There's another entry from this weekend, if you are interested, hit previous.

Life is like a reality TV show sometimes. You get put to these tests, and then think and work hard to pass them and in the end, you see the roll-back and you are like, What the fuck was I thinking?

I left my apartment before noon on Saturday to meet A. and some friends from college. We drank all day. I thought a great deal about my life during that time and decisions I need to make about where to go next. These aren't new decisions, in fact, they are things I have been thinking about for months, but now the time has come, to make a choice.

I'm still thinking. Later on, college friends came into the mix. People I hadn't seen in forever and we reminisced. Half of them are married now, but they all came with out their spouses. We got stinking drunk, during the overcast day, like old times, and they all laughed at how many names and landmarks and college related things I could remember. We grew serious and told them about the days after Sept. 11 and it was intense. Some of us had seen others in line reviewing the lists of deceased and missing, we talked about all of that. It was good.

Later, my friend D. came and it was her birthday at midnight so I kept her out and we laughed and talked and had a great time. Like a when-we-were-roommates kind of time and it's been so long since we've done that, it was great.

We parted ways around 2AM and I made my way home as she headed out. As I entered my apartment building, I picked up my mail and found 1 handwritten letter for me. I didn't recognize the address, so I opened it right away.

Inside, was the most wonderful thing I have ever seen.

It was a four-color invitation to a memorial party for my friend Jeff, who died nearly four years ago of luekemia.

Jeff was a friend from work, whom I hardly knew, but clicked with immediately. He was a wonderful, wonderful guy. In fact, today, I am almost the same age he was when he died.

He was the first friend, or person I would call a friend, that died in my life. He fought until the very end and that made me so proud. So, incredibly proud.

I used to come back early from my weekends at the beach during the summer, and wrap up gifts that I picked up over the weekend - like stupid games and stickers and coloring books and crayons and silly stuffed animals - and visit him each Sunday evening in the hospital. That was my thing. Looking back, it's so strange that I did this; he and I never hung out outside of work before he got sick, although we talked about it frequently. And then he got sick and there was just no chance.

I remember spending Sunday nights with him in the hospital and we would laugh about the trach in his neck and laugh at the silly things I brought him. He was then, the age I am now. Nothing. He was 28. A baby. I must have been 24 or 25. It seems like a lifetime ago.

I would stay there there with him and chat and meet his friends and family in that hospital room. I used to put on the biggest smile of my life walking in that room. Everything I had in me, I pulled out. Everything. There were times that I didn't think I could give anymore, but now I know otherwise. Now I know otherwise.

He smiled when I came. He smiled and laughed. He said, "You're crazy!" in that Long Island gay male accented voice. "You're crazy!"

He fought the disease as my favorite Aunt died of it. I never told him that. I believed that he could win the battle and if life and death battles could be fought on sheer energy expent, he would have won. I suppose he knows now, about my aunt. Maybe they are together? I hope so.

It took me about 2 years after he died to delete his name from my e-mail address book. I have a terrible time doing that. Like the deceased are going to come back or something.

I never wrote a note to his family after he died and I couldn't get to the funeral which was out in Long Island during a week that I had no money. I felt terrible. Just God awful, you know? I still feel terrible about it.

And then tonight, I received this invitation. It reads:

"Per the last wishes of Jeff F., you are invited to a memorial celebration of life."

I read it in my elevator heading up to my apartment and I started to cry and laugh at the very same time. Here I am, 3 or 4 years later and he managed to track me down, even in death, and get me to hang out. He couldn't have picked a worse time for me.

I cried aloud, "You're a good kid, Jeff! A good kid!"

I thought about all of those random friends and his family that I had met in the waiting room of NYU hospital center. (Is it me, or have I spent an extraordinary amount of time there in that last 6 years?). I got excited about seeing them all again and seeing how they've been and talking about Jeff.

Then I looked at the date. It falls on my roadtrip that I've planned with Frogs. We're going to Graceland! I have been so excited about that. I cried for a little bit and then I thought, wait a second! I'll be in Graceland for his party.

I flashed back to those visits over several months, to his hospital room. Every Sunday, he would ask me to detail what I had done over the last 7 days and ordered me to not leave out a detail. I would tell wild stories of drugs, rock and roll, skinnydipping in the dark moonlit ocean with crushes, running barefoot and half dressed in the wee hours through a small town with lit tekki torches - whatever - and he would try and try to catch his breath with that trach in his throat and say, "Partygirl, STOP! You make me laugh and laugh - you are so crazy!!!!!! I love you, you are CRAZY!"

And I thought about what I have planned for the date of his party: a last minute, Thelma-and-Louise road trip to visit GRACELAND.

As I thought of the two, I could hear him laughing with that trach in his voice and saying, "STOP! STOP! You make me laugh so hard and it hurts - you are so CRAZY and I love you," and I knew that it doesn't hurt for him to laugh anymore. Now he is with me, watching the craziness.

It's ok for me to go, he wants to see Graceland too.

This pilgrammage, something for me, will be dedicated to him. A celebration of his life.

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