I expect to be mostly incommunicado over the next week, because my fabulous friend Mya is coming in for a visit from Minneapolis. In addition, we’re finally having the housewarming party we’ve been meaning to on Friday, and I’ve also just had the fantastic joy of spending a day and a couple evenings with Jeyoani (at right).
Big social month, apparently.
It was awesome to be able to finally meet Jey. We have a very similar spaztastic energy and enthusiasm: in fact, her first night here, we didn’t get to bed until 3 because for the life of us, we just couldn’t stop babbling. Great to be able to meet her at last: Jeyoani is the eldest daughter of my friend and mentor Cheryl, and we’ve chatted online and by phone for a couple years now, and she’d also partnered up with me in forming the AGA with Jenny and Becca.
Oddly enough, she met Mark before she met me, by way of rescuing him from a transportation fracas in L.A. about a year and a half ago. (During which I felt like a total ‘net celeb stud, by the way. He’d called me all panicked because he was there for a workshop, and his ride blew him off, so I was all, “Where are you? L.A.? No problem. Let me put out my bat-signals amoung everyone in the whole world I know, who OF COURSE will jump to help my sweetie, and we’ll fix this pronto.” In ten minutes, it was done and he was rendered utterly speechless in the wake of my supershero powers. Good times.)
It’s also a pretty cool thing when you can go out with two close friends who are also mother and daughter. The older I get, the more range my friends have in terms of age and identity, and there’s something really fantastic about that: the wider and more diverse a net I have, the happier I am. Strangely, that was always the case with my romantic and sexual relationships: not sure why with my friendships, until the past handful of years, that was less the case.
Cheesy as this is going to sound, it’s so hard for me to imagine my life without my friendships. That’s life without family. The move has been tough in that regard (it’s always especially touch to forge new friendships when you freelance), but nothing close to as tough as when I first moved to MN. I had near to a good three years there without a circle of friends, and it’s no damn wonder I got whacked with hardcore depression then.
I’m always so saddened to see the teens at Scarleteen who make their entire social lives their partners or their partners friends, and just seem to either not get or space out how important platonic friendships are. When the relationship is still ongoing, they don’t have a real support net, they often have all these troubles with abondonment issues or with giving their partners a normal amount of personal space, and it seems to kind of skew the view of romantic relationships as only one important kind of relationship. Of course, when the relationship ends, they wind up totally alone, since the friends they had were shared and there’s that usual your friends/my friends awkwardness that happens with a breakup when it comes to shared social circles.
We have a user right now who is in that spot, and just feels she’s too shy to make friends, but we’ve heard that before, and oddly, someone the same too-shy’s can cultivate romantic relationships, a disparity I can’t quite figure out.
You never want to tell them, point blank, that romantic relationships, especially at their age, tend to peter out a lot faster than they suspect, and friendships are more lasting, because a) a person only needs so much buzzkill when they’re just starting their lives and b) there are just so many variants there that neither of those things are always true, by a long shot. Truth is, during developmental years most of their relationships PERIOD will often be phasal, will come and go, or will be somewhat temporary because everyone’s identity is in such a state of flux. Note to self: figure out a nice way of explaining this — might help during those years when we often feel like no one will stick by us — without sounding like you’re saying they haven’t got a chance in hell of anyone sticking around until they’re older, and in such a way that supports the value of both their friendships and romances, and makes clear that the cultural notion that any one type of relationship is more vital than the other is hogwash.
That said, there are rooms to clean, errands to run, and still a load of catchup work to continue, all left around in a giant pile from the last few months of book craziness. If I catch up with everything that has fallen behind even by the end of this whole year, it’ll be a bleedin’ miracle.
P.S. And to be filed under the “I Need a Miracle” department (ah, those deadhead years, how I miss’em), until recently, I somehow forgot how insanely happy a bowl of steel-cut oats with raisins makes me. Almost fifteen years ago or so, I had a partner (the one who still holds the crown of my favorite ex, ever) who always made them for breakfast: at first, they seemed so utilitarian and plain, I wasn’t too excited about them. But then, the beautiful texture of the oats made itself apparent, and having someone make you warm, toasty grains in the morning was such a treat. A much-belated thank you to Michael Hays for turning me onto those delightful oats. Yummy.
January 21st, 2007 at 5:56 pm
..really apreciated your comments on how friendships (and relationships) can be fragile. Also, on the flip side, there’s the chance someone you’ve known for more than twenty years will introduce you to a completely new amazing new friend (and thank to Erika for that one).
Absolutely lauged out loud about your “bat signals” bit,too!
On a related note, as you see from comments (under the shot) at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fantailmedia/365280390/ , there’s always pixies afoot in the part universe where (grown) boys and girls play naked.
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:55 am
I am a big fan of slow cooked oatmeal. I add some chopped walnuts, pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries and a bit of cinnamon to mine. So happy.