April 21st, 1993 2:37AM

So... I just realized that the 15 year anniversary of a significant, if not important, event in my life has just passed. Not many people would even find this event significant. Probably only two other people in the world. And I'm not even sure about those two.

Fifteen years ago, I was a student at Ithaca College and I was living in Hood Hall. Hood was one of the dorms in the upper Quad area of campus. Good lord I loved that dorm. I moved in during the middle of my freshman year, having finally been released from the hellish nightmare that was first semester freshman year and its accompanying roommates. It was in Hood Hall that I met the best group of friends that I had ever had. Chief among them were my two closest friends, Lianne and Gary.

Li and Gary and I were together all the time sophomore year. Not that we didn't hang with other people, but always, at the end of the day, we somehow wound up together in Li's and my room, hanging out and doing that college thing of babbling nonsensically about all matters. Some very strange discussions in that room. Some of them altered by, shall we say, artificial means. Much of them infused with hysterical laughter. All of them typical college verbal vomit although at the time we thought them brilliant and insightful.

On the night in question, April 21st, 1993, Gary and Li and I were hanging out in the room again, listening to music and not talking much. Gary's birthday began that night at midnight. So he was melancholy, as he often was on his birthday. 'What does my life mean?' 'Where is it going?' 'How did I wind up at Ithaca College where all the good parties get broken up by the cops on a regular basis?' Those kinds of wonderings.

So we were sitting in silence. Sober silence, strangely. Me on my bed, Li on hers and Gary staring blankly out the window, musing. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, began the typical college conversation. 'You know,' said Gar. 'We are never going to have this moment again. Once it's over, it's over and we can't ever get it back.'

I'm not sure what my response was to that, but knowing me, it was no doubt sarcastic in nature. He went on to make this point for a few minutes, talking about the beauty and fragility of moments like the one we were currently having. And then he made a declaration. 'Let's remember this moment for the rest of our lives. It's 2:37AM on April 21st, 1993 and we are sitting in your room listening to 'True' by Spandeau Ballet.' (I was in a retro 80's phase.)

Well, being a music-obsessed freak, all Gary needed to do was attach a song to a moment and there was instantly no doubt that I would remember it forever. And I have. If I close my eyes right now, I can picture the moment completely (although that would make it difficult to type.) It's clear as day.

For a while after college, Gary and I lived in the same time zone. And every year on his birthday, I would think of that minute. I'd remember how I felt that night. How I was so in love with college. How I loved the times we would sit around the three of us laughing and talking about stupid college stuff. I would miss college so much sometimes it was like a physical ache. Every year, I would mourn that minute at the same time I celebrated it, even though truth be told, after college, I was very rarely awake when the minute presented itself.

This Monday was Gary's birthday. He turned 35. (That's right Gar. I called you out!) And that moment turned 15. Which blows me away, cause it was just a second ago, I swear! These days, the melancholy guy who sat in the window waxing philosophical about lost moments has a wife and a son and an amazing life on the other side of the country. And I am here in North Carolina, with a life so utterly and completely different than anything I could have imagined for myself at the time. (see Grandma Crazy blog entry for proof!)

But in my mind, we're still there. Me, Lianne and Gary, sitting in room 207 of Hood Hall on the upper Quad of Ithaca College campus. Our entire lives are in front of us. So many amazing experiences in the future. With that one cheezy song from the 80s and one late night minute tying us together forever.

Thank God for late night college insights.