Just last week I was cleaning out my old mailbox and deleting email messages I had saved for almost 2 years. Some of them were from my friend Ed. Ed was an incredibly brilliant, amazingly attractive and intensely profound guy I met in Philadelphia in 1999. Unfortunately, he was also completely insane and 100% self-destructive. All of these things came to an end today when, according to friendly rumor, he was found dead in his bathtub surrounded by drugs.

I had heard of Ed many times prior to meeting him in October, 1999. Everyone called him simply "Ed the Russian" and the stories of his crazy behaviour and passion for vodka and pickle consumption had crossed my path many times. I had also recently become friends with his ex-wife during the past summer when she came to visit in New York. So when I sat down at the bar in Philadelphia next to an unusually attractive hacker-type and started talking philosophy, politics, pyschology and vodka, it came as a complete surprise that this person was actually the one-and-the-same Ed.

Although conflicted about my friendship responsibilities, after a few drinks and some of the most amazing conversation of my life, I was wholeheartedly enthralled in conversation with Ed. I spent much of the remaining weekend talking to him and wishing I had met him earlier and outside of the hacker-complicated-context. We wandered through the streets of Philadelphia with our friends and eventually Ed decided to follow me back up to New York after the weekend party.

The train ride to New York is the most focused memory I have of Ed. We went to catch the train with our friends but arrived in seperate cabs from them. When we arrived, the train was about to leave the station and I urged us to just board the train and find our friends on board rather than wait around in the station for another hour til the next train departed. Ed agreed (he tended to agree to almost anything I said.. I think he was as fascinated that weekend by me as I was by him). We got on the train only to discover our friends had not caught that train. So Ed and I settled in for the train ride to New York City.

On the train, Ed showed me his journal. Much as I described him above, his journal was exquisitely profound and utterly insane at the same time. It showed me only a small physical sampling of how his mind worked and it intrigued me immensely. We talked about Russia and his life and his thoughts and I was intoxicated with his story and experiences.

When we got off the train, we waited for our friends at the TGI Fridays where we had a bite to eat and finished up our time together. Later that night I would go home alone and he would stay in the city with friends. Subsequently we sent email for weeks, exchanging thoughts, pictures, stories and desires to play again in the future, but none of that ever panned out. That weekend was the first and last time I saw Ed.

So his being gone is, fittingly, more mentally disturbing than anything else. While he only shortly held a physical space in my world, his most incredible gift and the part of him that I think I got to know best, that of his profound mind, will remain a fond memory and inspiration for me always.

Rest in Peace, Ed.
May you find whatever it is you were constantly searching for.

-laura