Well, I never really lost him, and I didn’t find him either, but my friend Larry just emailed me after we’d lost touch for 2 years or perhaps even more… and I think I just wrote him a babbling excitable email basically indicating that I will transplant my arse wherever I need to in order to be able to see him and catch up.

He’s been doing the law school thing and just let me know that he’s finishing up now and starting as an assistant district attorney in NY soon, so there’s clearly a LOT for me to catch up on with him. I’ve often thought about him and wondered how he was, where he was, how to get in touch, etc., but didn’t know where to start.

I am just beyond thrilled that he wrote to me and that we’re in touch again. He also shared an interesting tidbit with me:

“I went on Wikipedia to research the Bronx and learned that the French have a saying for when something is a big mess: “C’est le Bronx!” which literally translates into “this is the Bronx!” I love the idea that a French soccer mom might go into her kid’s messy bedroom and exasperatedly shout “c’est le bronx!” as she warns her kid to clean up his room or else. I will be that french soccer mom pretty soon.”

Oh, Larrificent. How I’ve missed thee!

I was going to write about something totally different, but then I got the email from him and my mood changed entirely.

I still spent 2 hours this evening playing Kingdom Hearts 2 (it’s one recreational thing I can do with the wrist brace on that doesn’t end up hurting me - unlike reading a book which ends up making my wrist hurt a LOT), so I’m nice and mentally fuzzy and ready for bed. It’s almost 11, so that’s a good thing.

Between the train ride to and from work today, I read Bill Bryson’s “Neither Here Nor There.” It’s his book about traveling through Europe for the first time since a backpacking trip with his friend in their college days. There’s a great passage that made me chuckle out loud on the train. Since I was also listening to some Satie on my iPod, I didn’t notice if other passengers were “tsk-tsk”ing at me or anything, but I was highly entertained and amused. He’s talking about how much he hates it when dogs start getting amorous with his legs and decides the following:

To my mind, the only possible pet is a cow. Cows love you. They are harmless, they look nice, they don’t need a box to crap in, they keep the grass down and they are so trusting and stupid that you can’t help but lose your heart to them. Where I live in Yorkshire, there’s a herd of cows down the lane. You can stand by the wall at any hour of the day or night, and after a minute the cows will all waddle over and stand with you, much too stupid to know what to do next, but happy just to be with you. They will stand there all day as far as I can tell, possibly till the end of time. They will listen to your problems and never ask a thing in return. They will be your friends forever. And when you get tired of them, you can just kill them and eat them. Perfect. - Bill Bryson, Neither Here Nor There

And now, it’s time for me to get to bed. Read some more Salman Rushdie since my non-fiction break was the Bill Bryson.