nonstarters

Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl. They knew each other for a very long time, because when they were seven, the girl splashed him during a game of Marco Polo at a pool party and he dunked her most unchivalrously, which made her cry. But she kind of deserved it. He doesn't remember this at all.

Ten years later they meet again, part of a group of pretty good kids who did pretty good kid stuff like parent induced social activities for their betterment as good Christian kids although the girl smuggled in a tube of hair mascara and Alice in Chains cassettes and dyed everyone's hair green, and his best friend had a stash of Slayer CDs in his closet, despite his parents views on Lavey affiliated hard rockers the Eagles. Later their group of friends would do good kid things like laser tagging or ice cream at Friendly's and getting kicked out of the Southland strip mall by security for drinking half gallons of ghetto tea in the Giant Eagle parking lot or hang out in someone's basement or bedroom drinking pop and complaining about their parents.

They liked some of the same bands and didn't like some of the same bands and he was partially responsible for her transition from fledgling metalhead to the punkier side of things by loaning her lots of CDs. He also dated her best friend, broke up with her, and they lost touch.

Five years later, they meet once more, and find out they have a lot in common, and like to do similar things, but don't have anyone else to do them with. So they start hanging out, because he has a car and she doesn't, and they go see shows together on an almost weekly basis. His dad thinks they're dating, but they're not, because besides liking most of the same bands, they really have nothing else to talk about and he likes girls who are more girly. She's cynical but he's even moreso, neither for reasons that are terribly concrete besides being mad at "The System" and when not working he maintains a constant state of entertainment immersion that kind of freaks her out because while she finds Mystery Science Theater funny too, she doesn't want to watch it all the time and needs some time to be quiet and existential.

He moves away to another state, and she realizes she doesn't miss him all that much. There was nothing besides a love of good music, which only goes so far, despite what any hipster love song about mixtapes would say. She can talk about bands and guitars as good as any record store clerk, but finds herself less and less motivated to as she has less to prove. She gets a slot on college radio, still goes and sees her favorite bands and sings along to all the songs she knows, but it doesn't mean as much as it once did.

She doesn't want a compadre for the mosh pit anymore, because she's too old to mosh. She doesn't want someone who likes some obscure scene in some random town, she wants to talk about God and books and history without always coming up with concrete answers. The love of tuneage becomes a springboard to other things deeper rather than the end of the pool that seems deep compared to the baby pool, but is only maybe three feet or so.



And she still doesn't know what this all means.