Buffalo, NY

I went to Buffalo, NY this weekend to visit James (who's recently transfered to SUNY Buffalo) and see my old hometown.
Initially, it was stressful. I had to wait 2 bloody hours for my flight to take off! I read 200 pages waiting for takeoff, while poor James had to wait in the airport to pick me up. I finally got in around 1am, so we cabbed it to his studio.

Before I describe the weekend, I have to make a few key points:
1) He has a massive studio. I daresay it's as big as our convertible 1 BR apartment. The kitchen was cute, and James is such a minimalist, it seemed as if it was too big.
2) James doesn't buy much food, so we ate oatmeal, rice, challah bread, and sponge candy all the time. We drank lots of green tea. I took him out for the first time, to an Indian restaurant. And he made me salmon one night. But it was quite amusing to me how James went from eating more than a bear before hibernation to complete bird-style.
3) We didn't have a car, so we did a lot of hanging out in his apartment. I think he has acquired ADD by living alone and not venturing out too often with comarades. He was all over the place in his studio! Bouncing back and forth, it was quite humurous.
4) I'm so glad I got to see him. I miss him a lot, especially since he's one of my personal therapists. We talked a lot about some really interesting things: religion, spirituality, humanity, our relationships with people, personal issues, and so so much more. We did argue a lot, but it was always about silly things: "Kim, don't do the dishes!" "James, don't sleep on the floor!" "Kim, don't pay for that!" "James, don't wait for me so long at the airport!"
5) Keep in mind I was born in Buffalo, and lived there until I was about 4 years old. We have one family of friends (the K's) there still, who my mom still keeps correspondences with (I haven't seen them in over a decade, though). They have 3 kids that were Aimee and my playmates (there was a girl a year younger than Aimee, and 2 boys one and two years older than me). The youngest boy, John, and I were "married". I left John an email (though I haven't seen him in FOREVER) about visiting a month before, and I called the mom to see if I could visit the neighborhood. John hadn't gotten back to me, and the mom didn't think they had time during the weekend to see me.

Friday he had class, so I woke up late and went for a jog around his area. It was alarmingly cold, and in the middle of my jog it started to rain a bit. Cold, cold runs are a lot more exhilirating than I remembered! I enjoyed it quite a bit, though I lost $2 on my excursion. And the last snow storm took down a LOT of trees, so I had a lot of obstacles to run around during my run.
After my jog, I got back to find out I had a voicemail. At first I thought it was Mr.K because the voice was so low. Then I realize it's John! He wanted to meet up with me since I was in town. I called him back, and we talked on the phone for 45 minutes (as I was trying to wait for a bus to get to the campus and meet up with James). It was as if we talked the day before! Not awkward at all! After realizing I was waiting for the wrong bus all along, he decided to drive over and bring me to campus himself.
We met in Starbucks. At first I was nervous, since I haven't seen this person in such a long while. I was afraid that it was going to be one of those situations where you haven't seen someone you were close with in a long while, and they change so much (and so drastcially) that you become disheartened because you can't see your old friendship working out. But as soon as he waltzed into the place, it was just like meeting up with a friend I see hanging around school every week. It rekindled my faith in friendships and people! He turned into such a great guy!
We had a great time catching up, just talking and joking around. Before we picked up James on campus (and they hit it off, too!), we went for a carride around. Poor John was my chauffeur for 2 days straight.
That night, James and I gorged ourselves on Indian food. I haven't felt that overfull in a long time. We veged out in his studio all night. Well, I veged out. James bounced here and there....

Saturday, John called when he woke up. Though he had work in 2 hours, he agreed to pick us up and drive us 30 minutes to my old neighborhood. We continued the funfilled conversation as I slowly regressed to being a 4 year-old. The trees were everywhere, so it gave me a sad feeling. But overall, the neighborhood was just as I remembered it, only a bit smaller in size.
And the K's renovated the inside of their house! I remembered most of it, but the kitchen was different, and the basement was different, too! Those 2 places were our jungle gyms way back when....
Basically, John drove us to his house and back to James' place for my sake. I owe him, big time. We got pictures, and he gave me a great bear hug goodbye. Hopefully we can keep this 20-year friendship (yes, I'm calling it that, because I think it is one) going for longer.
James tried his first sponge candy (which is truly only known in the Buffalo region....no one knows about it!). He asked us if it was really sponge in the candy, and John & I laughed hard. We knew better.
James and I veged out the rest of the night after talking a walk to Tops Grocers for some food. We watched Dr.Strangelove and Motorcycle Diaries.
We talked a lot.

Sunday I had an early flight.
I took a cab to the airport.
The cabdriver assumed that James and I were boyfriend/girlfriend, and I was too tired to explain our friendship, so I just went along with him and his ideas on our "relationship". He was upset that James "left" me at NYU and didn't "help keep our relationship easy". My favorite line from Mr. Cab Driver: "If I was your boyfriend, I wouldn't have transfered away from you. I would have talked to you about the situation, how and I wanted to make it work and live with you in an apartment in the city." I got a good hearty chuckle out of it all.

I finished the book "Running with Scissors". It was alright. I want to see the movie more.