a couple weeks ago, i was heading downtown to meet some friends for dinner and was running early. it was an unseasonably warm december night so sitting in front of the shop wasn’t unreasonable. i pulled up a chair along the sidewalk and waited – empty seats, empty table, empty conversation. it was only a little awkward, more so since there were two girls at the table next to me smoking and talking: it must have looked like i was stalking or eavesdropping or something of the like.

it’s hard, though, to sit next to a conversation and not listen in to at least a little bit of it.. so i sat there, enjoyed the second-hand smoke, and eavesdropped like a champ. now, of course, i can’t remember anything of their conversation.. but that wasn’t the point. the point ended up being that, by the time my friends showed up, i was jealous of the two girls. no, not because of their marlboros or their coffee or their dramas.. but jealous for their shared company. i think i’d realized it before then but never quite as clearly as it was to me sitting outside cg: ..i (i paused here for several minutes before writing more).. i don’t feel i have a friend here that i can talk to the way those two were able to sit and have a coffee and a cigarette and a conversation.. i’m jealous because.. well.. i’m a little lonely around here. i hate saying that because it sounds so sad. but, well, when i’m honest with myself about being here and where i’m at.. i can’t help but to notice at time how lonely i can be here.

i’ve started to really pity my climbing partner. she’s been taken the brunt of it really. all week just builds up until we meet at walmart and then it’s on: i bug and nag and talk and complain and speculate and worry and.. well, you get the idea: given the amount of shoulder time she’s lent me, it’s a wonder how her collar bone is still intact.

thinking about it again, i think it was her (is that grammatically correct? should it be “..it was she..”).. anyway, y said to me a little while ago that it seemed that i’ve made this my “home”. of course, i jumped on that saying that it really didn’t feel at all like home. in fact, it’s seemed to me that lately i’m a foreigner here in a slightly strange land.. and i can’t help but wonder if that’s going to change any time soon. it’s not that there aren’t friendly people surrounding me.. in fact, i’m quite blessed by being surrounded by so many friendly people.. it’s just that, here, i don’t have that i can call to sit outside the coffee shop, share a quarterly cigarette, and vent to about my roommate’s inability to part with the mashed potatoes that were made last october.. or why people think indoor soccer is the world cup.. or why people don’t pull into the intersections here.. or how i feel more than a little lost and scared with that i’m going to do with my life.. or even with my free time on cold weekends.. isn’t that a basic human need? it has to be just like any other human process, another form of excretion, of getting out the things that would otherwise rot you inside out. because, if you don’t, it turns the rest of the good.. bad. it poisons.

to the girls outside, cg, sorry i eavesdropped. and i hope johnny calls you back and apologizes.. 😉