Scenes from a coffee house

I am speaking to you live from DT UT. I'm not much one for coffee houses, but this one is pretty unique. They play good music in the background and not everyone seems pretentious. They have good drinks (alcoholic if you want one) and free internet if you're interested. This place reminds me of Brazil Coffee House in Royal Oak, MI. It was at the dawn of the coffee house era, before Starbucks blew up, at least in the Midwest, back in old 1994. Paul, Feras, and I hung out there on a cold, yet promising early spring Saturday when nothing was going on at the University of Detroit campus. This also before Royal Oak was pretty cool. Royal Oak has become a mini-West Village of the Detroit area. Part commercial, part unique. Those were the days. How I like to reminisce about the good old days, college.

Last night, I went to dinner with Roy, Jess, Pete, Hyewon, and Perry. It was Pete's birthday. It was definitely a night of reminiscing. I know Pete through Roy. Pete and Roy went to the University of Buffalo. Actually, I was the only one there who didn't have at least some credits from the University of Buffalo. They went through how everyone met everyone. That's where the reminiscing started. We all told our college stories, mostly them because many of their stories intertwined.

After dinner, we headed back to Roy and my apartment for some more reminscing. Roy even brought out a video from his college days. When Roy was a senior, the church group that he was involved in had created a video. It showed mostly different retreats that they were on or group events. But, they had recreated what can be described as a dubbed Chinese movie. It had some very interesting editing, but it's not like they were experts or had disposible money to play around with. The did the best they could with the budget that they were on. It was actually pretty funny.

I'm glad to have met Roy. Most of my friends that unfortunately don't live in New York (or they might sight that I don't unfortunately live in Detroit) and it is really fortunate how we met and have had a great room-mate for the last 2 1/2 years. No we are not Brokeback Mountain. He is engaged to be married (only 8 more months of freedom brotha!). At this point, I am recently single, and into women. He and I were both on the same exchange program in Australia.

I remember the day like it was yesterday. It was actually the first day I met Lynn too. Prior to this meeting I was hanging around with Chitra and Janice, nice people, but I didn't feel that connection. We were all planning on meeting in Coogee (pronounced Cugg-ye), which is where my flat happened to be. There had been email contact, but no face to face, or pictures, so I didn't know what to expect. Roy had said in his email to look for a tall Asian. On my way over to meet them, I walked past a secondhand store. I glanced in the window and saw a Detroit Piston jersey, old school, mesh, numbers and DETROIT sewn on. I am halfway across the world and I see a Detroit Pistons jersey. What kind of fate is that? Of course, I had to buy it, for a mere AU$15!

Anyway, I strolled over a few blocks to where the meeting place was to be and I saw Roy with Janice, two of the tallest Asian people I have ever seen. After introducing myself, the next thing I did was show the jersey to Roy. He thought that was pretty interesting, too. Right there, I know we were going to click. To make a long story short, we hung out a lot while we were in Australia and we kept in touch after leaving. He had decided to move to New York from Rochester, NY as did I and we decided to room together. And now we have 3 years of memories. But all good things must come to an end. But until then, we will continue to add up the memories. It's not like it will be the end of it, but he will move on to the next step in his life as will I.