3 posts tagged “friends”

Sunset Junction. Saturday. Thousands of people inching past one another on the closed off stretch of Sunset Blvd. in Silver Lake. Mildly buzzed, but with a slice of sober from trying to coordinate the comings and goings of about 8 friends. I've managed to find my girlfriend and the guys near the main stage. But I have to traverse the packed streets back to El Cid where the others are supposed to meet.

Sliding between revelers, I hit a pocket of open space. The crowd has parted. Amidst the hundreds of faces in my field of view: one. One face that I'm drawn to. She looks like one of my best friends from years ago. The Indian girl who liked other girls. With the hair she wouldn't cut short. Skinny like a bird. We used to dance together. We were once inseparable. It was her.

Five years at least since I'd seen her, since she moved away. She was looking at me the same way, with that I'm-almost-certain-it's-you look. Because we've both changed. I've lost baby fat, and she's filled out, at least to the point that she's no longer a skeletal bird, just a skinny bird. We embrace. It's hyper-real to see her so close, like meeting a dream.

It's you.

I can't believe it.

Why did we argue? How did we fall out? Does any of it matter now? No. None of it matters anymore.

Okay, so, anecdote time. Because I don't do enough non-QoTD's here...

This afternoon my girlfriend had four friends come by the house before they all went to the Silver Lake Wine tasting; all of them ladies that I've met on numerous occasions. I was sitting at one of our barstools by the kitchen counter as they were getting ready to leave. My mind was elsewhere, looking toward the upcoming work week.

As the ladies were getting ready to leave, my girlfriend came over to kiss me goodbye, which is just an automatic thing with us. Remember that... it's an automatic thing.

Then her friend, who was visiting this weekend from San Francisco (but who I've visited myself when up there on business) came over to hug me before leaving. I reflexively turned my head and kissed her, not thinking. It was on the cheek, thank goodness. And that's not especially unusual — we greet each other with traditional Los Angeles air kisses. But this was firmly planted on the cheek, and a little bit noisome, and not from the normal angle; a little closer to the mouth than intended. It was also in front of friends that I didn't know as well, and wouldn't air kiss when greeting.

I got freaked out. They left quickly, so I had no time to survey whether anyone had thought it out of place. And then they were gone for four hours, during which time I could only try to replay an automatic reflex in my mind to analyze whether this was going to be an issue upon my girlfriend's return. After all, four girls spending a couple hours tasting wines — there's no telling what could be discussed.

Fortunately, none of it was considered out of the ordinary. When my girlfriend returned, all was normal, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Just a week after I wrote my first Vox post about meeting one of my now-defunct blog's readers in real life, I received an email from that reader. It was filtered into my junk mail, and I happened to find it this evening on a very rare trawl through that folder--a week after it showed up.

It's been years since I corresponded with him, and I was very saddened to find out his wife died earlier this year after a 14-month battle with cancer. Her name was Amor, and it fit. She was a warm, caring woman that made me feel very comfortable in her home, at a party where I didn't know anyone. I'm glad to have met her, however briefly.