Day 30

A picture of someone I miss:

one of these things is not like the other ones...

This one I've had in mind for over a month now, and in all that time I still haven't figured out exactly what I want to say.

I've already explained that Matt was like my evil, mirror-universe Jiminy Cricket; he was also the first person other than my parents to drive me to the hospital while I was writhing in pain.  He did that for me, freshman year, on just a few weeks' acquaintance.  (I'm pretty sure, it being freshman year and all, that he also had to find the hospital.)

Years later - after the Class of 2003 graduated (Dash-less, as you can see) and Matt moved out to L.A. to pursue his career in comedy to inevitable success - he looked at me in one of his rare moments of calm seriousness and said, "I don't think I ever went to an Axies show.

"I'm a bad friend."

I don't remember how I replied, but perhaps now you understand just how gifted a comedian was my friend Matt Carey.  Even in the most solemn and serious of moments I can remember us sharing, Matt said something utterly laughable.

Matt moved out to Los Angeles in January of 2004.  On December 3rd of that year, he suffered a heart attack and died.  He'd just broken a record of comedic success at Improv Olympic in Hollywood; in another two weeks, he'd have been married.

This grief process took a long time, since I spent the first eighteen months after his death intoxicated as often as possible.  I've long since found acceptance, but I will always miss Matt.  I miss his gifts for understatement and for overstatement; for boiling things down just a little bit below their essence; for convincing me of the absolute truth of whatever ridiculous lie he'd concocted on the spot; for standing in a hospital room and making me laugh at my pee in a bottle even while I'm horribly ashamed of it (that, by the way, was the other indignity of Day 25).  I miss his ability to make everyone around him just a little bit better, and a hell of a lot funnier.

But in quiet moments of internal debate, when a choice of actions is before me - when I waver between the wallflower and the wild child, I can still hear his voice.

"Come onnn, Daaave..."