Love is blind. Friendship tries not to notice.

There are all sorts of friendships. And, though it’s safe to say that some are preferable to others, I believe that the way we communicate (IE: email, text, video chats, etc) in this day and age has changed the way we rate their importance.

It’s so very rare, I think, to have a friendship that stands the test of time, but what about distance? Are friendships like romantic relationships in that respect – near to impossible to keep going when you aren’t sure when you’ll see that person next? What about if you’ve never even met that person?

My best friend in elementary school was my cousin Ben. He was three months younger than me and, consequently, in the same classrooms until about the age of 10, when they suddenly realized that separating us would not only benefit our learning abilities, but the sanity of our teachers. Unfortunately for our parents this was not an option at home as we happened to be next door neighbors.

We spent many an afternoon discussing the merits of karate vs. street fighting or seeing who could spit the farthest. I was pro street fighting, Ben was pro karate and, though I’ve often had reason to believe he cheated, he always spit the farthest. He would pull me, blinking and irritable, away from my latest paperback and out into the sunshine. We were the last of the Mohicans running through the woods, he in his bare feet and I in my navy Keds, only discarded when I was a safe distance from my prissy mother and her entirely rational fear of snakes and poisonous spiders. We raced bikes, played horrendous games of basketball, and made solemn promises with sticky handshakes.

Over the years our friendship changed, adapting, like so many boy-girl relationships, to make way for the things puberty claimed we needed. He became my protector rather than my sparring partner, and I became his sounding board for all things female – an idea as preposterous now as it was back then.

Though we remained close through the few teenage years we were allowed, and though I continued to call him my best friend, we branched off and found people that met with our often changing qualifications and fads. While I dabbled in a particularly heinous Goth phase, he was trying his hand at the All-American jock. While I practiced the art of the hanger-on, he took up afternoons with the fishing club. However, by the age of 15, we seemed to be moving within the same circle once more. The common circle, collector of teenagers everywhere – trouble.

I was only just discovering the feeling of constantly having him around again, of being on the same wavelength. Afternoons were spent using every curse word we knew, playing video games, burning rap CD’s that would make our mothers faint, and smoking cigarettes on the sly. My favorite pastimes were riding in the car with him next to me, singing Afroman at the top of our lungs, and lying in his bedroom at night giggling over things that only made sense if you were stoned. I’d barely begun to appreciate our new relationship when he was killed suddenly in a jet ski accident.

Losing my very first best friend – my brother – my blood – in such a terrible way, crushed me. But after the anger had run its course, after the hurt dulled to a controllable throb – he managed, in death, to give me something. He pulled me out of my shell again.

In the years that followed Ben’s death, I made friends with an ease I’d never had before. I still disappeared behind my books from time to time, but I wasn’t the same withdrawn child being coaxed to come out and play. Interacting with all those different people was necessary.

When I think over all the friends I’ve had since, there are only a few that even bear mentioning and I’m glad - glad that I had so many imposters, so many which passed through quickly. It’s made it much easier to recognize the real thing.

Rachel, whom I’ve written about before, was the next person to make a big impact in my life – helping me move into adulthood with honesty (I had a significant problem with that.) and much needed hilarity. And though she’s still my best friend, things seem to be at another turning point. I’ve changed yet again, and I suppose when that happens, you need new people in your life to reflect that change.

I’ve recently (over the past year) developed some unexpected, unconventional friendships. At times, especially in the beginning, I couldn’t think of them as anything special because it would just be too weird. But I’ve since readjusted my thinking.

I’m talking about my friendships with you guys.

This whole online dating fiasco I entered into recently? I’ve been pretty embarrassed about it, depending on who I’m talking to and what day it is. But in all honesty, it’s not that different from blogger. Sure I don’t have any romantic intentions as far as the lot of you are concerned, but I’ve formed some pretty close attachments despite myself – without even being aware of it happening at first.

Every comment and every reader has a special place in my heart. I love all of you guys for giving me the validation I wasn’t aware I needed until I started this blog. The support I’ve received here, through some of the most difficult times, has occasionally been the push I needed. Your comments are always encouraging, more often than not hilarious, and usually better than any anxiety pill. See, even having a great group of “in-person” friends, I just don’t get much encouragement on the writing front. I needed that, and you all gave it freely – so thank you.

But as with any large group, there are always a few standouts – a few people I’ve gotten to know a little better than the rest. A few people who started as encouraging strangers, and ended up becoming close personal friends.

Mr. London Street, whose real name I wish I could use here, if only to make myself sound more plausible, has been, in a manner of speaking, the driving force behind almost everything you’ve read on this blog since spring of last year.

I’ve always been an ok writer and I knew it was something I desperately wanted to do, but it wasn’t until I read his site that I realized just what possibilities really lay behind blogging. I was using my site to vent and occasionally tell a funny story or fill out a meme. And here was this man, writing so beautifully about everything from humorous bus expeditions to painful childhood memories. It was a wakeup call.

He gave me the courage to write in a way even I had no idea I was capable of and encouraged me to push boundaries. And I will be forever grateful, because one of the best feelings in the world is seeing something you’ve written and thinking, “I can be proud of that.” It might be “just a blog”, but it’s also a record of just how much I’ve improved. I’m a long way from reaching my full potential, but I have a feeling I’d be even farther away if we hadn’t become friends.

And I do consider him a friend...a real one. A mentor of sorts, obviously, but a friend first. Not a week goes by without an email or a twitter message that makes me laugh, think, or roll my eyes in amused exasperation. We have quite a bit in common for all our surface and cultural differences and, of course, our geographic distance. I plan on remedying the latter sometime in the first months of the new year, if only for a brief visit, and I can’t tell you how excited I am at the prospect of meeting him in person.

There’s another blogger that I’ve become close with, though I prefer not to name them as they’re quite funny about their privacy. Suffice it to say that if a few days go by and we haven’t spoken, I wonder what’s going on. They make me laugh constantly and even, on occasion, irritate me to the point of insanity, as friends are wont to do. Our phone conversations often leave me in stitches, but even when they turn serious, I’d be hard-pressed to find someone I enjoy talking to more. I genuinely hope that this is one friendship that will prove the distance theory wrong. (Note to person in question: Just because I’m being nice does not give you license to torment me about it later. I will retaliate, as you well know.)

There are others that I have occasional correspondence with and would love to get to know more. I believe there’s a wealth of possibilities here. A great big world of people that share the same sense of humor and aren’t afraid to say what they think. People that are open-minded and intelligent. People that when you finally meet them for the first time, it feels like the twentieth. And people that, even if you never get the chance to meet, change your life for the better.

Every now and then a commenter has said, “You should stop giving this stuff away for free.” And in the beginning I felt inclined to agree. But as you can clearly tell, if you’ve been paying any attention, I’ve been getting a lot more in return than meets the eye.

I have no idea how long I’ll continue to blog. I suppose as long as it continues to be something that makes me feel good, that makes me feel like I belong to something bigger. And, of course, as long as it continues to introduce me to some truly wonderful people.

I'm never going to live this down, am I? Part one

I’m no stranger to memes as most of you know. I’m an attention whore and when any sort of award or recognition comes my way I take that shit and run like a convenience store thief. But just like stealing, recognition always comes with a price.

Mr. London Street has named me one of his Bloggers to watch for 2010 and I’m greatly pleased. The only downside is that I have to follow in his footsteps and write a post including 10 things you stalkers don’t already know about me. The man that doesn’t do memes has set the bar high. There’s also the little fact that I’ve already shared so much of myself with you, I’m not quite sure what’s left. But I’ll give it my most valiant effort.

Let’s do this.


1) I might be a lesbian.

When I was a kid I would stay home alone in the summer while my parents went to work. Being surrounded with family for neighbors it was hard to get in trouble, but somehow I always managed. My cousins lived next door and we were forever sneaking around the neighborhood causing mischief.

One afternoon my sidekick Ben came over. We were sitting in the living room watching TV when he noticed the big, white child lock on a low cabinet. “What’s in there”, he asked.

“I don’t know. Some breakable junk of Mom’s I think.”

“Let’s open it!”

If Ben suggested it, it was as good as done.

He opened the lock designed to keep my little sister’s grimy paws off things, set it aside, and threw the doors wide. Sitting Indian style in front of the cabinet, we started digging through odds and ends.

There were vases, candlesticks, pictures – all manner of uninteresting plunder. Then Ben stuck his hand into the dark recesses and hit pay dirt. A collector’s edition Playboy magazine…featuring none other than Ms. Marilyn Monroe.

Of course I knew shit about Marilyn Monroe back then. The only thing I knew was that I was holding something forbidden and if Ben’s attitude was any indication, something really cool.

Silently flipping pages, we stared in openmouthed fascination at naked skin. I was every bit as absorbed as he was.

“Let’s take it to the clubhouse”, he said.

“Why?”

“We can pull the pictures out and put them on the walls.”

And once again if Ben suggested it…

We had an old camper hatch that we called “The clubhouse”. There wasn’t enough room to stand up and you had to climb through the sliding glass window to get in. That afternoon we took the magazine, pulled out the pages, and taped them all around the metal walls.

It took my dad about two weeks to realize it was gone. I forget how he found out the magazine’s fate exactly, but find out he did. That might have been the worst ass whipping I’ve ever had in my entire life. Of course Ben walked away scot free. He was a boy, after all. He was just doing what came natural. I, on the other hand, not only stole something worth a great deal of money and bragging rights, but I ogled naked women’s bodies. My dad was a bit of a homophobe.

Looking back on it now, he should have beaten me harder. I probably would have inherited the magazine since I’m the closest thing to a pervert there is in our immediate family. As I vaguely recall those glossy pages full of delicious curves, I want to smack myself.


2) I was a very active kid…mostly by protest.

As most of you know, the only activities I find worthy of excess movement are swimming and sex. It’s not that I’m lazy per say, it’s more that I’m uninterested. Why should I chase after a ball or run around a track when I can watch someone else do it? Not only that, but I’m inherently clumsy. My mother just couldn’t grasp that concept. She wanted me involved in sports and groups, bodily harm to myself and others be damned.

I started with karate, which I actually enjoyed. But like most good things it came to a premature end. She didn’t like that I was the only girl in the class and that the fathers of the other students were picking fights with dad because I was kicking ass and taking names. Getting your ass handed to you by a girl is, I gather, a tough pill to swallow, but it sure made my dad proud.

Then there were dancing lessons. It started out with jazz hands, soft soled shoes, and spandex creations of horror and continued with cowboy hats and tassels right up until my senior year in high school. It was a closely guarded secret and for all my independence, I never could quit until after I graduated. My dance teacher and her family became close to me and mine. The ties that bind and embarrass are hard to break.

I also played soccer for several years. I was the kid no one wanted to pass to, the flower picker daydreaming down field. I didn’t set out to be bad at it, but I was all the same. My cousins were on the team too so I had plenty of ribbing at home as well as at practice. During that time, I started wearing glasses. Huge, round, red affairs that made me look like an even bigger nerd.

There was a guy named Geoff that I had the biggest crush on. He was gorgeous so of course I didn’t even come across his register. He only really noticed me twice. The first time was when my mom packed me a t-shirt with a pink cartoon elephant on the front for practice. Doing warm up laps around the field in that get up was probably one of the most brutally embarrassing moments of my life. She might as well have written “Point and Laugh” across my chest.

The second time was when the coach insisted I play goalie during practice because “sigh, it can’t hurt to try”. Translation: “You suck at every other position and this is the only one we haven’t tried.” I was absolutely terrified when everyone lined up to take a shot. I don’t remember how many I blocked/caught and how many got past me, but I’m sure the numbers weren’t in my favor. Then Geoff came up. He was one of the best players on the team and I knew he’d try to smoke me.

I’m not sure if I wasn’t paying attention like I should or if the ball just came at me too fast, but it popped me directly in the face WHAM! and knocked me out cold. When I came to my face was stinging and throbbing. For a minute I thought it had affected my vision, but no, my glasses were knocked off. Everyone was crowded around me, a blurry Geoff the closest.

He was apologizing and the coach was trying to shoo him away. They decided I was fine, but should sit out the rest of practice. After the initial shock had worn off and everyone could tell I wasn’t brain dead or suffering any serious injury, Geoff wasn’t very contrite anymore. It became yet another team joke.

I then dabbled in a bit of softball, which I was pretty decent at and would have played it longer if it wasn’t for the whole running thing. It was the batting I liked. Aggression issues and all.

But yeah, sports and me...not so much.


3) I once shaved off my baby hair.

Everyone knows how irritating those pesky baby hairs across your forehead can be, right? They don’t lay the right way and they make you look like you decided to grow bangs and changed your mind.

I have no patience. If something isn’t going my way immediately, I sometimes act less than rational.

One day I was attempting to fix my hair and I couldn’t get those fucking things to cooperate. They were behaving way worse than usual, not even allowing themselves to be covered by a deep side part. (Which was attractive, let me tell you. Deep side parts are the coolest. Like tie dyed scrunchies and hot pink taffeta.) I used all the hair products I could find, but I just ended up looking like I had a horizontal forehead mohawk with a comb-over.

Frustrated, I looked around the counter for something else to use. That’s when the little trimmer my mom uses on her eyebrows caught my attention. Without even thinking I picked it up, held back the rest of my hair, and started shaving all the baby hair off at the hairline. And it worked. Once I was finished, I was completely satisfied with my appearance.

It wasn’t until a few days or so later when my mom said “What the hell is wrong with your head” that I realized what I’d done. It looked like one of those military buzz cuts across my forehead. It took months for my hair to look decent enough to wear pulled away from my face and YEARS for the baby hair to grow back out to a normal, non-freakish length.


4) I’m kind of a murderer.

Living in a house with only women for five years (with the exception of the past few months), you can imagine how silly it can get. There are times when one of us has to “man up” and take care of something that we feel just isn’t a woman’s job. (And I don’t want to hear any shit from you feminists. Why don’t you go out and split a few logs, Paula Bunyan, and quit bothering me.) I don’t consider myself a girly girl, but I cannot stand a bug, lizard, or small, hairy undomesticated creature of any kind. For some reason, I’m always the one elected to deal with any unwanted invasion.

“Al! There’s a bug in here!”
“Al! Get the vacuum and suck up this bug!”
“Al! Al! Al!”

Listen bitches, I’m not a dude, no matter how you say my name.

Inevitably there’s a lot of squealing, cursing, and the sound of someone’s feet dancing on a chair.

Years ago, I think I was about 16; we got mice. My dad was working out of town so mom put glue traps out until he came back and figured out how they were getting in. One night I was lying in bed and she started screaming for me. “Al! Al! Get the dust pan!”

I refused to get up, instead yelling back, “What do you want? Get the dust pan yourself!”

“I just saw it run through here! Quick! Get the dust pan and whack it on the head!”

“Are you serious?! You want me to chase down a mouse and whack it in the head with a dust pan?!”

“Yes!”

“Forget it.”

But she continued to harass me for the next 10 minutes. I knew she was never going to let me sleep, so I finally got up and went to my door. I peeked out across the dark kitchen, the only light coming from my mom’s room up the hall. I had to go to the laundry room at the half way point and get the damn dust pan.

I’d only taken two or three small, cautionary steps across the hardwood (twss) when I thought something ran over my foot. (I realized later it was just the tie from my bathrobe.) I jumped, screamed, and took off running through the kitchen. It was probably the shortest run in the history of runs, because I tripped almost immediately and went crashing to the floor. When I fell my right knee took most of the impact, but it wasn’t just with the floor.

There was a sickening CRUNCH and my knee was bathed in warm liquid. I knew what happened right away, but I kind of blacked out for a minute. My mom says that I was shrieking so horribly she thought I’d broken a leg.

She helped me to her bathroom where I took my first look at the carnage. Hair and blood and blech, gag, mouse guts were stuck to my knee. I wailed and cried while she cleaned it all off. I kept hearing that CRUNCH replayed in my head, over and over and over.

I’d barely calmed down before it turned into the new “guess what she’s done now” story. She immediately started calling people and relaying the brutal tale. It’s still, of course, a common joke among my family. “Did you hear about the time Alyson crushed that mouse with her knee?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Motherfuckers.

(In case you haven’t noticed the trend, there’s a long list of things I’ll never live down. The post didn’t start out to be that way, but whatever.)


5) I’m often tactless.

In the past several months we’ve been learning how to use a new database at work. This means we’ve been spending a lot of time with new consultants and calling them when questions crop up. We haven’t completely transitioned from the old to the new so everything has been a bit muddled lately.

About a month ago one of my bills was late, as usual. Of course they started calling my work phone every fucking hour. Of course I didn’t answer. Sometimes they get sneaky and call switchboard and it comes up without an actual phone number on the screen, but I’ve gotten wise to that. Ha!

That particular day I was feeling a bit paranoid, so when the phone rang with a number I didn’t know I debated on picking it up or not. I finally snatched it up at the last minute, deciding I just wouldn’t answer using my name and see who it was first.

“Name of company and department." Pause. "How may I help you?”

“Yes, I’m calling for Alyson.”

“Erm, she’s not here...can I take a message?”

“Yes, tell her this is So-in-So the consultant returning her call about the questions she had on blahbity blahbity blah.”

I REALLY needed to talk to him so I had a quick internal debate: I couldn’t call him right back because I wasn’t supposed to be there. I couldn’t pretend to be someone else and say “Oh! Here she is!” because he’d recognize my voice and have to pretend he didn’t which would make things really awkward. Or I could tell him it was me and I was sorry for misleading him.

“Um, ha, So-in-So? This is kind of embarrassing, but this is Alyson...me. Your number looked like someone’s that I’ve been avoiding so I...wait, I mean...”

He immediately burst out laughing.

“I’m so sorry...wow...um”

Still laughing, “That’s ok. Ha!” Then he started answering the questions that I’d left him a message about.

I’ve spoken to him twice since then, answering the phone correctly both times. The last one being this past Thursday:

“Thank you for calling Name of Company and Department. This is Alyson. How may I help you?”

“Oh, so it’s you today? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“Yep, it’s me. Heh, heh. Funny.”

More laughing.

“I’m never going to live this one down, am I?”

“Probably not.”

“I’m so professional.”

More laughing.

Did I mention he’s cute and single? No? Well he is, damn it. We have a meeting at his office across town coming up soon. I’m hoping he doesn’t embarrass me in front of everyone, including my boss who I never told about my lapse in professional demeanor. She’d be shocked, I’m sure.


Obviously I’m going to have to split this into two separate posts to keep you from restless eyeball syndrome.

To be continued with five more things you don't know about moi and my top seven bloggers to watch for 2010.