Brian Vaughan

My first memory of Vaughan was a discussion I had with Len regarding his sexuality. Yes… for real. Consider the evidence: 1-He wore velvet shirts (when confronted with this, he would always insist the shirts were velour… to this day, I'm not quite sure how that makes anything better, but let's give him this win today) 2-He had 2 cats. He didn't just "have" cats, he adored his cats. He had pictures of them, publicly loved them, hugged them, talked to them, and would talk about them with anyone who would listen. 3-He really liked The Smiths. Hey, I love Morressy too, but when combined with point 1 and 2… Vaughn proceeded to prove us all wrong. In fact, he married the perfect woman. I remember him telling me about Rebecca and how he met this great person on Frendster (for anyone under the age of 35, that predated Myspace… for anyone under the age of 36, Myspace predated Facebook). I remember he had some crazy "profile picture" of a gummy bear on his page - I think there may have been straight pins involved, but we're going back about 20 years now, and I was drinking pretty heavily at that time, so my memory may be fuzzy. Anyway, back to Rebecca. He was SOOOOOO excited to have me meet her. He was constantly texting me (always in full sentences with punctuation) about her. Now you must understand, that at this time in our friendship, Vaughan and I were both single and would spend many nights on the phone talking about movies and music and discussing what we wanted out of life. Vaughan wanted a woman who would understand Belle and Sebastian, unconditionally loved his cats, and who would not laugh at his Sugar Kisses ringtone while I, well I just wanted Scott Weiland. We had a simple, but full friendship. So this being said, he naturally wanted to show off to me that he won. He found his person. He found someone who was absolutely perfect for him. I was so happy for him. He deserved his person. Switching gears here, I want to talk about what attracted me to this crazy friendship. Vaughan represented a lot of things to me. We met in a world that included smokey drunk evenings at No Idea, summer Fridays at Revival or DBA, mosquito-infested softball games, conference room discussions about books we were truly excited about publishing, afternoons at his apartment, and all those late night phone calls. It was a world where laughter was always waiting at the surface, ready to burst out of us at the slightest provocation. The halls of the Flatiron are probably still vibrating with the joy we all found with each other during that magic time. Vaughan could convey his love for an author with a mixture of snarky self-deprecating comments, movie and/or employee quotes, and humor that could almost be considered another language. He was so damn insightful and his observations so spot-on, that one eye-roll from Vaughan at a meeting could have me stabbing my thigh with a pen under the table to prevent me from totally losing my shit. As we worked our way into our friendship that lasted nearly a quarter of a century, our physical distance changed, but our relationship never did. Without talking for months, I would send him a stupid picture and he would respond "get out of my head!" We attended each other's weddings, followed each other's adventures, and I won't repeat what everyone else knows about how we all applauded his and Rebecca's decision to reach for their dreams. Do I regret not seeing him more in these last years? Of course I do. Like everyone else, we would say "next summer." And although we didn't see each other that much, there was never any hesitation or awkwardness when we connected. Whether my stupid posts were with Rebecca or Brian (with Team Vaughan, it never mattered), our understanding was this: we were great friends and time and miles could never change that. I already miss the potential energy of our friendship. The idea that any time we got together the laughter was instant as we'd slip right back into our secret language of quotes and snarky speak. Above all, I'll really miss the Vaughan sandwiches. I'll never listen to Sugar Kisses without reaching out to nudge him to make him answer his phone.