This irresistible meme was cadged from Polyopia. Go ahead . . . you know you want to.

Whether you know me or not, even if you have never been here before, make up a fake memory of us. That is, post a comment with a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL memory of you and me. It can be anything you want - good or bad - but it has to be fake.

That time we were painting Ukrainian Eggs for the holidays, I got pissed at you and smashed your egg while the paint was still wet. I feel badly about it now, but it was a little funny at the time. I'm sorry.

I had doubts from the beginning about the wisdom of leaving food on the porch for that stray Siberian Tiger. I'm just saying.

Remember at JV cheerleading tryouts--we smashed eggs into the shoes of the varsity gals who were mean to us during practice? Hee hee, the look on Steph Nordblum's face was priceless. Good times...

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Remember the time we were slicing hardboiled eggs for Czech New Year's sandwiches - the kind with French bread sliced diagonally, and round slices of pickles - and one of the eggs had a bright green yolk shaped like a Mandelbrot set fractal?

Remember when we used the jolene creme bleach (that we used to bleach our moustaches) and each bleached a sideburn and then colored them blue with a permanent sharpie! Remember how the nun who was the mother of our dorm was so disappointed in us? Remember how we glowed and our ear cuffs gleamed at the black light part?

y
party
(not "part")

why did everyone else write about eggs?

Making up a fictional story about us cannot possibly match confessing to you the truth. I have been fascinated with you ever since taking your poetry class. (I love Chrysanthemums.) I never came to your office, never wanted to expose my interest so explicitly to you, but I did hang around Dakota Hall far too often, hoping to catch a glimpse of you, or loiter on Clark St., wondering if you might wander by. And sometimes you did, and I would feel suddenly awkward, not knowing what to do with my hands, and I would avert my eyes and pretend that I had lost something, a pencil, perhaps, or my glasses. Or my way.

I don't usually go to all you can eat barbecues. It's not good for my heart. But I wanted to treat myself. I had done good. 3 chapters. Now I could gorge myself. A reward, you see.

I didn't know your name. (I still don't know your name). You asked for some cornbread.

"Can you?" you said.

"Yes," I replied, and handed the basket over.

You took one and sat in the corner. I wrapped mine in a napkin and headed home.

It wasn't until the week after that we said 'hello' again. This time you passed me a plastic fork.

It's good to have these weekly meetings. It is nice to pass things with strangers.

Remember the time when we danced on the couch in your father's basement? Weren't we lip synching to that song Abracadabra? C'mon you must remember! It went: ABra, ABra, ABra CadaBra/I feel the magic in your caRESS/ I feel magic when I touch your DRess...
You must remember 'cause it was your 45 record, Girl.

According to my mother, not a day goes by without my grandma praying for me, despite the fact that I'm the first of 25+ cousins. The whole prayer thing keeps me healthily confused: if she misses a day, will I die of a lightning strike, or even worse, a heart-stab with a blunt spoon by our resident lunatic-at-the-corner-with-a-guitar here in S____ Springs?

You probably don't remember me, since - well, I guess it doesn't matter now, John says your alzheimers is rather strong - anyways, thanks for saying hi after church in Edinburgh about 2 years ago. I still don't understand how you know my grandma (who know lives in Greece, this is true, although ridiculous also, but what the hell, my grandpa became a missionary 30 years ago), but it was such a strange thing to know that --- anyways, thanks for keeping me in your prayers also.

Remember the time we tried to smoke nutmeg by mixing it with tobacco and rolling it in napkins? A comedy whoosh as the napkin burned, a moment of suspended mid-air baccy and nutmeg, and then two glum faces as we watched the last of our baccy blow away on the evening breeze.

Come to think of it, I still owe your mum for that next packet of cigs.

Well, there was that first meeting. I fall into one of two states when traveling: reasonably open and possibly chatty and complete curmudgeon. I was in curmudgeon-mode and really hoping the seat next to me would be empty so I could maintain my Zone of Crankiness at maximum radius. But the plane was so full, they had to take volunteers to be put on the next flight, remember? You sat down next to me and had an iBook - that was my first clue that I should abandon the curmudgeonliness. Then, after takeoff, when you opened it up and your wallpaper was a photo of The Bean-Bean, I said, "He looks just like my Dash."

"Jill?" You said.

Just another dispatch from the Small World Department.

It was the fall of 1987, our sophomore year Bowling Green, when we took that road trip to St. Louis. We were driving around really late one night drinking Rum and Cokes when we decided to stalk John "Don't Call Me Cougar" Mellencamp because we'd heard a rumor that he was staying at the Adam's Mark. We were promptly escorted out of the lobby by security while singing 'Hurt So Good' at the top of our lungs. Ah, good times.

I remember your first car -- that Chevy Chevette. It was poop brown and had a little tin luggage rack on the top of it. Remember when we were totally obsessed with Footloose? We were so giddy the day we got those 'Dance Your Ass Off' t-shirts. We drove around drinking Meister Brow beer and singing that Kenny Loggins tune - we just kept rewinding the cassette until I thought it would snap. After a few beers we went a little nuts and I tried to dance between two cars - the Chevette and Tim Ladlow's Dodge Dart. Only you were too drunk to keep it together and you kept veering to the left and I was practically doing the splits (which I have never done in my life, damn you). I still say if it weren't for that flimsy (but handy) luggage rack, well, we both know I'd be dead. But it all worked out and damned if I don't think of you every time I hear that Footloose song on the oldies station. I think of you and rub my inner thigh a little. Good times.

Funny, I've been back many times since first reading this post, and while I haven't commented yet, I can't stop thinking about that time we arm-wrestled at the fairly scuzzy bar with the tiny dance floor that night after the end of the writing conference. See, we had both bought Teresa Ballard a drink, and approached her at the same time with them. Mine had an umbrella and yours had an olive. She grabbed them both and suggested we arm-wrestle for the right to dance with her (Chris DeBurgh's "The Lady in Red" had just come on, and though neither you, I, nor Teresa was wearing red, it seemed like some swaying should be going on). We sat at a small round table, pushed aside some drinks, rolled up our sleeves. I was pleased to see that your wrists are as delicate as mine. A crowd started to form around the table--all men, predictably. Then chanting, of course, more for you because "Lee! Lee! Lee!" just sounds better that "Emily! Emily! Emily!" You grinned; I did not. We began arm-wrestling, seemed pretty evenly matched. I thought to myself what I always think to myself when involved in matches requiring strength or skill (The one who wants it most wins...the one who wants it most wins, as if strength and skill have nothing to do with it). I closed my eyes and felt the burn, dimly aware that Ballard had totally ditched the spectacle, was off in fact dancing with Rebecca Loudon and Charlie Jensen.

I'm recalling that one evening when we were walking home and as we passed underneath a tree that was lit up from the streetlight, you touched me on the shoulder to stop, pointing out that all the branches of the tree look as if they are forming endless circles in the light. Ever since that night, I have looked up at the trees in the streetlights and think of you as I ponder branch circles.

I just wanted to thank you once again for coming into my class to teach my students about iambs and trochees, pentameter and tetrameter, free verse and sestinas. We especially enjoyed your interpretive dance to the e e cummings poems and your slam-style recitation of "O Sophonisba, Sophonisba O!" The tap shoes really drove home your point.