Recent Uphheavals

My life has been marked with a succession of people named James that have sharply defined times in my lifetime.

J. Loverio - my earliest encounter with a guy in my age group possessing homosexual tendencies. Pretty freaky encounter for a kid who\'s not even 12 years old. Still, Lian Chai (that\'s his Chinese name, he\'s part Chinese) and I suffered through the experience of both looking toward the caller who shouts out our first name.

J. Llaneta - the only person I know who would avoid getting killed by a swerving flatbed trailer by crossing both arms in front of his lowered head, like an anime character defending against an energy blast. He\'s a good guy to have around, and to watch your back. Just make sure you got enough food and shampoo for him.

J. Asis - what can I say? Exactly my kind (well, not really) of geek, both a non-mainstream gamer and an otaku to boot. He\'s pulled me through lots of tangles with the evil machines of doom (aka, computers), and been the sounding board and sole witness through some of my craziest ideas. (Admittedly, some of those ideas were merely corruptions of his own crazy ideas, though some of them were real collaborations.)

And finally,

J. Janisch - he\'s living proof that I can still bite down and ride it out until the end of one roller coaster ride. He was my instructor in learning vital information I would hopefully be able to use to earn a future despite my lack of a college degree. He\'s gone back to his family and friends, and I am left with the task of making him proud and not letting all his effort training me go to waste.

Truth be told, I\'d rather have that gargantuan task he left me, than try and brawl and crawl my way through to my degree. My logic is even if I did get that degree, I\'d still end up in a call center at entry level.

Mr. Janisch left me a copy of Anansi Boys. I nearly cried in his hotel room, in the presence of some of my teammates. I beat a hasty retreat, because I knew if I stayed I\'d have watered the carpet. Before I left, I managed to tell him that he was one of the coolest married men I know.

My honey will be graduating later today. The irony drives a bittersweet twinge through my chest. In another dimension, or parallel reality, I might have had her at my graduation ceremony and promising to be at hers in return. Here comes another moment of weepiness. It\'s gone now.

So now, I try to mask my feelings. I\'ll smile, I\'ll keep my eyes white, I\'ll talk. It is her day, her triumph, after all - no matter how much she tries to attribute her success to me, all the effort was hers, and so should all the glory be. I will have to content myself with the cool knowledge that while living the way I have been living, someone found strength in my meager presence.

It will have to be enough.