robglazebrook.com

I have this friend, Erik Brown. In some ways, he’s more than just a friend. He was my roommate my freshman year of college, and that’s an important, emotional time in one’s life.

I met Erik a couple of days before classes began, and we became instant friends. He was the guy I ate lunch with every day, and dinner with every night. He was the guy who consoled me when girls became more confusing than usual, and I was the same for him. We had our own language so that we could talk about nasty things in public. We invented reasons to skip classes, just so we could hang out together. “You going to class today?” I’d ask.

“Nah, there’s a hurricane in Florida. Let’s watch The Weather Channel.”

He’s the only person outside of my family (that I know of) that, until I was twenty years old, saw me in my underwear. I was nearly 300 pounds back then. Now -that-, my friends, is trust.

He transferred after our freshman year, and I took it pretty hard. He was a good friend, and then he was gone. A year passed, and I heard that he was back in town, that he’d transferred back to ISU. That same day, he and I went out to eat and caught a movie.

This year, he and I have had a class together each semester. French. His brother Blake was in last semester’s class, too, which was fun. We got together and studied as often as my intense schedule would allow.

He wasn’t in French class the last couple of days. Finally, today, I saw a mutual friend of ours and asked if Erik was feeling alright (not having a phone limits the number of calls I make).

“He dropped out.”

“Of French class? But it’s a required class.”

“Naw. Out of school.”

I nodded. That sounded a bit more like Erik. “Ahh. Blake still in school, then?”

“Nope. They both dropped out.”

That made sense. Erik and his brothers are extremely close. “What’re they going to do?”

“Erik, Blake and [a 3rd brother] Kirk left Wednesday. They’re heading for the West Coast. They said they’d be back around May.”

Oh. Well, okay, so I wasn’t expecting that one. I knew he wasn’t enjoying school, so his dropping out didn’t come as an enormous shock. He’s always had that ‘whatever feels right’ mentality. The fact that I wouldn’t see him again until, at the very earliest, May, did come as a shock. They weren’t really going to tell anyone. The only reason our friend (Riana) knew is because she called the day before they left to see if they wanted to hang out.

So now I feel like I’m running a little low on friends. Studying for a class is a good excuse to hang out with the people I like (because I always feel guilty if I’m enjoying myself and not studying these days), and now I have one less excuse. I see a possibility or two in a couple of my classes, though, so maybe I should stop slacking and be personable.

Have a good trip, Erik. Watch your maneuver in the desert, kack.

-Rob

PS - I hate your stinkin’ guts. :)