Vintage TK

Oh wow. I've been away that long? Lo siento and all that jazz.

So, lots been going on, both in my life and in the outside world, but my writing gland has been focused recently in another direction. That is, until yesterday when I got an email from someone I haven't talked to in... well in far too long. It occurred to me that our meeting is an interesting story, and I like to think that enough time has passed that I'm able to tell it without incurring fury/pity/dissaproval or anything of the sort.

It was around March/April, maybe 2007, maybe 2008. A very fresh sort of morning I remember. I wasn't very enthusiastic about school at the time, a cocktail of diverse and unpleasant factors meant that I hated it. No... that's not quite right. More like the placed made me more scared than a snowman peering over the ridge of Mount Etna.
Anyway, on the school bus this particular Monday morning, and wham! Panic attack on a bus full of crowded people. Lovely, no? Dry heaving, tingling extremities, shakes, pounding in the ears, the whole shabang, not to mention it must have been about the third one in twelve hours.

So, teary faced and lugging a schoolbag I got off the bus when it stopped at a Tube station, zipped up my coat to hide the school badge on my blazer, and half ran down the escalator and onto a train. I swear, people must have thought I was going to plant a bomb or something, I was being so furtive.

It's probably my upbringing, but I always felt horrendously guilty skipping school. Still do. Perhaps it's the last vestige of the work ethic I had in primary school. Anyway, what did I do with an Oyster card, a free day, and a twenty pound note in my pocket? Get ice cream on the South Bank? Waffles in Camden Market?

I went to the Science Museum and did some homework. No joke.

I know, disgraceful, right? Does this make me a conscientious student? Still, sitting outside of the lifts, drawing (for Art coursework, not pleasure), a bunch of people walk past, obviously a school trip, and all of them around my age. I kind of tagged along behind them, figuring it to be good camoflage. For some reason I suspected that the Science Museum was a logical destination for school skippers. I was a paranoid kid. Sosueme.

If I remember correctly the exhibition I was looking at when Naomi began talking to me was something about rubber through the 20th century. She was... striking to say the least. A 1920s gangster hat, Noah Bennet style glasses, and Hermione Granger style hair. She was forward, interesting, and completely bloody mad, although as we agreed everyone from Devon was a bit mad.

She casually ditched her group, and we went around the museum, later going to the V&A. Luckily I kept a diary at the time, so using it as an aide-memoir, I can tell you that we talked about Chinese foot-binding, French aristocrats, Essex girls and Yorkshire accents, before bonding over a lengthy discussion about manic depression (hers) body dymorphia (mine), insomnia (shared ground) and Doctor Who (epic), as well as a miscellany of other things.

It was one of those chance meetings. Incredibly unlikely, two lives touching briefly.

We performed that ritual peculiar to the noughties teen known as "MSN swapping" and I caught a train back to the Tube station and got on the school bus so that I'd get home at exactly the right time, plus being able to catch up on the day's social developments with some friends (Henceforth known as Miss Belle and, err... K). I didn't mention meeting Naomi, and I don't think I have since.

We talked a little after that. Her older sister died a little over 5 months later, and we talked a lot for a while. Text based communication can be surprisingly personal. Then we lost touch.

Until I got an email yesterday night. And you know what?

Some friends are friends forever. And now, at the very least, I have a new reader

Jeepers, I'm mushy. Must stop blogging this close to midnight.