I have attempted to take the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) three times in three years. In 2006, three days before my test appointment, my aunt died two weeks to the day after being diagnosed with end stage ovarian cancer.[1] In 2007, two weeks before I was to take it, my father died after a four and half year long struggle with vascular dementia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and depression.
This time, I thought I was out of the woods. I was taking the test Friday September 5. No one was ill, I had been studying for 3 months, and finally felt like I was ready to take it on and make it my slave.
Then Anthony Kibort emailed me that Monday that Sydney had died the night before.
I managed to take the test, and then promptly let all the emotions I had managed to dam up for 4 days flow freely over the wall.
What. The. F*ck. Sydney?
We had met in the summer of 1989 -- G-d, it's hard to think that was 19 years ago.
She had just graduated from Vassar and was living in a sublet on the Upper West Side. I was working at A Different Light Bookstore on Hudson Street as well as becoming active in ACT UP. That was where we met -- her in her lipstick, black glasses and a single streak of caramel in her otherwise chestnut hair, me in my AIDS Activist Ken(tm) uniform.
I was smitten. She was aloof. If I had known then what I know now, I would have changed nothing except wishing I had known more, so that in the end, I could have been a better person to her. Otherwise, Non, je ne regrette rien.
I am a week behind in processing all this, so hopefully others will help fill this site while I get our old clips and photos together. At the moment, it still feels unreal, especially since I'm no longer in NYC, which is so inextricably linked with my memories of her. But I'll be back. Please join us.
It's strange to leave a remembrance here because really, I never knew Sydney. I knew her mostly as Franny from the Geraldine Fibbers mailing list and I pretty much fell in love right away, what with the sardonic comments and Salinger fetish. Some people have an impact in your life that is unreasonably disproportionate to their actual bearing. Who knows why. Two weeks ago I found out that a childhood friend had died, but Sydney's death has caused me much more grief.
Back in the 90s we actually tried to meet up when I was visiting a friend in NYC. The plan was to go for coffee somewhere, but Sydney called a few days before to say that she was terribly sick and consuming copious amounts of Theraflu and wouldn't make it. Well, my NY friend had talked me into dropping acid about 30 minutes before Sydney called and it started taking effect as soon as I picked up the phone. I struggled both to convince her that we should meet up anyway and to sound like a perfectly normal human being, and when the conversation ended my friend walked in, took one look at me, and said, "Oh my God what's WRONG?!" It felt like something valuable had slipped through my fingers. (FWIW Sydney later told me I had sounded perfectly pleasant on the phone, but the regret has always remained.)
I stumbled onto this page today while listening to the Fibbers. They've never been far from my playlist, but for whatever reason I began casting about the internet with Sydney in my mind. I'm not sure how we came to correspond outside the mailing list. Probably Agnes Varda had something to do with it. If Sydney were around today I would probably try to reestablish contact and see if she was aware of the music career of Jun Togawa, my latest obsession. I think she would have liked her.
Posted by: Thomas | May 20, 2010 at 11:22 PM