Deanna is a friend I hold dearest to my heart. We’ve known each other since we were teenagers, collaborating our creative talents to create a space on the internet where over 50,000 people around the world shared their enthusiasm for the same Kpop group. 2-2-2-N-E-1. It was a good time. I was an administrator who made things happen and she was a designer who made the website functional. 10 years later we’re doing the same shit, just adult versions of it. Isn’t that nice?
I’ve been waiting to see Deanna again since Thanksgiving weekend. There were things I couldn’t tell her over the phone. We sat at the gallery and drank tea and talked. Then we went home and talked. Then we went out and talked. Then we went home and talked some more, quietly falling asleep at the same time. In the middle of the night I moved to my futon on the floor, grabbing my nikki. I took a hit and realized it was her vape. I guess I should reintroduce weed into my life, when I need to rest.
I’m thankful to have Deanna here for the holidays. It doesn’t feel like anything to me anymore. My friends give me things and I am surprised, appreciative they think of me. People gather to celebrate and drink and be merry and I sit in my bathroom, glad I was never part of a crowd of people who cheered so loudly in the middle of the night. A lot is on my mind today, big ideas, thoughts, and feelings that worry me. I’m typically optimistic, if you haven’t been able to tell. I can handle traumatic experiences because I’ve been through traumatic experiences as a child and as a big child I choose to handle them better. But sometimes unexplainable things happen, things that would send most Americans running to a doctor or webMD and I’m left – because I lack health insurance – asking a friend: “Do you see this, too?”
I guess you can say I’m worried for once. I want to curl into a blanket in front of my heater and feel safe and protected and warm. I want peppermint hot chocolate with marshmellows. I want spiked eggnog. I want the pureness of snow on trees; a sleigh ride down a small hill; igloos on a campus lawn; cold walks bundled up; the crunch of your foot breaking into fresh territory; the joy of following in the footsteps before you; and so on.
Enjoy your snowy Christmas while it lasts!
ha ha ha
A STOR¥ BY ? 