My Pals Hoops and Stelly

So, I was driving around with my iPAQ hooked up to my car stereo and set on shuffle, not hearing what I wanted. Then, Kiss off by The Violent Femmes came on. First, I thought of my old pal, Hoops.

(Aside: My girlfriends from college, oh it was Zoid, of course, gave her that nickname because they liked her and wanted to make her feel like she was one of the gang. I don't think anyone has called her that since but, for our purposes, she'll forever be Hoops here.)

Hoops and I shared a great joy in the music of The Cure and The Violent Femmes. Kiss Off was a particular favorite. I can't tell you how many times we wound up screaming out the numbers part of the song:

"I take 1,1,1 'cause you left me
and 2,2,2 for my family,
and 3,3,3 for my heartaches
and 4,4,4 for my headaches
and 5,5,5 for my lonely
and 6,6,6 for my sorrow
and 7,7 n-n-n-n-no tomorrow
and 8, 8 I forget what 8 was for,
but 9,9,9's for my lost God
and 10,10,10, 10 is for everything, everything, everything, everything!...."

The version I was listening to was live. The live version reminded me of the night that I saw the Femmes perform at the Electric Factory. I went with Sparky and our pal Stelly. It was a great show. Of course, by then Gordon Gano had turned into a big fat sloppy old queen. His cute rebel youth was a distant and faded memory.

When I got to work I had discovered an e-mail from Stelly. I wrote him back and told him how I had just been thinking of him while listening to The Femmes on the commute in to work. He, of course, was just listening to their greatest hits cd. This is not surprising. Stelly and I have always had some pretty cool connections. He was Sparky's best friend and they'd been pals from college when we first met.

I met Stelly after Sparky and I had been out a few times. He asked the usual kind of first introduction kind of questions including where I lived. Now, I live in a town near the town I mostly grew up in, but I had moved there as an adult and, although it was (and still is) where I lived, I mostly just slept there. Stelly wanted to know if I knew a particular person who lived in my area. I figured the odds were awfully slim, but asked who he meant. It turned out that the girl he mentioned was one of my closest friends in elementary school. She was a great girl, but with an unfortunate name (her first and last names put together were the same as a cold medication). We only saw each other in passing in high school, but I had many fond memories of slumber parties, recess and a shore vacation where her family stayed in the house that back up to our bungalows. Small world, right? I don't think I've had a connection like this to a non-boyfriend ever.