The Police might be reuniting.

I often cannot understand the thoughts of a celebrity. The act of a famous band getting back together, is one that I can.

Story One

My Junior year of college I was involved in this competition where we ran a fictional business. It was me and two other dudes. That spring semester we spent hour after hour analyzing numbers, creating fake annual reports and taking fake pictures of us in suits looking like were were professionals. We also spent a lot of time hanging out. A lot of time drinking Coronas. The culmination of this competition was five days in San Jose. Those five days I don't think I ever had a moment to myself. We were either working on making business decisions, hitting on competitors from Arizona and California, which to our East coast souls were a new brand, or drinking in the hot tub talking about girls and the business. We slept for maybe four hours each night, but it was tremendous. The competition ended and we did not place but we were known as the rugby song singing guys from the East. The final night we were there we stayed up all night with some girls from Arizona and Idaho, laughing to the point where our sides hurt. At 1AM we kidnapped the airport shuttle to take us to the liquor store and then got the liquor store to put our receipt as snacks since our per diem didn't cover alcohol. The next day we flew back to Rhode Island exhausted, and I wrote a paper on Reaganomics. It was some of the most fun, intense days of my life.

Fast forward to the following spring. We are all Seniors. One of the guys was moving to DC to be an accountant. The other was moving to Boston and I was moving to NYC. We decide to head to the local watering hole to get the band back together. I remember there were emails hyping the night. There were inside jokes that nobody would ever understand lobbed. I was so excited I canceled going to a party some girls were throwing.

It was a fun time, we had a lot of laughs, a lot of beer. It wasn't the same though. I was home that night by 10:30 and had time to hit the other party.

When I think back on the night it was nothing special and yet I am glad that I did it. I met up with one of the other guys a few months back (Now 9 years after the time in San Jose) for a few drinks and again it was nice and fun and comfortable.

Story Two:
I am interning in Hartford Connecticut. The last weekend before I am to move back to college, we throw a two-kegger with all the interns and a lot of the full time people. The weeks before this I am having lunch with one of the full timers. She happens to have many of the qualities that I thought I wanted in a wife, much less summer love. She comes to the party. We spend 3 hours outside in the shade of a Maple Tree, until close to 4 in the morning. We discuss our fears, our hopes, our dreams, we kissed. That Monday is my 21st birthday. We go out in Hartford she shows up dressed to kill. I spend most of the time away from my other friends and with her. That Wednesday we go to lunch and she starts talking about coming to visit me back in Rhode Island. That Thursday we spend 2 hours on the phone again sharing company secrets.

That Friday, we have a bar crawl (being an intern is the greatest) She shows up and it is awkward. There was this tension build up and we both knew there was this expectation that in the warmth of the August night we would fall in love. The other interns knew it, her co-workers knew it. I put on my best shirt. So we hit the first bar and talk a bit, at the second bar though we are split up. The third bar, same. Finally around bar number five we meet up and she says that she has to go talk to someone. She does. Bar 8 and now I am wondering what is going on, I walk into where there is a dance floor. Bam. She is not just kissing, but making out with some other dude. Lets just say the night ends with there being more liquid in the Lake than usual.

I go home and wake up the next morning to move. I get a call from her asking how I liked the crawl. I said fine. She said she was sorry that we didn't cross paths more, but that she would call me in a few weeks. Over the course of the next year, being the nice guy that I am, I flung emails here and there with her. The day after my college graduation I am to go to Hartford for a concert, the plan was to meet up with her afterwards at her apartment. She had mentioned that she was single again and she was looking forward to seeing me. I go to her apartment. I walk in and it screams I am a lonely woman. There are too many Disney movies by the VCR. There are too many post it notes around the place to remind her where stuff is. She was 22 years old and had a full KitchenAid mixer like the Field got for a shower gift. The conversation was awkward and much less longer than I think either of us had anticipated. We left with a hug and I think have emailed twice since.

Why do I tell these two stories? Because when I read the story about the Police I felt it was much too easy to make a Roxanne, I won't be watching you joke, when in a way the desire to revisit the past is so much a part of life, even though it never really works out. Because all we are is Spirits in the Material World.