nomadic tendencies: Old friends

There is something comforting in having old friends. People who have known you, who still know you and surprisingly still like you despite or perhaps because of what you were and what you have become. Being at home, that is, my parent's house is a fully disconcerting experience, especially because no matter how much older I am, or how grown up I may actually feel, to my mother I will always be somewhere between 12 and 15, and the object of her incessant instructions...
Take for example last night.
Jeff came over (after spending the day with his parents) and while we had gone out and talked for extended hours the night before, being old friends, we strangely did not run out of things to say, as we examined our own lives and their mutual interactions, filling in long gaps of time where we had lost touch, and exploring such concepts as love, desire and good film all from completely emotionally detached positions. We played billiards in the basement and narrated our lives previous to when we had even known eachother, again, for we had undoubtedly done the same 10 years ago upon our initial acquaintance.
Mom comes in to the living room around midnight. "Well, I'm going to bed now. You probably won't see me in the morning, I have to leave around 7:45." "Good!" I cheerfully reply, "that way we can sleep in..." "..." "?!" "Well someone needs to take the trash out." "Ok, I'll do it," I resign myself to the eternal role of harried teenager, "but once I get up." "Well they come awfully early." "Ok..." I reply through gritted teeth, "Then when Jeff walks down the hill to his car, I'll take the trash and recycling down." This met with approval.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't want to be an ungrateful guest, and I know that the well meaning gatherings of neighbors that she plans and then subsequently stresses out about, barking orders for their preparation and the cleaning of the house are indeed a sign of goodwill. But... I just want to hide out with my nose in a book and have no stress whatsoever, and I fail to see how I can possibly be counted upon, as if I had never left the auspices of this crazily-cluttered house, for the basic functioning of daily routines, as my sporadic hiatuses are nothing more than a trifle, a mere wrinkle in her orchestration of the universe as it affects her. I am trying my hardest to remain calm and cheerful. I opt for the teenage strategy of passive agressive ignoring, or partial completion of most orders, like a cat, demonstrating a scrap of autonomy. I may well go nuts in another day.

So, back to the interesting ideas on friendship that we were digging up, and stirring around like the boiled laundry of a third-world nation. It is amazing to rediscover friends and realize why we so deeply like them, and it is also incredibly refreshing to have male friends that offer deep insight into the masculine psyche from a genuinely cooperative place. The thing about old friends is that they don't offer the "twinklies" that meeting and "falling in love" with new ones offer, but yet... the twinklies can only get you so far, I think. He had this interesting insight into how we feel when we have "that" emotion for other people and it boils down to the urgent need to narrate some sort of working order of one's life to another or other people. Curious. I think I have always known that, but he framed it in such an excellent way that it washed out many of my own figurings.

I like smart people.

Meanwhile, it is so strange to be here without M. I don't mean this house (which actually, thank god he's not here because the fur would really be flying, if metaphorically... we tend to have a lot more tolerance for our own parents...) But I have been revisiting many of my old places, like the river, which was swolen beyond belief, and the absolutely uninspiring streets of ManchVegas, and having this weird sensation that several different eras of my development are all conflated and competing simultaneously for my attention.

It is like a bittersweet reverie of everything that came before, and after, we met. I think him not being here makes the focus very hazy, like I am lost inside of myself, nothing pressingly urgent, no real time that is present.

Thinking about losing myself. I know, I have probably already lost you all as I am thouroughly inarticulate. The feelings are somehow bigger than words, not painful, not joyous, just more massive, like the roiling sea. So I clarified quite a few ideas as the encroaching darkness of the wooded night persisted, I need to write a few things, now, but I can't until I finish the book I am reading, as if its unravelling has some intrinsic connection to the narrative that I need to write.

Clearly, I won't subject you all to that.

But, speaking of old friends... Here are a few shots from yesterday afternoon...

Elsa was my colleague, (and we share a birthday!) though having gone through a PhD in French and then having to teach high school monkeys, might drive me mad. She and Dave are finally expecting!