My pothead boyfriend

It's funny the things that can prompt an obscure memory...

When I hear anything off of 10,000 Maniacs' Our Time in Eden, it instantly reminds me of my freshman year of college--taking walks with my best friend Jenne, trying to synchronize our copies of the cassette on our walkmen so we could sing along together to "My How You've Grown."

When I drink Earl Grey tea, I think of my semester in Scotland, and I remember sitting in a makeshift classroom in a drafty old palace, clasping my fingers around the teacup to stay warm during Detective Fiction or British Civ. class.

And today, when I ran out of toilet paper (for the first time ever and through no fault but my own), I thought of my ex-boyfriend Jimmy and his "not a boy, not yet a man" rental house in Uptown.

Gilmore Girls fans might remember an episode a season or two ago when Doyle made himself a little too comfortable in Rory and Paris's suite (eating Rory's chips, resting his feet on the fancy coffee table Emily bought, etc.), and Rory's outburst left Doyle feeling banished and afraid to return. Paris, suddenly forced to go to Doyle's place instead (and not happy about it), left the room in a huff, grabbing a toilet roll and complaining that "I have to bring my own toilet paper, because it is a third-world country!" It was one of Paris's better rants, but mostly I just enjoyed it because I could relate. I had to bring my own toilet paper to Jimmy's more than once.

Jimmy was all wrong for me for many, many reasons. I knew this from the beginning; really I did. On our very first date, the smart girl inside me was waving red flags frantically again and again, saying "Stay away! Cut your losses! This one will never work!" But I liked him. And he liked me. And that first date was and still remains my best first date ever. So I set down the red flags and chose to proceed with caution. I knew full well it wouldn't last, but I was 26. I wasn't looking to get married. I didn't care if he wasn't The One. I decided to have fun with whatever time we had together, and to try best I could not to get too attached.

When I knew Jimmy, he was 28, but his inner 22-year-old ran the show. He spent most of his free time challenging his roommate to PlayStation hockey, and the trace amounts of expendable income he scraped together generally went towards liquor and bad takeout. His house was furnished with ratty mismatched couches and beer cases as end tables. I affectionately referred to him as "my pothead boyfriend," but despite that whole "munchies" thing I'd heard about so often, his kitchen cupboards were nearly bare. In the fridge, the closest thing to food was the previous night's bong water.

I'm a reasonably intelligent and mature and responsible person, so I should have run away from the health code violations and never looked back. But I think the fact that I am so damn mature and responsible was part of the draw. I need someone who nudges me out of my comfort zone a bit, who respects who I am but also encourages me occasionally to try on some other persona for size. Plus, Jimmy was smart. He made questionable and immature choices, yes, but he could hold an intelligent and witty conversation as well as anyone I've known. And he was good to me (or, as good as a lazy pothead with a Peter Pan complex can be, anyway). He called when he said he would. He laughed at my jokes. He told me I was beautiful. Better than that, he told me I was beautiful but he said, tapping my forehead, that what was up there was what really turned him on. In short, he made me fall for him, despite my best efforts and better judgment.

We made it about four months before we hit the inevitable point where it started feeling more like a relationship than he was comfortable with and he quickly grew more distant. It was a remarkably amicable breakup, however. He pulled me towards him and he kissed me and he said in all earnestness, "I just know someday I'm going to look back on this and ask, 'Why'd I fuck that one up?'"

It was what I wanted to hear, but I have serious doubts about whether it proved true. Some innocent Googling a couple years ago turned up evidence that he's apparently married now, so I feel it's unlikely I'm in his thoughts terribly often. I still think of him from time to time, though. Particularly when there's no toilet paper.