A lot of my memories of Jody involve missions both great and disastrous.
Jody and I roaming the North Georgia countryside, before the days of everything-is-on-Amazon, trying to locate a video card for his Hewlett Packard (FAILURE, found a card, card didn’t fit).
The quest to bum enough money to watch the Matrix sequel and find a theater that’s still playing it (SUCCESS, Mall of Georgia, 1AM).
The odyssey of trying to learn Japanese(FAILURE, I gave up, he did too).
Saying “Jody, you ignorant slut!” at the Great Debate just like we had planned it, deeply offending several people from NASA (Dear god, what did we think we were doing?…still, SUCCESS!). Philosophy till daybreak (SUCCESS, always).
The trek to the drive-through burrito place to get one of those huge burritos and then to the video store to rent some tapes and then back to the Honors Lab to watch them on our state of the art ceiling mounted CRT (SUCCESS, even if there was no comfortable way to watch a movie in that room).
Signed wine corks and clean up duty I would only do for a real friend (SUCCESS for you, FAILURE for me as I slept on the floor with my coat for a blanket).
The human log roll to the bottom of the dam at some absurd hour of the night (SUCCESS, but boy could it have been a FAILURE in about a thousand ways).
Kayaking on the lake (FAILURE? SUCCESS? I literally forgot until this moment that we did that. We took turns kayaking. You really kept things interesting).
The sojourn to the gas station with the biggest, best burger in North Georgia (SUCCESS, I wish we could get one of those now).
Hanging out at your childhood home, watching Outer Limits, dodging my boss, and you gave me your Game Boy and a copy of Trivial Pursuit (SUCCESS, still have that Game Boy and copy of Trivial Pursuit. Always thought I should try to find you, when I looked at them).
Getting in touch to catch up on old times and maybe try to hang out, compare scars, talk about philosophy till an appropriate bed time (FAILURE, ultimate, final, last, painful, unmendable failure).
I missed you by that much, gone two months now, you were younger than me, too, I had forgotten. This is the kind of thing I would have wanted to talk to you about, how ironic…is that the correct use of irony, you would have known that, too…damn it). Anyway, I know you know we know that this is all performative and just a way to make me feel better about losing someone to whom I was once close. But still, I hope we were wrong and somewhere, somehow, the thing that made you Jody is still around and it knows that I am sorry, and I miss you, and I wish I could have talked one more time.