Lost Time

While I enjoy the fact that from now until October, the sun “sets” later, the first day’s loss of an hour takes some adjustment. Most of the day has been spent saying “Is it really X o’clock already?!?”

Still, I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day. Cool and crisp, the windows were opened wide, airing out the apartment. Having snoozed a little, I’m currently given to lounging. The hour lag hasn’t been shaken off yet. It is with some fuzzy, residual fatigue, I reflect on the past evening.

A pot luck dinner, the BF and I had taken part. We brought sausage and peppers (yum!). Well, he cooked and I helped eat it. The dinner idea had sprung from one friend who’d thought that it’d been far too long that the “core group” had gotten together.

It hadn’t always been like this, spacious gaps of time before we’d come together again. We were once a tight knit group, meeting up weekly if not more often. We never needed a reason, just a season.

All hailing from Brooklyn and Staten Island even, we all hung out at Spectrum’s, our local haunt. Our apartment was always open for a pre-Spectrum’s meet up and cocktail. We had many a good time.

As time passed, Spectrum’s grew tired as a hangout. Its fall from grace was inescapable, due to poor management, terrible promotion and for me, the worst, an endlessly repetitive soundtrack, literally. From any track played, I could tell you exactly what the next songs were. My musical tastes had grown and I’d befriended the DJ/boyfriend of the owner, bending his ear about experimenting and expanding the track selection outside of top 40/popular music. He’d shock me from time to time and play something I’d only heard in a club. However with subsequent visits, he’d have beaten that track to death, inciting my derisive comments and my refusal to ever return. I still feel queasy when I hear Cher.

So, with no common place to hang out, add to that some infighting (borne of jealousy) with some strong, unnecessary words and some indiscretions, the group was irrevocably fractured. No one incident could be held to blame, nor any one person but we did all sit idly by as our family disintegrated. Eventually, some of us scattered, moving away with family to the fringe, NJ and the group was nearly, never together apart from mainstay parties like mine and the BF’s holiday party and N’s Super Bowl party. Such is the state of our Brooklyn “family” today.

Back to the pot luck dinner.

All but one of the invitees attended, all but one of the core friends.

But… it was nice, really nice. I miss it already. There were new faces, inevitable with new partners, but we welcomed them with open arms.

Much of the evening was spent eating and drinking.

Some of us got caught up but most stay in touch in our own way. However new topics of conversation have taken a techy overtone. Funny, I used to be the only one like that. Now, some of them stand toe-to-toe with me. It’s humbling but I’m still their go to guy.

Everyone evolves. Perhaps our family has evolved. That makes me happy, bringing the promise of new/different interactions with the old feelings.