A Funk, The Weekend, and A Story

Have you ever experienced a major let down after accomplishing a life's dream (or at least a dream)? I am afraid I am in the midst of a major post-achievement funk. I have almost no desire right now to work on the things I'm supposed to be working on--meaning the things I am paid to work on, as opposed to my civil rights stuff (though I'm doing it anyway, of course). It is impossible for me to remember the last time I felt so bored. But my workload does not permit me the luxury of laziness at this time. ARGHHHHHH!

Anyway, it is the Memorial Day weekend, and I will be working a lot, but also preparing my house to welcome a guest on Wednesday. The guest is my friend M and it seems a good time to share the story of how I met M and his friend J, with J being one of my closest friends.



Sometime around 1995 or 1996, I was sent to Torrance, California on a document review project for a client. My law school friend/then colleague D and I were lucky enough to be assigned to stay at the client's preferred hotel, which was on the water in Redondo Beach, California. The project began one week and we had to stay in CA through the following week to meet with some other lawyers. Accordingly, we were required to stay through the weekend, with our only duty being to have reviewed all the documents by the following week, at whatever pace we chose. Rough task, right?

Neither D nor I had visited the Los Angeles area before, so we started each work day early and finished by late afternoon, which was an "early day" under law firm standards. We would dash back to our hotel, change into play clothes, and walk or roller blade or bike along the nice pedestrian path that traced the edge of the beach. There was always a nice place for dinner (D introduced me to sushi on this trip), followed by mellow evening activities. For the weekend, D and I wanted to really get out to see the city of Los Angeles in style, and we decided to try a Wolfgang Puck restaurant. Despite the hype, however, the Big Saturday Night was a bit of a flop, as we realized we had chosen a Puck restaurant that was a chain (think California Pizza Kitchen) and that it was a bad idea to drink and drive around an unfamiliar city.

Feeling deflated, we returned to the hotel and wondered what we would do with the remainder of our evening. Entering the hotel lobby, we saw a group of well-dressed people milling about, with the unifying theme being that they were all drinking beer and having fun. Perhaps they saw us looking longingly at their merry group, and before we knew it, D and I each had a cold drink in hand, he was pulled into a poker game and we were happily visiting with the folks (they were the wedding party in a wedding that occurred earlier that evening). By now you will have guessed that both M and J were groomsmen in the wedding who lived nearby and that we got to know them over poker chips and beer.

Somehow in the midst of all the festivities, there was a little spark between M and me, and I found myself spending quite a bit of time with him in between reviewing documents. We continued to talk and see each other after my return to Texas, even going on a wonderful camping trip in the Redwood Forest in Northern California with a huge group of his friends. While getting to know M, I also got to know J, as J was his roommate. The romance with M was apparently not meant to last, as I abruptly ended it for reasons I no longer clearly remember. But J and I had become good friends by that time and we continue to be great friends to this day. In fact, it was J and the lovely girlfriend I "introduced" him to (by forcing him to sign up with an online dating service) with whom I had such a great time in Hawaii earlier this year.

In the last 10 or so years, M and I have stayed in touch through J, even spending some time together while attending a Cubs/Padres game with J and others last spring. He'll be in town this week on business and I am looking forward to showing him a bit of my world and catching up while he's here.

And now, I'm off to "work." Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend!