To Coin a Phrase....

These are the earrings I plan to wear during my one-week stay in Juba, GOSS (Government of South Sudan). They are Irish Coins, circa 1961. I bought them at Eastern Market in Washington, DC probably about a decade ago, and I have lost and misplaced about a hundred pairs of earrings since then. But not these.

That's because, obviously, 1961 is the year I was born. It's also the year that Paul Lavery McGorrian was born. He was one of the first people I met when I started working at the St. Petersburg Times' Clearwater bureau back in June of 1986. I remember thinking that this tall, lanky, blonde, bespectacled Irish Dartmouth Grad was like a young Thurston Howell the Third, or something. He was almost a caricature of himself, all pseudo-serious and wonky. It was like he had watched every movie about journalism ever made since the dawn of cinema, and was trying to cram all the different celluloid personas into one package.

But for some reason, we clicked, probably after the first time I flat cracked his ass up in the newsroom one day. As long as I live, I'll never forget McGorrian's giggle. When he completely lost it, he also lost control of his limbs, flailed about, turned bright pink, took a few minutes to pull himself together, and then lost it again. When I realized I had that much power over him, it became a challenge to catch him off guard and make him blow his cool. Of course he eventually learned my comedic weaknesses and we started competing to break each other down. But I guess I knew I'd REALLY earned this Ivy League Yuppie's respect when he started recommending esoteric, boring-ass books for me to read, like about the history of the wars in the Middle East, or something, and I'd listen respectfully and then yawn in his face.

And he'd laugh.

Of course, as occurs quite frequently in life, I didn't realize I was in love with Paul Lavery McGorrian until his plane crashed somewhere between Islamabad and Gilgit, in the summer of 1989. I spent months torturing myself about our last phone conversation in June of that year, after I had left Clearwater and moved to Ft Lauderdale to spend a short, psychotic stint at the Miami Herald bureau there. That's where I learned that McGorrian had quit his job and withdrawn his savings and was headed to Pakistan to be a freelancer. I called to say goodbye and wish him well, and then there was this awkward pause. I didn't want to hang up. HE didn't want to hang up. We both mumbled something, and kept saying goodbye.

That was before I learned to tell people I wasn't related to, or hadn't slept with, that I loved them. Just because of who they were and what they meant to me, not because I HAD to, or because I hoped they would say it back to me.

Twenty-one years later, I realize I'm living the life McGorrian was trying to live all those years ago. I guess I really felt it tonight, when I was sitting in my hotel room in Juba, GOSS, a few weeks before an historic referendum that will either create a new country or reignite a dormant war, and I was watching an Arabic international cable news network program about that very referendum.

That's when I was reminded, once again, that I've come a loooooong way, baby. To coin a phrase....