2006-09-23 - 3:28 p.m.
In late 1995, around the same time I met the girl who saved me, I also met someone else online. I�ll say her full name here, in case any reader knows how I can get in touch with her, cause I�d very much like to know how she�s doing. Aspen Biersdorf. If you know her or if you�ve found this page through a Web search, please email me using the link to the left. Maybe she�s married now and has a different name. But you never know and I would like to hear from her after so long.
Aspen and I never had the hot and heavy phone relationship that I did with the girl who saved me. I don�t really know why I wasn�t insanely obsessed with her. She sent me a picture of her once. She was incredibly tall and toned, six feet of blonde surfer queen. She lived in Hawaii, which of course seemed incredibly exotic to me. She was originally from Lake Tahoe, NV, and also snowboarded. She wasn�t seeing anyone, but there was the distance factor. Plus, I just never really thought of her as a potential romantic partner. I more needed a friend at the time, even just an Internet one.
And she was so cool. We didn�t call each other as much as we emailed. We talked a lot about bands we both liked. She was really into pop-punk like me and the Queers were one of her favorites. I remember I dedicated their song �Surf Goddess� to her on my radio show once. (Not that she could hear it; this was years before Web-broadcasting�) She thought it was cool that I was a radio DJ and even cooler when I started wearing a lock-and-chain around my neck (given to me by L.; it�s a long story). It felt pretty good to be considered cool; I certainly didn�t feel that way.
At the end of spring 1996, she invited me to come visit her in Hawaii. I made plans to go (it�s not like I was doing much else), but I was kind of waffling about actually seeing them through. I decided I wanted to see my friends at Harvard graduate and couldn�t just take off right then. Maybe I was also a little hesitant about being seen by someone I thought was so cool when I at least subconsciously knew that I was a little crazy. So I hemmed and hawed and delayed taking the trip for quite some time.
She was pretty accommodating about my excuses, but eventually I got an email saying she had great news! She had met someone, the greatest guy! Totally randomly and unexpectedly! Wasn�t that exciting? He was moving to Los Angeles where he was starting a new job. She was going to drop everything where she was now to come with him! She was going to live in the big city! Wasn�t that exciting? She didn�t really have much tying her down there, so she was leaving next week! Isn�t that great?
Well. I congratulated her. I really was quite happy that she�d found something good and was moving forward with her life. I was even happy that she was going to a different place that was still sunny and where she could still surf. But it looked like no trip for me. I�d stay where I was in New England. It would snow in the winter. Probably I�d stay single. Maybe I�d go crazier. It just went to prove what my daddy always said: Son, when a six-foot blonde invites you to Hawaii, you just go! You don�t stop to think about it!
After she moved to LA we fell out of contact. But before I visited San Francisco in like June 1998, I tried calling her mom�s place in Lake Tahoe (the only number I could find; she�s no longer there) to see if anyone could give me more information. Much to my surprise, Aspen was actually there. I told her I was going to visit San Francisco for the fifth anniversary of when I lived there or something. Did she want to meet me out there? She was excited to finally meet me in person. We agreed on a date and time and place (the Ben & Jerry�s that�s now on the corner of Haight and Ashbury).
After we actually met face-to-face, we spent the entire weekend together. She was so much fun to hang out with and it felt so great to have someone to show the San Francisco I knew. I can�t remember if I took her to the weekly punk show/barbecue at the Bottom of the Hill club in Potrero Hill. I do remember going to my favorite bar in the world, Hamburger Mary�s (now closed, but which has since opened new outposts of its gay-kitsch theme in various other cities across the country). I remember because my credit card was declined and she ended up paying. Sorry; I owe you lunch.
I was staying in a really nice duplex on Twin Peaks (the renter of my room had decided he had to sublet for all of two weeks for some reason) and it went without saying that Aspen would stay with me. I forget how we arranged it logistically the first night; I think we might have just slept next to each other. But I didn�t touch her or put the moves on. I think I figured we�d known each other so long, it would be a shame to mess up the friendship. Not that I�m dead and I didn�t want to. But I didn�t want to make the first move. I guess I�m wussy like that.
But the last night she was there, there was� Well, you know. That Moment. We were lying together on the bed. Maybe we�d had a few drinks, but I know we weren�t totally smashed or anything. We both looked across at each other and knew. But before anything happened, I told her I didn�t want to do anything if it meant we�d stop calling each other. She said not to be silly. So we closed in. Fade to black here. Use your imagination if you must.
The next day before she left, she chided me for looking so sad and brooding. But I knew something had irreversibly changed, whether we wanted it to or not. And sure enough, we stopped calling each other. I realize that it takes two to tango and she stopped calling me as much as I stopped calling her. Maybe part of it was a pride thing too; I didn�t want to be that lame guy who won�t stop calling after you sleep with him. I really regret this now (the not staying in touch thing, not the sleeping together thing). Maybe it serves me right for being such a wuss.
I think now also about what might have happened as regards pregnancy. I didn�t wrap it and that was the last time I had unprotected sex. Of course, I know that she let me and maybe she was on the Pill or something. But I imagine occasionally, what if she�d had a child? If I reencountered her now, the kid would be seven and would have no knowledge of me. I�d have skipped over the Terrible Twos and other toddler ickiness (I�d also owe a lot of back child support payments). Would the kid like me?
Now, I don�t want to seem maudlin. I�m unbelievably happy that my life is with Nya now (and she was, after all, my first youthful indiscretion). I�ve just been thinking about this recently because my fertility is in question. See, the chemotherapy I was on for several years to treat my MS can sometimes make sperm not viable. I had a visit yesterday with a fertility doctor, which actually went pretty well and made me feel much better and which I�ll talk more about here later.
It�s Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, today. L�Shana Tova and all that. As always, I hope the new year brings you growth.
� 2006 Geoff Gladstone
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