Restless

[pegkerr]

I have been restlessly flitting between a bunch of different works of fiction today. Read two Internet LOTR fanfics, finished a murder mystery and started the next in the series. Then I remembered in some embarrassment that I'd promised Lois a month ago to beta read her new manuscript, so I printed off the nine chapters she'd sent me via e-mail and started reading those. (This is Lois McMaster Bujold's next novel, her sequel to The Curse of Chalion. Sorry, this not meant as gloating, but yes, I am one of the lucky few that gets to read Lois' books in manuscript, and believe me, I know how lucky I am. No, I will not spill the beans. Please do not firebomb my house in retaliation.) I was just a couple pages in when I decided that I needed to refresh myself with the events and characters of The Curse of Chalion before starting, so I pulled that off my shelf and skim-read the last half of it.

Lord. I'd be afraid to count up how many characters I've about read today. It's a bit dizzying.

It's also been hot, and I didn't eat right today, so I got a bit hypoglycemic. I suppose this might help account a little for how "off" I've felt today. *Sigh.*

I talked with Kij (kijjohnson) tonight. Our discussion was wide-ranging, touching upon topics as various as her move to Kansas; some of the professional invitations we've received lately; motives that fuel writing; writing teachers who dole out toxic advice versus teachers who guide their students well; the tie between writing and other psychological characteristics, some useful and some not (such as depression, well-honed powers of observation, resilience); the nature of midlife crisises; mothering; reasons for my fiction writing block; LiveJournal, the nature of collaboration in writing and friendship. A rich, rewarding talk, as it so frequently is. Our friendship has certainly been a remarkable journey since that memorable day we met in our freshman college English class. Gad, almost twenty-four years ago, now.

For those willing/inclined to answer: how did you meet your best friend? How long ago did you meet? Why did you stay friends, even as your lives each have changed from year to year? For Kij and myself, I suppose we stayed best friends because we are at once so much alike and paradoxically so different. And we've learned to be honest with each other and never gave up on each other, even when we've become angry (I'm proud to say we've had some remarkable fights over the years). When you've invested so much into a friendship, it eventually gathers its own momentum. Can't imagine life without her as my best friend.

Cheers,
Peg

Comments

[lcohen]

i'm stymied, like some other respondees, as to who in my life the words "best friend" should be applied to. i mean in a way they belong to my partner, ayana, but i don't think she's the person in my life whose relationship with me would be comparable to the one that you describe, and not just because she's my romantic partner. ditto my ex, michele, who was my best friend before we got together romantically. the loss of my "best friend" hit me just as hard if not harder than the loss of my partner in life when she left me.

i think that probably one of two people is the right relationship even though i don't think of either person as my best friend. one person is someone i met at sunday school when i was five years old. we weren't really friends at that time, i've just known her that long. we really bonded when we got to be junior high age and were still in that same sunday school at that same temple and were two of the only girls there who went to public as opposed to private schools (in the USA senses of those words), and were socially on the outside because of it. so we've probably only been friends since we were 12 (!), and we're very different (and living proof that astrology has a lot to explain since we were born on the same day of the same year), and we've never lived in the same city since we went off to different colleges, yet somehow we've stayed in touch and stayed a part of each other's lives. e-mail has been a huge aid to keeping the relationship more current--before that, we really relied on about three letters apiece a year and maybe seeing each other if we were both in town at thanksgiving.

the other person would be someone i've known a much shorter amount of time, but our friendship has stood the test of fire (that story i only tell people in person, it seems--it's much too long to type). we met in 1994 at a brunch for a GLBT faculty and staff group here at the U of Chicago back when she worked over at the hospital. we started talking and clicked as though we had known each other for decades--to this day it's hard for us to believe that we never knew each other's exes prior to that point. she invited me to a party at her house the next day, and i overcame intense waves of shyness to go to a party where the only person who i would know was someone i'd talked to for one hour, and the rest, as they say, is history. a couple of years ago, she moved with her partner down to north carolina, and if i could only nudge one person into really using their e-mail more frequently, it would be her. ayana and i have visited them and had a wonderful time, and occasionally i call or vice versa, but i miss being really up to date on what's going on with her. maybe i'll send her an e-mail......