Left to my own devices

I received an e-mail from one of the theater chains, announcing an upcoming screening of Cruel Intentions , to celebrate its 20th anniversary. The movie, originally released in March of 1999, and starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon (at the height of their popularity), screams '90s to me. Perhaps it is just the moment in my life when I saw it, or the people I knew then? Regardless, seeing the e-mail about it's 20th anniversary re-release induced a wave of nostalgia that gave me pause. The screening of Cruel Intentions in 1999 is a particularly wistful memory, as one of us is no longer here. There were four of us -- Jared, Karmen, Amanda and myself -- and I think we may have actually watched it at a theater in Bloomington, where Amanda was living at the time. I remember it being a fun occasion, mostly because we seemed to enjoy one another's company, and the movie was a tad ridiculous. We laughed at it, sometimes because the movie ha...

Waking up to an in memoriam piece on a friend's social media page always brings with it a tinge of sadness, if not for the life that was lost, at least for the grief that person's friends and family must be feeling. Discovering that the person who had died was someone you once knew, is quite a different sensation. It brings with it -- at least in this case -- a flurry of memories and emotions, angst, shock and despair. Finally, there is a certain numbness. There have been too many of these premature deaths over the years. I knew Jared Hoke primarily during the mid-late 1990s. He was attending college here in C-U and, if the memory doesn't cheat, he was studying to be a pharmacist. He was smart, he had a good sense of humor and he was cute, in a nerdy sort of way. Not going to lie: I had an attraction toward Jared, though it wasn't mutual (at least, not in a romantic sense). We were friends, for a time, and he made a lasting impression. No doubt he did the same w...