God Bless America

I was trying to get the above picture at the bottom of the page, but my skills with this blogger apparently are not very good. So I'll do my best (he he he). From left to right: Ben, Amy, Nicolle Benz, Mike Gallagher (taller guy), Ian (me, little.rogue77), Jennifer, and Alicia. This was for a Christmas party in December 2003 (back when I was 26).

No, I'm not referring to America, land that I love. I'm referring to someone with whom I used to work. I'm not going to be as mean as I could, though. America was a very interesting person, and I'll just leave it at that (for now).

When I first moved to Dallas and started working, I was pretty quiet for a while. I didn't really talk to many people. I remember this really mean, bitchy girl named Nicolle Benz (I really do want to go visit; really, really)--and then I liked her because she was even more crazy than I am, but that subject, like many others, will have to wait for another night when I am tired of packing and reading for board exams. I do vaguely recall making out with Nikki at Christies bar on McKinney that night when Erica got lost. HA ha ha ha ha ha. What good friends I have.

After I started to talk to some people, I realized that there was high concentration of relatively cool people. I'm not talking about high school cool. It's funny when you think back about high school: the people everyone thought were cool back then are kind of hmmmm........not really that cool anymore(I didn't want to say losers). And then the people that were kind of quirky and weird suddenly became the cool people. There were many who pointed this fact out to me time and time again when I was a foolish teenager. I thought they were just trying to make me feel better. But, again, those with more experience proved to be right.

Not all of the people at Methodist (where I first worked in Dallas) were cool. There was one girl named America. She was about 5'2". Maybe around 145 pounds. She had this hair about 3 inches past her shoulder that was more orange than brown--and she was fucking odd. I used to think that I was weird. America was not the best person at her job, and she really did have some insecurities. She would often try to force us to do things because she really did want to be in control; however, she was not able to assume leadership because, quite often, she did not know what the hell she was talking about. Flower pot Amy and I were totally disrespectful to her. We often encouraged her to take days off of work so that we could just do it without her. I felt sorry for her in a distant way--like feeling sorry for a used-up drug abuser. There was no way to help her; she would have to help herself by being nice, and that was very unlikely.

I have a long-held love and fascination with snakes. When I was about 4, I would check out this book called "Snakes of the World" from the library on a weekly basis. I often caught garter snakes and fed them frogs. I knew all about the snakes, especially the venomous ones. I have noticed that several people in Dallas look like snakes. I think that it has something to do with the ridiculous obsession with tanning and smoking that most of these people have. One person at work, however, looked like a snake for some other reason. Perhaps his parents were part snake, like on that cheesy 80's series called "V". Anyway, one time this guy was in the hallway at work, and America pranced by (Gigi, by the way, had be crowned the new America--nice going, Gigi) in a pair of snakeskin clogs. The snakelike guy took offense to these clogs; I'm not sure if he just liked snakes a lot, or if it was an insult to his family. I guess we'll never know.

By the time that Amy and I saw the clogs (and I had blown off Nikki for trying to describe them to me earlier), we just shut down our work and laughed. We tried to talk to Lee, one of our more or less bosses at the time, but we could not. We just laughed and pointed at America's snakeskin clogs. I think maybe ever a few tears were shed over the damned clogs. So that's it....America's finest achievement was the wearing of the snakeskin clogs. She really did have a keen eye for what fit her.

I was talking to my friend Tommy today. I lived with him and his fiancee at the time when we were in med school. Even though we lived in the heart of the dreaded Ark-La-Tex, we still managed to have so much fun. I will miss those times, as I will miss the times in Dallas with the friends that I have had here over the past few years. It's not about the places, it's about the people that you meet, and anyone can meet cool people anywhere. It's good never to forget your old friends though, and how much fun you used to have. I can always talk to them again even if we have not talked for months, and I can pick up right where i left off.....now those are good friends. And I am quite certain that when I have more money and time, I will be able to visit all of my friends a lot more often.

So....God Bless America, and all of my friends here. May we see each other again and get drunk!