April 19

In ordinary times, today is the bookend to the shitty three-day stretch of anniversaries that started on the 17th with Pumpkin almost dying, for today is the anniversary of the day I met the infamous Special Lady Friend. When we dated, I did not get the "that's what she said" reference SLF would make. I just thought it was her way of showing her sexual edginess. Years later, when I started deep diving into The Office I of course recognized its origin. In the episode Sex Ed Michael talks to Holly, ostensibly to warn her that he might have herpes and that she should get checked out, but they have a back-and-forth that if SLF and I ever talked about the time we were together would be almost identical. 

To SLF, our (roughly) two months together was a good memory and she would say that I romanticize things (I do) and that I am making more of our time together that it was. But the irony is we became Jim and Pam after we broke up. No, she is not a receptionist and I am not a paper salesman, but for three years (!) after we broke up, we had those metaphorical chats at the front desk, except they were over the phone, sometimes for just a few minutes and sometimes for an hour or more. It even got to the point where I "pulled a Halpert" and (again, metaphorically) took a job at the Stamford branch (I moved practice groups so we were no longer working together). And yet, there was never a GRAND GESTURE, no Casino Night admission of love, or a stolen kiss afterwards, there was no interrupting a talking head interview to ask her out to dinner and her tearing up to the camera. No pizza on top of the Scranton Office Park building, or cinematic wedding at Niagara Falls, or finding out she was pregnant during an unrelated hospital visit (I TOLD YOU I HAVE WATCHED A LOT OF OFFICE EPISODES!!!) None of that. We just sort of disappeared from each other's life. 

After Michael spoke with Holly, he stewed for a bit and eventually called her back. She was not there so he left a message.

I wish I could leave that message for SLF and have that Hollywood ending (Holly of course comes back to Michael, they get married and live happily ever after). Instead, I am just left mourning something I will never have. 

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