{"id":7976,"date":"2012-04-01T02:27:11","date_gmt":"2012-04-01T09:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/2012\/04\/01\/7976\/"},"modified":"2012-04-01T22:50:46","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T05:50:46","slug":"7976","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/?p=7976","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Tonight I was sitting at home watching Netflix and suddenly I decided I HAD to go out. It was 11 at night. I ended up at the cowboy bar, and as soon as I walked in, I had a feeling I knew someone in the crowd.<\/p>\n

I walked through but didn’t see anyone so I just took everything in. The band was awesome–country influence but they did a version of Billy Jean that segued into Whoomp There It Is (knowing all the lyrics was a rite of passage for me).<\/p>\n

I saw this guy with a shaved head looking like he wanted to talk to me, but I ignored him like I was ignoring everyone else. I was watching a stocky Mexican guy with a crude fade getting Jack Daniels poured into his mouth as he lay prone in the dentist chair when the guy with a shaved head came up to me and asked, “Is your name Julia?” I said yes and looked into his eyes and at once recognized him.<\/p>\n

“Ryan,” I said at the same time he said, “I think we went to high school together.”<\/p>\n

I gave him a hug and it was so tight, so GOOD, like we were long lost friends when they truth was, we never really knew each other.<\/p>\n

But I always remembered him; I was fascinated with him. Back up quarterback, in love with my softball teammate Courtney. When I found out years later through Facebook that he’s a Gemini, I wondered if that’s why I never forgot him. We had had a conversation on Facebook a few months ago. And here we were. It had been half a lifetime since we’d last seen each other.<\/p>\n

We were both so different. He’d lost his hair since but I just wanted to rub his head. I wasn’t sure…what was ever between us? What did we possibly have in common except an intertwined past? An Anatomy class together?<\/p>\n

It felt good to be with someone from my past. Shocking yet comfortable. If he had asked me to go home with him I probably would have against my best judgment. I really didn’t know if there was even anything between us, but it was the idea of having someone safe whose arms I could fall asleep in. I want, need that so badly.<\/p>\n

He asked me repeatedly to message him and we would get a beer. Later he went back to his group and I saw him talking with a girl. Don’t know if they were together.<\/p>\n

Later, as I was leaving, I saw a gorgeous brother, like a prizefighter with a fauxhawk in a white suit. Complete with handlers. I went up to him. Asked him if we’d met in Vegas. He said I looked really familiar. I pulled out this picture.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Is this you, I asked. He laughed. “This is unbelievable! That is me!”<\/p>\n

I told him I’ve been showing people that picture and telling people he’s the biggest panther I ever caught.<\/p>\n

He was so impressed we’d run into each other again. That was a random meeting 2 years ago. I asked if he was still in school to be a firefighter and he said he’s wrapping up in June. He can’t believe I remember that.<\/p>\n

Of course I do. And it’s not lost on me that Ryan is a firefighter too. Two people from my past in one night. Two firefighters.<\/p>\n

WTF.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tonight I was sitting at home watching Netflix and suddenly I decided I HAD to go out. It was 11 at night. I ended up at the cowboy bar, and as soon as I walked in, I had a feeling I knew someone in the crowd. I walked through but didn’t see anyone so I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sbl5mn-7976","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7976"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7991,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7976\/revisions\/7991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}