Olivia

I woke up to my friend Jadan glaring at me from my bedroom doorway. In a mean-spirited tone he’s not particularly good at faking he says “I know what you did.” Half asleep and amused, but also a little afraid, I start thinking through the events of the day before, searching for a cause to his claim. Hesitantly, I admit: “I put the toilet seat down.” Jadan pauses, looks away from me and at the bathroom. “Oh, I left that open?” I nod. We both grin. I fall back asleep. 

Jadan and I spend the morning scurrying around getting ready. He’s about to meet up with an old friend of ours from college and I’m about to go teach a piano lesson to a sweet young kid in the neighborhood I’ve been teaching for a few months. I hear Jadan singing to my cat or telling him not to lick his penis in a silly voice, something that Oliver still successfully has been doing in spite of a blue soft cone that’s been firmly around his neck for over a week. I shout bye to Jay who wishes me luck for my lesson. I live alone, which I love, but it's been nice to share space with a close friend for the past few days. 

My cat’s been recovering from surgery, so after my lesson, the afternoon looked a lot like hanging out with him and trying to convince him to eat and not lick his penis as Jadan was so affectionately doing earlier. After a while, this turns into me watching video after video of Simone Biles on YouTube. When Jadan comes back, I’m so engrossed in watching a video of SZA and Simone Biles having a handstand competition that I get physically startled. Once Jadan joins me in potato-computer mode and gets settled into a Pokemon game, I ask “What did I do? Or were you just making it up?” Jadan, with his eyes still fixed on the screen, retorts: “Oh, I was lying. I wanted to see if you would admit to something horrible.” Maybe this makes Jadan sound manipulative, but he’s really just an asshole (said, with affection). 

I leave the apartment to work for a few more hours and call Jadan when I’m done and propose a plan. I need to get special cat food from South Philly, there’s an excellent taco truck nearby -- what do you say? Thirty minutes later, I pick up Jadan and we’re on our way. Headed from West Philly to South it’s a quick uneventful drive typically, except for today, when I finally see a Philadelphia landmark I’ve been dying to visit in-person: The Date Dave Philly Billboard. I’d told Jadan about it and we’d discussed the pitfalls and successes of Dave’s advertising campaign the previous evening. Dave, if you want notes, contact me. We tried to take a picture, but the Date Dave billboard is in a tricky intersection to make a calculated, yet undeniably dangerous move to see something useless. So, we chose life and I have borrowed a reference picture from the Date Dave Instagram for the viewers at home. 

Going to the Petsmart in South Philly brings up, weirdly, a lot of childhood memories. I tell Jadan about the family trips to the South Philly shopping strips. I long for just one more evening under the fluorescent lights of the Snyder Plaza Chuck E. Cheese and a final night time ride past the strip clubs on Delaware Ave to get to the Toys R Us. And is it better or worse that I’m not being sarcastic? Anyway, after dragging Jadan down to South with the supposed dream of tacos, I suggest a late in the game substitution -- what if we get Lebanese food at Manakeesh back in West? We head towards one of my favorite corners of Philadelphia. 45th and Walnut is home to some of the best places to eat and be in community in my incredibly not humble opinion. I might be a walking advertisement for this intersection. Jadan refuses to share his food with me, but I spend the night looking longingly at his platter despite the fact that I enjoyed my meal thoroughly. Eyes were rolled and plates were cleaned.

Afterwards, we head back to my apartment and watch the show Amar y Vivir and spend a significant amount of time trying to improve our Spanish by repeating lines of the characters on the show. I kept looking over at Jadan and feeling unbelievably grateful for his presence in my life. We met in college six years ago and haven’t stopped loudly cackling together in public spaces since. We often gravitate towards sitting together and watching something. And, no matter what it is we’re watching, we’re somehow hysterically laughing and shouting at each other. I had no concept of what my day in Philadelphia would look like when I signed up for this project eight months ago, but I feel lucky it got to be full of stupid shit with a beloved friend, even if they are from New York.