Note: This time the title is from a favorite poem of Roald Dahl's that I found waaay back when in the back of an edition of the BFG:
My candle burns at both ends,
It gives a lovely light.
But ah my foes and oh my friends
It will not last the night.
Yesterday was Friday night. Usually my Friday nights are not spent with my friends across the hall because they are at work (Telefund. *shudders*) However, yesterday they got out of work, so we got to order takeout and watch (the last half of) Benjamin Button. It was great fun, and afterwards as we were hanging out, Felicia said something to me that unleashed a torrent of pent-up thought. She asked me if my friends were like me (referring to a website that I found distasteful, but that they were thoroughly enjoying, an animation for the entertainment of the masses on 14 different ways to violently kill your boss) It set me thinking because of the ambiguous nature of the phrase "your friends" My first question was, of course, who are my friends? The first answer was, well, they are. And so are Wells, and Lamp, and other mk people. And some Spanish people too... but they are all so scattered, and I haven't talked to them in so long. What constitutes a friend? Is it someone you were once close to? Someone you spent some measure of time with at some point in your life? Someone with whom you discovered that you have something in common? A friend of your parent's? You see, I know many, many people in each of these categories, but only a tiny fraction of them are present in my life anymore. In the end I settled on the definition that a friend is someone who, if you came into their life again, in need of some manner of assistance, would welcome you and try to help you in some way.
That is the best way I can think of to reconcile myself to all the people that have been lost from my life like marbles off a chinese-checkers playing-board.
