I have more to say.

This post is going to go all over the place and take up quite a lot of space, I think. There have been a couple of things that I've wanted to reflect on and I reflect better out loud. One of friend, one of better than one. I don't know how things relate, but I swear this was a logical string of thought. Meetings and becomings is what this is about.

I begin: I suppose we are friends. We are good friends, even, possibly even better than merely "good" but I don't think either of us have thought too much about that, nor do we care to. We met some years ago during the summer, when I hauled my crap up some six flights of stone steps of a ridiculous sounding building unadorned with air conditioning. I'd spent the morning indoctrinated by MemChurch and afterwards ate lunch with an old friend. I was in no mood to be tossed to the wolves of roommates I was convinced I would be forced to share the rest of the summer with. Of course, that wasn't to be the case- we all became fairly fast friends when it became clear that neither I nor they were tall, blonde, bitchy or Norwegian(s) (nothing against Norwegians, really). I think what pulled this friend in particular and I together at that point was a common distaste for: people of asian descent, Annenberg dining hall, and the bitches across the wall in J, reinforced by a sense of genteel "poverty" and a shared penchant for terrible puns and unwitty witticisms. We kept in better than just touch, and here we are, some years later like old ladies in rocking chairs having moved from heroin chic and dumb jocks to stable asian boys who study economics (yes, the pair of us). The one who wrote me my first email to my college mail account entitled "I like making [anti] asian jokes..." now proudly displays "Harvard Fob Pride Association" as one of their affiliations. From laughing about the stupid guys downstairs to crying morosely about the single one who told me no. I trust, though, that come whatever may, we'll be there in our goddam rocking chairs listening to vintage Britney Spears still yacking about her horrific landslide and how much we love eggplant and fried clams and Sangria.

"Big wheel keep on turnin' proud Mary keep on burnin'..."
-"Proud Mary"

I'm moving on, now, to the more than just friend. We were introduced years ago. Years and years; 7th grade, though we never really fell into best friend status until 8th. A friend and I took him to the mall in 8th grade and he traded ill shaped clothing for baggy cargo pants and a cute T shirt and a pair of Vans, with the extra padding just below the ankles. I got a christmas card which asked me quizzically what I got when I crossed an elf with a plate of cookies (A: elf barf) and happily proclaimed that I was his best friend forever. There was a brief, fleeting romance, a sort of testing of waters and what it was, and then I dumped him for a pretty, but dull boy who was a nice accessory at the time. We had our falling out, then a reunion over the summer when he watched me fall in love - with someone else. Eventually that gave way because of life, because of trials, because of circumstances beyond human control.

One day, the bottom fell out and I asked for him. He refused. It was then, I remember, the crushing ache which would consume me for some days began and I understood then what needed to be understood. We were meant to be, at that point, for some time, together, more than just friends. It was a revelation that the hours and hours spent talking day in and day out and day back in wasn't a dress rehearsal for another person to come along. It began there, then, and we haven't (and won't) move backwards. Always pressing ahead, I guess. I'm not sure i want to say much more about us; it's a delicious inside joke the two of us share. Even if I wanted to, I don't think I could say more.

"There are a lot of apparent choices in the world and not many are real ones. You bring a guy home and he's a goat or a camel and he speaks no human language [all guys]. You will probably meet other boys, but I doubt you will meet his equal or nicer."
-Linda Ronstadt

"You give me fever...What a lovely way to burn..."
-"Fever"

So I think the significant thing in all this is that these two people - whom I met at different times under different circumstances have grown and changed with the same "me." Two people who have woven their way into my life (lives?) who know the real me and whom I (hopefully) know of the real them. Saying "Orgo Tennis boy" or "Adams House T shirt" to one of them would illicit laughs while to the other it would probably yield a gentle, slightly estranged smile. Likewise with saying "Pokey" or "Horse testicles." And that is where these thoughts have led. Different, but real.