Old school
This weekend I traveled back in time about six years and visited my alma mater. It's an annual pilgrimage made by myself and one of my former roommates. We go during a certain festival week whereupon they close down the main street and several vendors from different multicultural organizations open up little booths on the street and sell food, jewelry, and miscellaneous other things. There's music, dancing and plenty of people watching (the last being the most interesting).

Among the people I saw: our super sketchy roommate who sublet in our house during the summer between junior and senior year. The entire summer he had one bath towel that he never washed. It stank to high holy heaven. Seriously, it may have been the worst stank I have ever laid my nostrils upon. Our tactic was to avoid him like the dickens. He also had a huge falling out with me and my roommate that summer, saying we were "shallow" -- this being a couple days after he asked me out and I rejected him. OK, yeah, I'm a little bit shallow. I admit it. But it's OK for me to say it, it's NOT OK for someone else to tell me that. Anyway, I can think of few people I'd rather not run into than him.

I also saw from afar T Diddy's brother sitting at the window table of Bagel Street Deli (please confirm or deny).

There were a ton of other people who looked familiar, but I don't know if it's whether I actually knew them or because they looked similar to people I knew when I went there.

It's always fun to go back there. We slip back into our personas from when we were students. We feel young but old at the same time. Our hangouts are closed, under new management, named different names, turned into tshirt stores. In fact, we were in a tshirt store that used to be a bar called The Dugout when we went there. But another group of alums, 2002 grads, came in and recalled that when they went there, the bar was called Mama Einstein's. It made us feel even older.

We drove back down by our old dorms, looked into the windows of where we lived ten years ago. We noticed all the classroom buildings where we spent most of our days. We both regretted not being more involved while we were there. We spent so much time sitting on our asses, doing nothing. I wish that I had done more with my free time. Although, I did have a blast, come to think of it.

It's always sad to leave town after one of our trips. There's never enough time to see everything we want to see, eat everything we want to eat, drive past all the places we want to reminisce about. I know I'll go back there every year, sometimes more than that, and each time I'll feel a little bit more detached, a little bit more nostalgic. But for those few hours, I swear, it's like the town has been waiting for me, to show me some of its new secrets, and to assure me that no matter how long I'm away, it will still feel like home when I come back.