Keep In Touch: A Curious Interview

TANYA:   Hello?

PLUG:   Hi. May I speak with Tanya, please?

TANYA:   Speaking.

PLUG:   Hey, Tanya. This is Jay Carlson. Um, I actually went to high school with you. I think you…

TANYA:   I remember you! Yeah, you wrote the stream of consciousness book.

PLUG:   Yes! You actually remember me. Oh my God.

TANYA:   Totally.

PLUG:   That's crazy. Well, I'm calling because basically I went through my yearbook and found people who wrote, “Keep In Touch,” and now I'm following up with them.

TANYA:   Awesome. So, uh… What do you need me to do?

PLUG:   I have no idea. [pause] In your inscription you wrote that you were very happy that I could pronounce your last name correctly.

TANYA:   [laughs] Yeah, yeah.

PLUG:   Damn, I'm good.

TANYA:   [laughs]

PLUG:   Let's see. You say I went off to be a “hot shot TV guy,” which I did not.

TANYA:   Aw.

PLUG:   And you went off to be“an Arkansas hillbilly,” which judging from your accent, I don't think came true.

TANYA:   No. Not really. I went to the University of Arkansas to go to college. Then I came out to California here, because I was going to pursue graduate studies in Greek and Roman archaeology. Then I quit school. Then I came back to school. Now I'm… I don't know what I'm going to do. [laughs] My fiancée, actually, just got transferred by his job, so I think I'll probably quit in the next year, because he has a good job. So yeah, I'm kind of floating right now.

PLUG:   Yeah. Coast if you can. That's the American way.

TANYA:   Yeah, well, you know.

PLUG:   This is kind of a weird road how I got to your number now, but the number that I called that was written in my yearbook was still your parent's [number], and I think I freaked them out.

TANYA:   Oh, they don't mind. I think that's cool. So are you living in Florida?

PLUG:   No. I'm in Atlanta. I've been in Atlanta for about six years now.

TANYA:   Oh wow.

PLUG:   Did you go to our class reunion?

TANYA:   I didn't. It's so funny.Do you remember Jennifer Campbell?

PLUG:   I don't remember what I had for breakfast, so…

TANYA:   [laughs]

PLUG:   Seriously. I look through my yearbook and I am at a loss.

TANYA:   I remember you always cracked me up. And I remember, also, we had some sort of joke about…  Do you remember the contemporary literature class? I think it was, like, fifth period or something, senior year. And we had to watch that movie, uh, The Best Years Of Our Lives .

PLUG:   No, I don't remember that.

TANYA:   You know how sometimes you'll hear something and remember it later, and for some reason it continues to crack you up for ten years and you don't know why? 

PLUG:   I can't wait to hear this.

TANYA:   I remember one day we were sitting next to each other while watching this movie. It was about all these different veterans of different age brackets coming back after WWII, and how they couldn't readjust to society. One of the older guys had a daughter, a very young impressionable daughter, who was falling in love with kind of a young, rakish guy named Red. And you said, “What's black and white and Red all over,” because the movie was black and white. [laughs] And for some reason, that lodged itself in my brain, because I thought it was the funniest thing I had heard. Every so often I'll think about that. “What's black and white and Red all over?” And it cracks me up. It's this weird thing where I couldn't even explain the joke to anybody, because no one would get it. You know? You probably don't even remember, but that was the funniest thing ever.

PLUG:   I have lasting power on people. That's pretty awesome.

TANYA:   It's funny. There were a handful of people I stayed in contact with, and then people I really, really wish I had. And I often think about, “What in the hell happened to Jay Carlson?”

PLUG:   I'm such an asshole. I should have kept in touch, like you said.

TANYA:   You know how there are some people that you're really close to. And then you get to a certain point in your life, and you don't really think about that person anymore? And there's some people you were never really close to, but you always really enjoyed.

PLUG:   I understand.

TANYA:   And I've felt that way about you.

PLUG:   Thank you! This is such a pleasure that I got in contact with you.

TANYA:   I'm so happy that you called. It's fantastic.

PLUG:   I'm floored that the first thing I said, you knew immediately who I was. That's amazing.

TANYA: Well, that's because I really have thought about it. I'm so thrilled.

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Issue #48