Holy MacLaren's

Tonight, as I do a few times every week, I sat unraveling the secrets of the universe with Andrew Clark. A thought popped into my head that I thought could work in a blog, and since the blog has been rather dry lately, I decided I might expound upon that thought right here for all of you wonderful ladies and gentlemen to read. I started writing, and I didn't like what came out, so I was about ready to call it quits (I'll have you know that I've started about three different posts in the last couple weeks, only to have them all crash and burn in a similar fashion). I expressed my frustration to Master Clark, at which time he welcomed me to the wonderful world of writing and told me to just beat myself into submission. Thus, here I am, pounding this out, for better or worse.

305. Now that was a room. I can't even count the number of hours I spent there during the first three years of my college experience, playing video games, watching movies, having nigh-meaningless discussions or earth-rending arguments, and launching into rants that would ignite the mellowest hearts in a virulent frenzy of irritated fervor. Actually, concerning the latter, 305 was where the Billcast was dubbed as such, due to my tendency to burst into the room and start griping vigorously about whatever happened to be bothering me at the moment. Sometimes we'd sit there long after we should have all gone to bed, with all the lights off (since all the residents of the room had actually been planning on going to bed), discussing the real stuff of life, which usually revolved around two central things: God and women. Sometimes we'd argue about the most extravagant absurdities, like whether Darth Vader or Sephiroth was more bad-a (this is an obvious choice, and anyone who goes for the namby-pamby, I-wish-I-was-a-girl, anime style villain from Final Fantasy VII has clearly taken a tumble from his rocker). There were times when something funny would be said or done, and we would all explode into laughter that wouldn't cease for a good fifteen minutes (HA HA HA). We had rock-offs in Guitar Hero, I one day miraculously became unbeatable at Puzzle Fighter, and we sat through many an episode of Friends. We even once watched an episode of Pokemon that gave several hundred Japanese kids seizures, and filmed ourselves doing so in case any of us fell victim.

Well that was a nice stroll down memory lane, and I'm sure I could come up with many more things to add to that list if I tried, but what of it? Well friends, what Andrew and I realized earlier was that 305 was like the MacLaren's of 22-3. It was a place where our group of friends could congregate every day and, if nothing else, just enjoy each other's company, just like Ted, Marshall, Lily, Barney, and Robin do at MacLaren's on How I Met Your Mother (great show, by the way. If you don't watch it, you are wrong). Unfortunately, now that college is over and we've all moved off 22-3, we don't have that luxury anymore. We're all split up in different parts of the continent (although we're all still on the east coast, for now, aside from that crazy Canadian who forced me to say "continent" instead of "country"), and we can't get together even on a semi-regular basis. The reunions thus far have been few and far between, and I know it will only get worse as time drags on and our lives get more and more complicated. After mulling this over for a bit, Andrew said "I wonder if life will ever be that way again."

Nope.

That sucks, doesn't it? I mean, maybe we'll develop a new routine with new friends, where we get together regularly to hang out after work and gripe about the "real world" and all its struggles, but the sad truth is that we'll rarely, if ever, have that same group of friends all together at one time, and we won't be able to just stop into 305 on a whim ever again. From here until the end of life as we know it, I won't be seeing much of my best friends anymore.

And then a thought struck me. "Until the end of life as we know it..." Well, the good news is, after life as we know it, we all get to chill in Heaven for the rest of eternity. And maybe there will be a 305 in Heaven, where we can all go when we get tired of singing hymns, as Kevin Dail would have us believe. And that, good people of earth, is an encouraging thought. I don't even need a mansion, just give me a recreation of 22-3, and I'd be all set. I, for one, wouldn't mind spending eternity in 305.