I have so many better things to be doing. Working for instance. But something have been going through my head. It partly sounds like a prayer, part indulgence in nostalgia, part a feeling of loss....and in general it has led me to contemplate a few current relationships.

I've always maintained that I don't make friends very easily and it still holds pretty true so when I find I have a friend it still surprises me. Originally, it seemed as though friends were something other people had. I'd talk to my mom about "friends at school" but that was just easier to say than "classmates who could care less about me and in fact spend a lot of time teasing me." I really didn't understand the kids around me and so stuck out. The kids didn't understand me and, being kids, they weren't about to try. Occasionally I'd meet someone who would let me hang around and we'd go to each other's houses and have sleep-overs and all that good stuff but most of those friendships ended when the particular school year ended. For some reason I consistently made friends with the girls who came by and settled for the year because their parents split or were otherwise unavailable and so they came to Fullerton to live with a grandparent or aunt and uncle, or they came with their dad. Then their moms successfully challenged the custody rulings, or the dad got out of jail or something got figured out somewhere else and they moved away.

Sometimes I even envied them because they could leave my school where it seemed the only mainstays were rich kids who looked down on me or other Mexican kids who thought of me as the teacher's pet. But my parents stayed together relentlessly and I had to face the fact that if I were to live with any other family it would probably be the aunts-who-are-Franciscan-nuns, and go to the parochial school that they taught at. And by that point I'd had enough of parochial school, thank you. At least in public school I could make a friend or two.

In high school things started to change, and I didn't really make very tight friendships but I knew more people who were fine with letting me sit by them at lunch. There was more to do so I was nearly always working with someone who I could get along with, but I only really made two good friendships during that time. One was with a girl two years older and one was with a girl two years younger. And they weren't at the same time. These didn't last beyond my graduation.

College was far more complicated and through trial and error I learned to be more and more careful about who got in deep. I'm still learning that one. But the point is I went from not understanding people to something else. Maybe just a better definition of aquaintence.

I miss the friends I managed to make who have slipped away for whatever reason. The Internet has made a few things easier, but not many. An email of one of Jester's crude jokes tastes nothing like his Fuzzy Navels, and :-) from Rabbit is nothing like her real smile. Circumstances have caused things to change irrevocably, things done and words said have pushed Talula and Pester away and nothing will ever repair that.

Close friends are Squire and My Molasses and even Space Dog. Other friends I'm proud to have are the Ice Assassin and Agent Orange (though they're mostly on another tier because I don't know them as well but they're still good people). Also their's folks that are good fun to talk to and grab coffee with like Daisy Ded Petals, Faith and Sergei, and Kenny and Jenn, and Mme Black. Okey several people on that list actually don't like coffee, but they're still people who will actually give me the time of day and listen while I spill my guts about whatever is on my mind.

I forgot where I was going with this only that I was tempted to feel lonely earlier today. But I'm better now. Missing some folks, but otherwise ok.