Backup Blog

I want to blog - but I can't. At least, not about what I WANT to blog about. Not yet, anyway. But I guess that TECHNICALLY I can blog, I'm just a little too distracted to think of a subject.

Hmmm.

There, see? It only took two seconds for me to think of something else. And what did I think of, you ask? Tandy. Tandy the gay waiter from Red Lobster where I used to work about, oh, 16 or so years ago. Why did I think about Tandy, you ask? Because I KEEP DREAMING ABOUT HIM. ALL THE TIME. Sometimes I will go without dreaming about him for a couple months, then BAM! Another Red Lobster/Tandy dream. We were really good friends when we worked there, Tandy was a RIOT. I swear, every girl should have a funny gay friend. They are better than girlfriends in many ways. At least, Tandy was. He pointed out all the hot guys I missed when we were out in public (and argued over whether they were straight or gay), listened to my boyfriend woes, and was an AWESOME drinking buddy. He never (well, almost never) flirted with my boyfriends or got really catty and talked behind my back. With Tandy, everything was pretty cut and dried. He told it like it was, and didn't care what people thought. I loved that about him.

The last time I saw him, he had just moved in with his boyfriend Ramon who was an anesthesiologist and lived in a penthouse in downtown Chicago. They had a pedigreed Persian cat and Ramon bought Tandy fresh orchids flown in daily. He also bought him a really nice black Blazer. When I asked Tandy with a pout why I couldn't find a guy like that, he laughed and said, "Because, darlin', they're all gay!" with his Indiana hick drawl.

The scary thing is, I have this nagging feeling that Tandy may be dead. Because in every dream, I am SO HAPPY to see him, and I always ask him for a phone number where I can reach him. In most of the dreams, he tells me, "You don't need a phone number. I'm fine, and I'll keep in touch with you, don't worry." Sometimes I cry in my dreams, and tell him about the other dreams, and that I think he's dead. In those dreams, he just smiles at me and says nothing. All these dreams are freakishly real, like I'm back at Red Lobster working as a waitress, and I see all the people I used to work with forever ago. It's just like I've traveled back in time or something, but it all seems so normal. And I'm really happy to see everyone else, but I keep looking for Tandy. And when I find him, he's always smiling and laughing and telling me he's fine.

I looked him up online a couple times, and actually found a phone number and address. In Fort Lauderdale, FL, which would DEFINITELY be a place I could picture Tandy living in. But the number is disconnected, and when I mailed a letter it came back stamped "Unknown." I even went so far as to look up the last name "Tryon" in Terre Haute, Indiana - his hometown. I sent out copies of a letter to EVERY Tryon listed basically saying I was an old friend of Tandy, and really wanted to get in touch with him... if anyone could give him MY address or phone number or let me know how to get in touch with him, yada, yada... And nothing. I tried looking in the obituaries, but there doesn't appear to be a listing for him - at least, not that I was able to find.

So what do you people make of this?? Am I totally crazy?? Or is there still some psychic connection with my old friend Tandy who I haven't seen in a decade and a half? WHY do I keep having these dreams? And WHY do they make me so damn sad? I think I have some pictures of Tandy at home. Maybe I'll try to scan them onto this blog tomorrow. MAYBE someone out there knows him. Worth a shot, right?