i just don’t know what to do with this blog.

i was recently talking a good friend on the phone. she, like my girlfriend, is much less into the social media than i am. in fact, when my girlfriend knows i will be talking to her, she says to say hi to her “non-facebook friend.”

we were talking about our various ways of dealing with people and our desire for new people to connect deeply with, and after talking about how private she and my girlfriend are, i talked about how i tend to approach new people (not all new people, just the good ones) with something like that book are you my mother? except my version is “are you my new bff?”

it’s so hard for me, the level of shallowness of relationships being a grown-up sort of necessitates. there are people i am close to, but man, i want the grown-up version of sitting outside of dorm rooms sharing secrets with almost-strangers.

i think of things like this blog and facebook like that, but one reason i’ve been lacking in posts over here is because of how creepy the motives of facebook seems to be. as a human, in dealing with humans one-to-one, i think of oversharing as a way to stay safe almost– if there are no secrets, no one can find out your secrets. but then, these days, big brother is a reality in ways i can’t fathom.

i think of blogs as being like the end of the movie pump up the volume when all of the radio stations start popping up. it’s magical. and it makes me nauseated when i think that the reason these services are free is that data is being collected like mad. i dislike when my naivete is shattered, y’all.

friend sixty-one.

friend sixty-one, “beth prentiss,” is hard to write about. she’s someone i’ve always thought is really awesome and smart, but who i’ve also been pretty intimidated by. we went to new college together and she was a very vocal and fierce feminist, and as a shy, awkward, uncertain feminist, i was afraid of doing or saying things that were somehow unfeminist around her, especially because she was really pretty and i could barely handle myself around pretty peers.

one of the themes of many of these posts is how much i’d like to interact with the people i used to be somewhat intimidated by because i think i’d do a better job of actually talking to them, because i finally regard myself as equally human. friend sixty-one doesn’t live too far from me, so that makes it more possible than with some other people, i think. but then there’s also this weird fear that i’m just going to blab out all of the ways i’ve ever felt awkward and how glad i am to not feel that awkward, and what kind of conversation is that.

my dream conversation with friend sixty-one would be less about me or how relatively awkward or confident i feel, and more about big global issues as well as our grown-up perspectives on the weird reality that was new college. it also looks like she studied a subject that is currently dear to me, so that could be a good start, too.

a big part of the reason i’d like to be real friends with friend sixty-one is because even though she has an intimidating exterior, sometimes these expressions of sheer delight cross her face and that looks like fun.

friend fifty-eight.

although i was raised by hippies and have some lovely pagan friends, i’ve never been able to use “witchy” in as fabulously flattering a way as i can when i use it for friend fifty-eight. a fellow paraprofessional at a school in san francisco, friend fifty-eight always impressed me with her caring, wisdom, calmness, beauty, and artistic talent. bringing a love of the ethereal and the natural to the students at the school, friend fifty-eight is a wonderful gift for any school to have, and i miss working with her.

friend sixty.

when i lived in olympia and did americorps, friend sixty, who i will refer to here as “beth meyer,” worked in the office, doing really impressive organizational things i didn’t understand. i loved working for her because she had nikki mcclure pictures, a great laugh and sense of humor, and i really felt like she Got Things, in terms of race and class and oppression. shy admiration impeded my ability to become actual real life friends with her, but our conversations about our lives when i’ve called her for recommendations for new jobs has made me think that if i was still in olympia, we could meet each other as peers and that would be awesome.

friend fifty-nine.

in my senior year of high school, at my peak of shyness and social awkwardness, friend fifty-nine, who i will refer to here as “beth marrier,” was in the group of friends i ate lunch with. and the fact that someone as smart and sarcastic and funny as she was would actually eat lunch with me made me feel like i might actually be cool, too. to add to that, she was also a fantastic comedic actress in high school as well. we haven’t seen each other since i graduated, but i’d love to see how confident me would fare in conversation with her.

friend fifty-seven.

yesterday, my girlfriend burst into some of the biggest laughter i’ve heard from her in a long time. “i’m not sure if this was meant for me or not, but friend fifty-seven just sent me a text message that said, ‘fuck, now i can’t tell the difference between celery and green onions.’” for this, i will be forever grateful, because we’ve been having a sad time in our house, and things that make her laugh make me happy. and i don’t care if he can’t tell the difference between the two as long as he leaves them both out of my food.

for about a year, i really only knew of friend fifty-seven from word of mouth– he was the teacher in the class that my girlfriend worked in. cute and/or distressing stories of kids and the amusingly aloof music aficionado of a teacher made it home regularly. later, she started working as a teacher at the same school as his fiance and so i’d get to hear stories about him as boyfriend as well– impulsive tattoos and leaving when the house was full of crafting women further filled out my perception of someone she clearly liked and respected.

we got invited to their wedding where we became “the dancing couple” at the reception (later learning, though my girlfriend had suspected, that the party music standards we were dancing to, were not actually the songs they had carefully, meticulously, and artfully chosen). we’ve hung out a few times, and our various shynesses and social awkwardnesses, as well as our very different interests, have not made for the best conversations. but i know that he enjoys my facebook posts about watching “wings” so i feel a little less awkward.

friend fifty-six.

i used to work with friend fifty-six, who i will refer to here as “benz,” but really only long enough to discover that he was beautiful, flirty (though not with me), and fabulous.

friend fifty-three.

she said, “you should meet friend fifty-three, barnaby. we call him the spine-ripper.”

so, i was surprised to meet a calm, friendly, somewhat geeky young man who was really fun to talk to. when i lived in the pacific northwest, we hung out in groups a few times in seattle, and we’ve become facebook friends. i always look forward to his posts about his life and political things, as well as events that he’s going to that sound fun. he also posts about things related to all this technology stuff we are all embroiled in and when my eyes don’t glaze over, i appreciate those things, too.

for the record, he has never actually ripped out a spine, but he says that when one does, it sounds like a giant zipper, only wetter.

sex and the city friends.

i was watching the dvd commentary for the tv show, “parenthood,” and it talked about how every show is based on a fantasy. i think the fantasy of “parenthood” is being close to your brothers and sisters when you grow up.

the fantasy that hooks me every time is super-close friendship– particularly the kind that bonds a bunch of girls or women together– “the baby-sitters club,” “little women,” “sisterhood of the traveling pants,” “the fabulous five,” “sleepover friends,” “golden girls,” “designing women,” “the gilmore girls,” and of course, “sex and the city.” i think i could get into something similar about guys, but that rarely happens. “the broken hearts club?” “queer as folk?”… “how i met your mother”?… but anyway, the kind of “talk about anything over brunch, be there when you are sad, make each other laugh, know each other so well” friendship is my big tv fantasy.

with moving around so much, i haven’t had a lot of it. i definitely had it in college, but since then, it takes so long to get close to someone, and all that grownup busy-ness crap that keeps you from collapsing on each other’s couches at 2 in the morning and going out for brunch on a tuesday morning and just stopping by makes it hard.

part of it is that, although i am pretty good at reaching out when i am sad, i’m also bad about what to do with other people’s needs. my social awkwardness makes it difficult for me to reach out and plan things for fear of bothering people… there’s the quaker meeting which has been wonderful, and as a big, rich, thick safety net of wonderful people, it’s wonderful, but after 5 1/2 years, i’m still quaker bff-less. which is probably okay.

but anyway, things have been really hard for my girlfriend and me since 2012 started. not our relationship, that’s really amazing, but some crappy circumstances have hit us really hard. and so, i’ve been calling people. “can you come over? we are sad.” and the people i’ve called have been wonderful. it turns out i do have “sex and the city” friends. they’re my girlfriend’s friends too– in fact that is what has made me brave enough to call them. because i know she is wonderful and always trust that of course people will be there for her. maybe i’m a bit more like big at the end of the first movie when he calls her friends up to surprise her and they all eat together, but that’ll work, too.

(actually, we’ve decided we are charlotte and harry. “not all day every day. but every day.”)

friend fifty-four.

another qwindered qwint, like friend thirty, friend fifty-four and i were pen pals all through my high school years. but we really bonded over our cats. in fact, most of the letters we sent back and forth were actually missives from our cats to each other. naming her cats after lucy maud montgomery characters, friend fifty-four, or “becky s.” as i will call her here, had the neat handwriting and wholesome life that i longed for in high school, as well as a wonderful sense of humor, which is simply another name for a sense of the fitness of things…