Joey R

This one goes out to a good friend. I found out tonight that Joey, an old and dear friend of mine from high school, passed away either Monday night or Tuesday morning -- I don't know. The obituary says Tuesday, but judging from the facebook postings it would have had to have been very early on Tuesday because people already knew at like 8:30 am.

My mom called and told me. After going through a few seconds of denial I ran to the computer. Facebook would show it right? Because didn't he just post something recently? He must have. Upon reading the postings you just knew instantly. Though having read all the postings, still I've got no clue what happened other than he 'died unexpectedly.'

We haven't been in touch in a long time, which is so weird to me and I always regret this about people I was close with in NEPA. There was just something about that place that's still in my head in a mostly negative way. Like a lot of small towns, it for sure wasn't gay friendly nor was it very ethnically diverse or sensitive. For anybody who didn't excel in a practical or accepted way or fit into some kind of life 'type' you just frequently felt on the outside. Left to kind of just create your little world and wait around until you can fly the coop off to a place where you have the opportunity and means to just live more freely and be happy and, for many, explore creative pursuits. Sure, no situation is this entirely perfect or free but small towns are typically limited by their own limited scope--lack of museums, lack of nationally know anything, lack of even architecture offices for someone interested in building design. They have poorer resolution on google earth (that one I've always thought is a little poetic). This is not a criticism, just facts. But ultimately when I go there I still have a strong nostalgia mostly because many people that I love came from there and ultimately I've got a real soft spot that is about the size of Luzerne County.

Well, Joe was so fun. He had a wonderfully sarcastic sense of humor, a love for Rupaul and Jack Kerouac and William S Burroughs. We probably went to Perkins over a thousand times over the years. We sat in the smoking section, which wasn't really separated at all from the rest of the restaurant except for being two feet higher than the main seating area, and talked about random shit for hours on end and smoked t o n s of cigarettes. Joe helped me setup my first ever e-mail account of my very own which was ophelia666@geocities.com (a little satanic, yeah I know). We'd also just drive around for hours on end..many, many times. There was always a healthy amount of boy drama in his life but not much acceptance of it from his parents. When I was really tense and angry after my father died he gave me pills one night to chill me the f&*$ out.

I hope I get to find out what happened soon, though I'm sure I will find out eventually. He had a lot to offer and whenever I see him again I hope we can pick right back up talking about clothes or books or art. Now I have to go look for Kleenex...damn