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Yesterday, I met one of the only 2 people left who, apart from immediate family, knew me as a child. I hadn't seen him for about 13 years I suppose, and it was one of the most enjoyable and warm encounters I had since...well, since I don't know when.
The whole conversation with him just cut right to the quick of what we both wanted, without that tiring shallowness that pervades pretty much everything these days.

At the same time, our meeting didn't have that awful 'grown-up' directness that seems to seep into adult relationships. There were no short, direct statements. It was a Sunday lunch of a conversation, where subject courses were savoured and chewed over. The instant noodles and fast food feelings of my day to day encounters seemed far away as we sat on the sunburnt grass of Richmond Green with beers and smiles.

He runs a comic shop now, and seems happier than I expected - which made me happy. As I sat there I was reminded of a thousand things all at once, some of which I used to be afraid of. His company made me realise though that there's no reason to fear the past - which, although true, does make sound very American :-

I lived there for a year actually. I was relocated to South Florida as the last gasp of the dot-com bubble sputtered out, in 2001. My wife and I found ourselves in South Florida with 2 small children and noone to talk to - the neighbours called us "Readers", much as clones will refer to straight people as breeders. They couldn't understand why we had so many books in the house, and truth be told, it wasn't even that many. Couple of hundred tops.
South FLA's probably a great place for holiday, but to live there is soul destroying.