Without really intending to, I spent the day in Athens during the Bulldogs-LSU football game. I didn't actually go to the football game. (I didn't even intend to go to the game since I wasn't wearing home team colors when I left my apartment.) I was all around campus when the home team was completely kicking LSU's ass.
My main intention for being there was to meet Black, my friend that I've been speaking to about once a week but had never met before today.
I was nervous. I was nervous on the way there. I was nervous when I reached campus while tailgating was in full swing. I was nervous when I had to park in the lot of some condos and walk for about a mile-and-a-half to reach Phi Kappa Hall, thinking that I was going to narrowly miss actually seeing Black.
So when I got there and several people I knew were standing in front of the brick building, I just looked around and tried to see Black, which was funny since I only had a vague idea of what he looked like from photos taken at an angle.
I was standing with my friend Pam, who reads the blog and knew who I was waiting for, thinking that I'd missed him when she called out to a guy on the sidewalk.
"There he is!" she shouted. "Bro. Black!!!"
And then he walked up. And he said hello to Pam. And I stood there, with Black in front of me, and I blushed. I can't believe it. I think he saw it. But I blushed. Because he was there, standing in front of me, and I had never met him before even though I'd heard about him and wanted to meet him for over a year now.
He was cute. Bigger than I expected. (Of course, I never imagine the proportions of people I speak to on the phone.) His eyes are what I thought they'd be. And he seemed kinda happy to see me.
But I didn't know what to talk about, so I didn't end up talking about much. He shook my hand. I wanted to hug him. But he shook my hand, and that was probably more appropriate anyway, and I didn't even think about saying, "Hey, mind if I hug you?," because that would probably sound silly.
I introduced Black, with Pam's help, to all the other people in front of the Hall.
But I wanted to get him alone. And talk to him. Really talk.
On the phone, we talk about philosophy. About the direction we want in life. We talk about love. And sex. About women and how maddening they can be. We talk about work, about where we expected to be by now.
But he was with a friend Cheree, and we only had a half hour before the game. So I walked with he and his friend to the game.
Cheree's a doctor, and, given my impression, she's great. And it turned out that I'd met her before. Because she was either my orientation leader when I was a freshman 10 years ago. Or she was one of the orientation leaders I met when I was a freshman.
I probably spoke more to Cheree than to Black. Because, I don't know, there wasn't time, and she was someone new. And I was nervous about him. But not about her. There weren't stakes with her.
Thinking back on it, how little time I had with him, I probably should've spoken to him more. I feared that I was going to sound like I was trying too hard to be clever, whatever sense that makes.
So the three of us walked down campus, and we commented on what we saw. We saw LSU fans dressed like pimps and heard them complain about how much it hurt to walk in heels.
We saw an LSU fan lying on the ground, the wind knocked out of him, and Cheree made a point of going toward the Dawgs fan standing over him to make sure that his bloody knuckles didn't require immediate medical attention.
We saw my friend Doug, who was walking across campus with an entourage from my days at The Red & Black. Doug was with Kristen, who hugged me.
We were walking past the J-School when I saw my favorite professor exiting it, wearing a red shirt while on his way to the game.
"FINK!!!" I yelled at the prof with heavy, furry white eyebrows, and that startled Black and Sheree, who probably thought I was about to pick a fight.
But Prof. Fink looked at me and smiled.
"Oh my God, it's been a long time since I've seen you," Fink said to me.
I last saw him in 1998 when, during my graduation, Fink announced my full name and then said "OTHERWISE KNOWN AS BENJIE!!!!" to the crowd before handing me my $30,000 J-School keychain (for the diploma arrived later).
Fink asked me what I was doing.
I told him that I was still working for McGraw-Hill in Atlanta. And I told him that I felt like a sellout, which I realized immediately was not the thing to say.
So I rebounded and told him about my column in the Guardian, which pleased him more. Then I mentioned Miss Gibson, who graduated with me, because she's also a favorite of his AND she has a better overall resume than I do.
I told him that she became a British citizen this week.
And we spoke a bit more before he headed to the game, which struck me as funny because I never pictured the legendary Fink - with his slicked-back hair and trademark smartass smirk - to be a football fan.
"That guy had some freaky eyebrows," Black said to me.
"That's Fink," I said.
"Yeah, I think you or Carrie have mentioned him before," Black said.
And Black and Cheree parted company with me just after the J-School. Cheree gave me a Coke because they didn't allow outside drinks in the stadium. And Black told me that we should hang out properly some weekend.
Leaving him, I went to the UGA tent sale at Tate Plaza and bought myself a UGA T-shirt so that I could walk around campus without getting lynched for wearing the wrong colors.
Sitting in the top floor of Tate Student Center for about a half hour, I realized that I'd probably set foot in that exact same place in the exact same building 10 years ago to the day. And that struck me as kinda cool and kinda sad because there's no way to experience that feeling without feeling old.
I ended up in the University Bookstore, where I browsed through Graham Greene. (Even though I work in a bookstore, I always end up loitering in bookstores on my days off. You'd think that much exposure would curb my love for the places, but it doesn't.)
I walked through the Founder's Garden, where I remembered being attacked by mosquitos 10 years ago after my first boyfriend Tom practically stripped me naked while we aggressively made out on the grass. The Founder's Garden is meant to be so pretty and peaceful that I almost hate that my clearest memory of it involves being half-naked with an ex-soldier on the sod.
Strolling through downtown, I discovered how many more of my favorite restaurants and stores have shut their doors. I was most upset this time by the apparent disappearance of Rocky's Pizzeria, which was my favorite place to eat with Welsh Guy - because he liked the amount of ice they put in the Cokes.
I didn't even look at the former R&B offices, which now house a Pita Pit restaurant.
After the game, Pam had told us that some Phi Kappa alums were meeting in front of the Hall again and getting something to eat. Black said he'd be there but wasn't. So I ended up hanging out with other characters from my past, talking the election and having Buffalo chicken tenders.
The night ended when Pam drove me back to my car, which was five minutes outside of bumfuck nowhere. We talked about Kurosawa and how cool she is because Pam, to be honest, knows what's new and cool at least five minutes before everybody else does.
I actually had made plans to do a lot of things on Saturday, not just see Black in Athens.
But that was satisfying. That was great. That was enough.
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