAYS AGO<\/strong><\/p>\n

I got into an elevator. There was a guy in it already. Nobody else was in the elevator but us.<\/p>\n

He said to me, “So … ya think it’s getting warmer out today?”<\/p>\n

I had just been looking out the window, and saw huge dripping icicles on the roof – so I said (and I immediately liked this guy – I like people who are nice, and the way he opened up conversation was nice), “I just saw some dripping icicles out the window – almost like it was raining!”<\/p>\n

He said, “Wow! Okay!”<\/p>\n

There was something about him …<\/p>\n

He radiated niceness, and I needed nice-ness that day – it was a rough one … but there was something else … The elevator ride wasn’t long, we only had 7 floors together … but I took one quick glance at him, then took another glance, and finally …<\/p>\n

I took the leap.<\/p>\n

“Are you Mark [last name]?”<\/p>\n

He gave me this weird excited look, almost like he was on the edge of something, like he wanted to say something too, and he said, “Yes.”<\/p>\n

By that point we had reached the lobby floor – I said, “I’m Sheila – from college!”<\/p>\n

He said (and this was the best part), “The second you walked in the elevator, I took one look at you and thought … Is that ….? No … it couldn’t be …<\/i>”<\/p>\n

I said, “Just the way you were so nice when you asked me about the weather … I thought to myself … Is that ….?<\/i>”<\/p>\n

He said, “I had to talk to you – just to be sure …”<\/p>\n

At some point in the middle of this, we hugged, trying to get over how weird and wonderful it was … that we had both recognized each other (“CRACKER BARREL CHEESE”) and tiptoed around it for 5 floors before making the jump of faith.<\/p>\n

We stood in the bustling hallway and talked for about half an hour, catching up, laughing, all that – and of course I had to fill him in on the whole love-fest he had missed out on on Facebook literally TWO WEEKS PRIOR. It’s not like we all sit around and talk about Mark all day long. We probably haven’t referenced his name in over 20 years. I haven’t seen him since college. It was the scanning of those photos into Facebook, and the picture of him bobbing for apples – uploaded to Facebook two damn weeks before – that made us all stop and ponder: what happened to him?<\/p>\n

Ask and ye shall receive.<\/p>\n

Two weeks after saying, “Where is he? Can we find him??”, I run into the damn guy in the elevator, after two decades of nothingness, and get the answers to all of my questions.<\/p>\n

How does one catch the other one up on 20 years of life? We did not try. The connections, however, abound. Where I work right now – he works on the floor above me – and if I had X-ray vision, I could basically see thru the ceiling to where he sits. Truly bizarre. But I loved seeing him, and I was laughing – “Dude, this is so strange – we were all just <\/em>crushing on you like two weeks ago on Facebook … remembering you fondly, all that – so weird – ”<\/p>\n

He just kept laughing at the image of that.<\/p>\n

He looks exactly the same to me. All it took was that closer glance. And I feel strangely gratified that I look enough like my college self that he would glance at me in the elevator and think: Is that ….? Could it be ….<\/i>?<\/p>\n

Yes. It is.<\/p>\n

And I am still doubtful when David refers to my life as a “literary conceit”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TWENTY PLUS YEARS AGO He wasn’t in the theatre department, but he was peripheral to it, somehow – perhaps he took a couple of acting classes, or worked in a scene shop, or dated someone in the department – I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[600],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9143"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9143"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180913,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9143\/revisions\/180913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}