So I had a decent weekend, how about you? My weekend was a little weepy, truth be told, but generally it was good, after the tears were dried. I hope yours was too. And since I know you love it when I tell you all about the life stories of my various friends, I’ll get right to it…
Friday night I hung out with My Friend Emily. She is pretty cool, and one of the few people I have become close friends with since I moved to Seattle…I mean, one of the friends that I met in Seattle. I guess I’ve become closer to several folks, but they tend to live a time zone or three away. So it’s nice to feel like you’re making new friends as well as strengthening old ones (isn’t there some sort of Girl Scout song I should be inserting here?), and it’s especially nice when one of those new friends is Emily.
I met Emily because she used to date an ex-roommate of Carl’s. She used to be over at Carl’s house (from whence I am writing this entry) quite a bit, as I was and continue to be, and we got to be pretty good friends, in the sense that she was the girlfriend of my boyfriend’s housemate. Does that make sense? That was pretty cool. And then about two years ago when I was going through easily the worst summer in recent memory, Emily was right there, and I mean RIGHT THERE. Totally solid. Listened to me weep and whine and obsess for months…and the best part was, if I’m not being too cryptic, she was so on my side that she actually got mad on my behalf. That feels pretty great, when you know there’s someone totally on your side, someone who will sit and talk shit with you in the laundry room during a party you don’t really want to be at but sort of have to be at. You know that kind of friend.
Emily broke up with her then-boyfriend but she and I still stayed in touch. Over the summer..and this is where it gets good…my mom came to visit and we went to a barbecue at My Cousin David’s house. David moved to the Puget Sound soon after I did but I didn’t see him much because he travels a lot for his work. Anyway, he heard my mom was going to be here and he likes her a lot and he was having a party and said bring whoever I wanted to bring…and the wheels started turning, because I am such a pimp. Emily came along that night, all exhausted by “getting back out there,” as you’re supposed to do when you’re recovering from a break-up, and boom! David corners me on our way out and asks for her number. Two weeks later, Carl and I go out with them on their second official date, and here we all are today. Did I say I was a pimp? No, make that Cousin Pimp Daddy, which is what David now calls me. It’s awesome….not only because being called Cousin Pimp Daddy is something to which few people aspire, but also because David and Emily are a lot of fun to hang out with in general. It was still awesome to be with Emily without our respective significant others, though…we went out to eat and then made brownies (I think we would have listened to Debbie Gibson had we had the means) and then taaaaalked about boys and sex and work and some more sex and also about this weird drool one of the cats had going on. Good stuff. Great friend.
Saturday was kind of weepy, as abovementioned, and Sunday was Easter. Now I was all ready to go to Quaker meeting…although I have to say that there is a part of me that feels sad that I’m not a Catholic or at least an Episcopalian around Easter time. I grew up Presbyterian, and suffice it to say that there are no beautiful stained glass windows or draped crosses or saints or men wearing golden robes or anything in the Presbyterian church. Quakers are worse, because they don’t even sing during the service…of course, Quakers are mostly silent during their service, and actually it isn’t really a service at all, it’s pretty much people sitting quietly in their sensible shoes “waiting for the voice of God.” It’s pretty cool, actually, and usually I enjoy the silense and the chance to be meditative for a while. But yesterday was so gorgeous, ragazzi. You’ve heard the phrase “God’s Green Earth?” The sky was blue and the daffodils were everywhere and I’m saying that we had just parked the car and were getting out of it in order to go in to meeting, when all of a sudden I said “Forget it! Let’s go to the Arboretum and be in God’s green earth!” So that’s how I spent my Easter Sunday, thanks for asking…in a beautiful wedge of water and sky and trees and flowers, thinking about resurrection and new life and all of that. It looks like spring is really here, and I’m so grateful for all the good things in my life: good friends like Emily, family of all types, volunteer daffodils, ducks and geese at the Arboretum, cheese danishes at Grateful Bread, silent Quakers meditating, blue sky and calm water and the longer, brighter days.