Better Memories Than I Thought
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2004 7:56 PM
Yesterday, I was in Shoe Pavilion (I really need new shoes) and they were playing "Rosanna" by Toto (sound clip here) and it made me surprisingly happy. Now that song is not one I knew at all when it was popular and I've probably heard it 2 or 3 times in my whole life but I knew it instantly. As I heard it I broke into an immediate smile and was oddly happy. I would never have been able to predict that hearing that song would be such a pleasant surprise.

It's especially odd that it was so pleasing because it reminded me of my second o-chem lab. Thinking about organic chemistry even now makes me a bit ill. I sucked at the class Chemistry 3B and I sucked at the lab, but I remember it was one of my more fun labs of all the science courses I took. Usually, my chemistry and biology labs were filled with a friend or two and then tons of people I would never hang out with because they were . . . weird. The o-chem lab my first semester sophomore year had a bunch of people I didn't hang out with, but who were really cool and just ran in different circles.

Rosanna was my lab partner, if I remember correctly, or we were right next to each other, at any rate. And there was a guy, whose name escapes me, who used to sing that Toto song of the same appellation to her to annoy her—a frustration I know all too well. I don't remember much about Rosanna, and I probably couldn't pick her out of lineup today (even though it's only been a few years). We never had any other classes together and I don't think we ever sat near each other in lecture.

But the guy who sang the song—he was the resident Tupac expert. That's right, he had more knowledge of Tupac Shakur than anyone you could ever meet, more than you would think could even exist. Down to tiny details, he knew about the music, he knew about Tupac's life, he knew about Tupac's death, and he knew about all the conspiracy theories. He was mocked and teased, gently of course, for this extraneous wisdom, questioned for devoting so much time and energy and passion to the subject. We eventually got our comeuppance when this guy started getting noticed. He was getting interviewed locally and even ended up talking about Tupac on national television on one of the network morning shows. Crazy.

And that all came back to me in the Shoe Pavilion after not thinking about any of it for years and it made me happy.

Even cooler/weirder, this memory made a cameo in a dream.

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