losing larry

what I'd give to be right here, delighting in a tale you've spun before and has us no less enraptured. you're famous for keeping the light on your guests, but no one on the planet could tell a story like you. I miss it with gripping ferocity.⠀
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for six years you occupied a giant presence in my life; a sliver of your time here, a healthy slice of mine. writing your questions meant trying to slip into your brain until parts of you felt as familiar as myself. I carry a trove of peak experiences for which you are the cause– emmy ceremonies and luminary run-ins and the way it felt to make you laugh. you (+ jason & scott) are the reason I met the love of my life, a romance we kept from you for years only to find out you'd known, maybe all along. you trusted me and Ian to tell the story of your remarkable life, as together we revisited your childhood home in bensonhurst and the miami station that started it all; you sat for a four-hour interview with me in your living room, which now strikes me as insane. you inspired me, drove me crazy, and helped me grow – my flawed, funny, charismatic, stubborn, deeply lovable lar. my gratitude is, to use a word you'd rightly tell me is pretentious, ineffable.⠀
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it seems impossible you're gone. in the way expected of grief, but also because anyone who knew you understood how uniquely indomitable you were. it was a running joke that you'd outlive us all and on some level we believed it.⠀
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despite the countless spiritual leaders and faithful you interviewed – including a particularly powerful case for enduring consciousness from jeff goldblum – you were steadfast in your belief that we don't go anywhere after we die. it's with peace and a shit-eating grin that I envision you now, on whatever is the other side, gobsmacked and rattling off questions about afterlife minutiae. "how do I go to the bathroom?" "can you print me an itinerary?" wherever you are, I know the iced coffee comes heavily sweetened, the dodgers win every world series, & there isn't an egg in sight.⠀
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of all the questions you asked in life, there was one that most plagued you these last years: what does it all mean? it's a balm to think you now know.⠀
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I love you, larry. rest in curiosity.