Morrissey - hold on to your friends

I don’t have one best friend. Before you start to feel sad for me, hear me out. I have a group of about 8 people who I love most dearly and will be life-long friends, I guess you can call them my best friends. They are the people that I send an e-mail to when I have news to share or need advice. Sadly only my friend Josh lives in New York, and happily my friend Alison is most likely moving here when she sells the monstrosity/ball and chain of a house she lives in in Chicago.  My friends, no matter how much distance lies between us, are not needy or demanding. We respect that we have busy lives and if it is a few months or longer before we talk, nothing is ever mentioned of it. We just pick up where we left off and catch up when we can. My friends are so diverse but all share a common thread. They love me. And it would be hard not to notice that they are often eccentric, intense people with big hearts. Just the way I like them. My 8 friends are Alison, Josh, Suzy, Stephanie, Jayne, Nadja, Melissa and Akimi. Tom is my absolute best friend but thats different because he is so much more. All of these people I have known for between 12 and 20 years. Some jackass once told me that I only have short-term music industry friends. Nope, I have had p-lenty of music industry friends alright, but work is work. I have beautiful friends that I can count on to be there for me that I would trust with my life. Outside of the inner circle there are a lot of people I would call close friends that I love dearly: Michelle, Elea, Diane, Mimi, Cammy, Lisa, Posey, Bethanne, Leisa, Paul, Lizzy, Jeff, Jim, Tim, Bob, and Alf (i have known all from between 5 and 25 years, only one in the music biz) …not to put them on the B-list…but they are people who I would drop anything for and think about and miss. The difference between them and my best friends is that I have been with my best friends through hell (theirs or mine) and back and somehow that changed things and we are now family. No best friend broken heart necklaces hang from our necks, nor do we have a secret handshake, but it is more something we all just know. I am blessed with good people in my life. I am amazed that I have had such good fortune to have ever met them and am so glad that efforts were made not to loose touch by either myself or them.

So I find myself getting a little sentimental when it starts to get cold. I don’t know what it is but I start to have a longing to go see my friends and spend time with them. I would like there to be a “friend pass” similar to a Euro-rail Pass were I can list 10 destinations and need to complete my trip within 3 months. I would go to Beijing, Sydney, Portland, Sand Pointe Idaho, Chicago, Indianapolis, Oakland, Brisbane, Byron Bay, and Berlin. I feel the need to check in with everyone and make sure they are OK and have their nuts stored and wood chopped for the winter. I would want to help them with any last minute winterizing (or in Alison’s case de-icing and air conditioner removal) that needed to be done. When my friend Brian died last week, I began to feel rushed to check in with all of those people I had let too much time pass between the last contact and now. I felt that I have been asleep at the wheel and needed to make the effort to check in, make plans with, and for some, even locate. Time goes by so quickly. I know that my friends know that I love them and know they are in my heart and in my thoughts. But my New Years resolution is to reach out (music biz term) and reconnect. I won’t be able to see everyone in this new year but hopefully a few. Chicago, Sand Pointe Idaho and Berlin in 08′! Oz and CA in ‘09! That would be fantastic. Won’t they be so happy when I show up with my two toddlers and disgruntled teenager in tow? When I was married previously, I lost touch with a lot of people. I was too embarrassed at where I found myself, and more embarrassed at not leaving. So the fact that I am wanting to talk to everyone and show up with my family makes me happy at how far I have come. Don’t worry, we will bring a tent. 

Divorce was a monkey wrench thrown in there too as it took me awhile to find my feet again and reconnect with people. Only two people were mutual friends with myself and my ex. After a 2 year silence and their siding with my ex, we are friendly again, but thats it. Its tough for most people to choose and without making the effort to fully understand both sides (in my case no effort was made), most people err on the side of smiling bystander. If they had been long-term friends I would have been shaken up about it, but it suits me fine now. It doesn’t feel like I lost friends there, I see it that i just didn’t know what kind of a friendship I had with them until then.

I recently joined MySpace to try and find someone I had lost touch with. MySpace seems to be mostly for bands and I have like 3 friends form my long ago rock scene days…I am just not a big scenester anymore. But when I look through the lists of some mutual friends it brings me back to a time long ago and reminds me of all the people I knew from those days. But I don’t ask to be their friend. What is done is done, and I can look at their sites and smile and be happy to see they are still around on this planet and hope they are doing well. But I really don’t want any mySpace friends that I don’t know. I am not a Friendster. Nor do I join any groups of like-interested people on Facebook. An old co-worker (and friend) DB once asked me (over inter-office IM) why I wasn’t a part of a mySpace group of tattooed New Yorkers. And I said that I wasn’t a joiner and quoted Marilyn Manson when he was talking about the Polyphonic Spree “…they represent everything I despise…happiness, friendship, fellowship and bright clothing.” to which he replied. “Interesting. Well I think its fun.” Which left me stunned, scratching my head thinking that…well,  I suppose it is, ill never know. They will have to mark “does not play well with others” on my report card again this year I guess.

I have to admit that having all of my closest friends so far away can be very isolating. As if having two infants isn’t isolating itself. I belong to a twins group that meets every friday at a play space. But Mom groups tend to bore me after awhile as it gets a little repetitive. Zzzzz…huh, what’s that? Oh yeah I am really interested in the cute thing your kid did today…zzzz. Its nice, I shouldn’t complain. Having twins is really tough sometimes and its nice to have people to vent to who are likewise as sleepless, and who’s shirts are smeared with carrots and spit-up and whose life has been overtaken by babies such as myself. But it is hard to make friends when you are in your thirties. For the most part people are done shopping and stay pretty much on the surface. I tend to make friends with people who are not afraid to dig a little deeper and most people can’t go there. There has been a couple of people over the last five years I have made some effort to befriend but for whatever reason, most likely our overwhelming lives, we just didn’t get it together to spend the time to make a closer connection. 

I know someone who always says “oh, I have a friend who lives there…or I have a friend who works there or knows so and so… ” I don’t do that. I don’t brag about my friends, their lives are personal and it is rare that I share any details of a friends life to another person. It usually takes me a long long time before I call someone a friend, even if I feel instinctively that I will be fast friends with someone. It takes me some time to trust I suppose. I can be as self effacing and revealing about myself in conversation, but there are only a handful that I count on because I know that I can. I am not opposed to making new friends, I am just not looking for them. I figure it is something that happens naturally or it doesn’t. I have met some new people through blogging but that is very new to me and for now I am just enjoying what they have to say, they aren’t ring your bell out of the blue or lets go grab a drink type of friends anyway. But may end up being something very important in time. I have those lets grab a drink and catch up friends and I don’t even have enough time for them lately.  

So this week I am going to start writing the first annual holiday letter to send (e-mail) to my friends. This is a tradition I am copying from my friend Suzy. I look forward to her report every year. Because god knows I don’t have the time to write everyone the same damn thing. And then I will gather my miles and get my ass on a plane and see the people I love as soon as possible. I don’t ever have to threaten that someone is going to be kicked off my Christmas card list, those people on it know that I love them no matter what. And hopefully ill get a chance to see their faces sometime soon.

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