I'm not quite too sure exactly how I became chums with Don Surlylight. We had some classes together at college, but I can't remember our first conversations and other stuff like that. I don't even think we had any group projects that would have drawn us together.
He didn't play an instrument but I remember him being at my basement while I was jamming with my other friends. I don't think we even liked the same music because I remember him being into that emo shit. The only thing we really had in common is that we are both Filipino. I vaguely remember some classmate presenting a video about heritage that I liked, so it may have been him and I may have complimented him.
I remember specifically another classmate named Noah Shark, who pretty much became friends with me because we were both from the Philippines. Now that I think about it, he probably introduced us or something. But the point was that after Little Lost Guy went back to Ecuador, I was suddenly hanging out with Don Surlylight, talking about projects and girls and whatnot.
One Spring day in 2004, we spontaneously decided to look into getting internships. So we walked over to this building to inquire. We were told to wait, and we sat down on the couch in the department's office (I forget the name: Job Placement? Career Development? Iono, something). Anyways, I was seated facing out the door, and across from us was the reception desk for the Advisement Center. It was one of those funny serendipity things because Don was right next to me, and his eye line was towards the wall and mine was towards what was an empty chair behind the desk at the time.
We were waiting for a while, but I wasn't complaining because a beautiful girl came by and occupied that empty chair at the reception desk across from me.
So we talked about her and that she was attractive and everything.
Over the summer I ended up moving around the corner from Don's house. We got an internship together at CableVision, where they edit local TV commercials. Sometimes we would go to the Hoboken office together, riding on the light rail to get there.
In the fall, we were in a video production class together. At this time, I had asked out the beautiful girl from the Advisement Center (she is now my wife). One day, I came in to class and told Don we were going out.
His reply was, "That's good, yo." You'd figure a good friend would have been interested or excited for you. But that was it. "That's good, yo." And then class started. That was probably the last time we talked. I didn't realize it then, but we had stopped hanging out or even talking.
By the summer of 2005, Don had added me as a friend on MySpace. (Remember MySpace?) He also added my girlfriend. He never commented or messaged me, but he was constantly communicating with my girlfriend. He didn't have a lot of good things to say about me, let's just say. The funny thing was, I was there to read those exchanges the whole time. I guess he didn't notice that I would go offline right before she would go on and vice versa. We had been living together for about a year.
Don said that I had said some harsh things about his cousin's award-winning project. He said I had some nerve to then show up at his cousin's graduation party afterwards. Well, I don't recall precisely what I said, but I remember that I wasn't a big fan of the video. I was always ready to critique my classmates' work because I wanted the same treatment. I wouldn't have hesitated to tell his cousin what I thought if it had come up. So there you go.
Once in a while, I would see him on the bus or walking into Pathmark with his girlfriend, and I just say to myself, it's a small world after all.
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