Late update, sorry about that.

It was great to see my old friend last night. His company gave him a hotel up in Yonkers, more-or-less central to the jobs he has to do while up here for the week. He drove down to my place from there and made it around 7p. He found a spot in which to park nearby and before I knew it he was calling me from the lobby: “what’s your apartment number?”

I buzzed him in and it was amazing to see the guy in my place. It’s been years, and he looks exactly the same. Not a wrinkle on his face, which is amazing since he’s now got two kids, one entering first grad next year, and seems to have a very limited life outside of the toil of keeping a family going down in Charlotte.

We set out from my place and walked to campus so I could show him where I spend most of my time. We then headed down Amsterdam to my favorite restaurant, a tiny hole-in-the-wall burrito place on 106th. After eating hugely there, we walked down Riverside Drive all the way back to my place, stopping along the way to chat and point stuff out and wonder about the history of things. Fortunately I’d been down that road, literally and figuratively, enough times to answer most of his questions easily.

We walked up to City College and looked at the gargoyles. Unsurprisingly, he mentioned he had an entire book just about gargoyles, one of those big coffee table books with big pictures. He bet the City College ‘goyles were in there and I said I hoped they were.

We walked next straight to his rented Jetta and he took off, early morning in Yonkers so it made more sense for him to sleep up there, company tab. Hopefully he’ll be back down here tonight, though I haven’t heard anything from him yet and it’s after 4. He was saying last night he might be done early today since he worked more than his 8 hours already, and if that was the case we could get an earlier start on walking around town– but it looks like that’s less likely now. Hopefully there will be at least one earlier day this week so I can actually show him what the city is like.

If he does make it down tonight, I want to take him to Shilla, in Ktown. He’ll get a sense of what midtown is like and some kickass food, too. Last night he was saying that Charlotte doesn’t really have Korean food, so. Now I’m happily obliged.

It’s been great to see him.