Drama-rama 101

Years ago, when I was a young man with a pocketful of dreams and not much else, I had a group of friends I would hang out with. We’re talking back in 85-87ish. At the time, I thought that all of these people were normal. I was living in Ocean Beach which is San Diego’s version of Haight-Ashbury. The entire area is sketch but it has possibly the most consistent break in the area… a place called Sunset Cliffs.

My roommate and best friend at the time, Tracy, was really fun, incredibly spontaneous, but an incredible flake. Her friends were the biggest freaks this side of Barnum & Bailey. She worked as a bartender at a bar and they would all hang out and get free drinks. They would get drunk, pile into a car, drive up to the San Diego Presidio with 25 lb. blocks of ice and slide down the hill. Then they’d call me to bail them out of jail.

I was a peripheral member of the group, my only allegiance was to Tracy. She would often call me to bail her out of one predicament or another. She was my best friend afterall.

She and I were close for about three years, until she decided that we should be more than just friends. I liked her, just not in the way she wanted me to. Which is really interesting because it seems more than a few of my relationships end that way.

We eventually got kicked out of our apartment because how sketchy our guests were. I was ok with losing the apartment because I was tired of having to kick homeless people out of my car every few days.

Tracy and I remained friends for another year or two, but we slowly drifted apart. She got married a few years after that, had a kid, etc. Of all the people who have wandered in and out of my life, I think she’s the only one I regret losing touch with.