The problem with posts like the previous one is that they set up an expectation that you’re gonna, you know, write. Like, why else would you have gone to the trouble of setting up the damn blog if you’re not going to use it? The pattern of starting a blog, writing once or twice, then coming back to it only every few months to post a “sorry I haven’t posted in a while” entry is familiar to everyone, so I really don’t need to go into it. Hopefully, I won’t pull that shit here, but I make no promises.
One of my Things is that I lose track of people. My particular mode of operation in life is, essentially, “out of sight, out of mind”. This has unfortunate consequences when you move to a new city and people who are important to you stay behind, or go their own way, or what have you. As a college student who attended three different schools during my undergraduate career and recently started a grad program, you can imagine I’ve watched myself go through this process a few times. The fact is that, on a day-to-day basis, I am in a near-constant state of reacting to things and trying to keep up. Those things that don’t throw themselves in front of me often end up being relegated to that vague “I’ll get to it when I have a chance” corner of my mind. (If it is any consolation to those who may be currently stuck in that corner, you’re in very good company). Fortunately, in all the transitions I’ve made over the last few years, there have been a few people who just don’t take that kind of crap. More on them in a moment.
I have good friends from the town I grew up in. I have a very good friend from the year I spent in New Mexico. Most of all I have many good friends from the couple of years I spent at UC Davis. All these sets of people know a different slice of me; and of them, I believe the people I know from UC Davis got the clearest picture of who I actually am. These are the people I knew when I figured out that Linguistics was what I wanted to Do. These are the people that clarified my view of the kinds of friends I want to have, the kind of woman I want to love, and the kind of life that I want to lead. The friends that I have made in San Diego see what amounts to a finish product (in some sense) that these people helped shape.
I don’t mean to get all Wonder Years on you. But this stuff has been on my mind because one such friend, Jeff, the guy on the left with the incongruent mohawk in the photo above, is to my great fortune one of those people who doesn’t take my crap. We’ve been in touch recently, and after a bit of prodding on my part, he’s rebooted his blog too. Everything he says is true. He’s like my nerdy soulmate, a reminder that all this shit really, really matters. I count myself among the lucky ones, to be sure.