Classifications

Zac wrote about Google+ and Facebook and putting friends into boxes.

I see the meaning of grouping those to whom I am connected online. Putting all the names in one place at one time makes the collective that much more daunting. It has value on the site, but that value isn’t something I carry around with me in life. When I get the chance to share a meal with Bud, I don’t think to myself, “Bud lives in my friend circle as well as my PLN circle, I will restrict conversation accordingly.”

The best moments are when those circles break, when the people with whom I’ve forged relationships exist in the ever-shifting cloud of relativity, when how I know you isn’t a categorical imperative.

So far my G+ circles (and FB lists for that matter) are based on where I know people from. But the closeness of the friendship, besties vs barelys and everything in between hasn't been monitored. Perhaps because I haven't shared widely enough there. Perhaps because it feels artificial. Perhaps because I know my own Venn Diagrams intersect and loop and morph and move.

At my birthday party this week there will be a dozen (or few dozen) friends. No one will know all of them. (Including myself because it's a joint birthday party and my Venn Diagram overlaps with the birthday boy for "Dancing" and other random people. But we don't even share all of the same dancing people.) Most of the people there are in the "Circle" of my current city. Or my current school. But others are from my past with only the slightest connection to my current life. Enough to know they're in town for the date.

It's funny though. This is one of the few times of the year when I make an effort to introduce my circles. Classmates. School friends. Cohort. (Yes, they're all slightly different.) Dance at school. Monday night dancers. (Again, surprisingly different groups.) Church. College. When I taught. Friends of friends. I classify people in my head right and left. I just don't explicitly tell the Internet Companies what those people mean to me.

Weekend Snapshots

The boyfriend I just met asked how I know his girlfriend. "We met on Twitter." Nope, didn't really know each other before that. Just it's a small group we interact with, so we eventually found each other.

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Sitting in the bar listening to bands play. Chatting with friends and people watching in aticipation. Knowing that once the music changed ever so slightly my crew would descend upon the dance floor. The other people wouldn't know what happened.

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Blueberry picking. And nibbling. And BLUEBERRIES.

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Driving home and playing which is sketchier: the strip club billboards or the fireworks billboards. Strip clubs almost always have exit numbers. The fireworks didn't. And they had fine print that I couldn't see while driving.

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Trying on heels that make me tall.

Not buying them.

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Watching more Being Erica than is probably good for me.

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Random assortment of friends for the Fourth. Spending the most one-on-one time with the one person I hadn't met before.

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New grill working! Deliciousness. Hamburgers. And tofu. And so many sausages. And veggieburgers. And portabellos. And red peppers.

And this salad.

And mint lemonade. And sweet tea. And Arnold Palmer.

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Never actually grilling the ribs.

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Sunset walk by the beach with two of my girlfriends while others tossed the Frisbee.

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Heading to the beach to see fireworks. South. North. And the illegal immediately local.

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Checking out a new dance venue. Staying from the first song through the last.

Intimidation Technique

I'm super-duper nervous about this statistics camp I'm going to. Never mind that my advisor encouraged me to apply. Never mind that the people here accepted me. And that I've got the funding to travel and be put up in a hotel and everything. The other people are going to be professors. And I don't know anything about the software we're using. And my data's not right. (I have no evidence for this, I'm just concluding that there's no way it's right.)

To make myself less intimidated, I Googled the guy being picked up from the airport at the same time as me. Navy SEAL. Who won some sort of awards in techniques that seem like they could be fundamental for this week and I don't have. In other words, not helpful.

I elaborated the story to make him more intimidating. Basically, he used the stats we're learning this week to locate Osama. Really, he's the reason Bin Laden is dead.

If I make him so fantastic that it can't be true, he'll be less intimidating. Right?

Graduation

20. Attend my sister’s graduation.

Check! And congratulations. I love you.

I feel sexy.

Checked off the list of things that I never thought I'd do: pole dancing class.

A leader in the the graduate women group's took a class a year ago, got hooked, and has been promoting it since then. She got a group of us to take it (at a discounted rate), so.....

Lessons/Points
1) No mirrors in the studio, because we're too likely to be self-critical. If it feels good, it looks good.
2) Take all the time in the world. (During warm-ups.)
3) Pole tricks, even easy-ish ones, are HARD.
4) I'm going to be sore tomorrow. Can see how this ends up being part of a weekly workout routine.

I'd be tempted to sign-up for one of the real classes. (Meet with the same group once a week for a couple of months in level 1. Then move to level 2....) But super-expensive. And while I do like the sexy feeling, confidence boosting, endorphin happiness, I can get a year of yoga at school for the cost of 2 months of level 1 classes.

And ending the night with blues dancing reminds me, there are other types of sexy dancing too.

Analyze this

I woke up before my alarm this morning. Only problem is that my last dream was so stressful, I was in tears. (Funny thing though, after I started going over the stress-edge in my dream an emergency therapist was called to talk sense to me. I didn't need to analyze my dream when I woke up because I'd already analyzed it in my sleep.) So I decided to turn on the radio news and snooze instead of getting up when I was aiming to.

Doubt Comes In

Yesterday was one of those days where I fear I'm inadequate.

Yesterday, it was the school fears. I'm not a good enough writer. (At least not academically.) I don't think analytically enough. I don't know enough background about my research area. I can't even define my question. Is grad school where I should be? Maybe I'm better off finding a teaching job again. I'm pretty good at TAing.



This morning I woke up to my annual review feedback e-mail. I saw it in my inbox, decided I couldn't handle it. Closed my e-mail. Went back to cleaning and cooking. Last night's doubts becoming this morning's fears.

The food got done and I decided I'd rather know the bad news before my morning off. Went back to the e-mail. All good.

Really?

Oh yeah. We're excited for your progress. Keep up the good work. Much relief.

(And yes, of course. Everyone else isn't surprised. Whatever. Because DOUBT is just as serious an enemy of productivity as cockiness is.)

Best Friend

Chatting with my professor after a meeting today, I touched on the topic of my moving growing up. After a discussion of how that's shaped me, she asked "Do you have a best friend?"

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Ummmm. wow. I was silent for a few seconds before replying, "I have different best friends from different areas of my life."

That is how I describe people: My best friend from grad school who's not in my department. My best friend from my first year teaching. My best friends from my hall freshman year. One of my best friends from camp. My friend that I still keep in touch with from high school. I mean, my last post referenced my best guy friend, but really his title is "my current best guy friend who really we weren't that close in college and then we supported each other through those outcast jobs and then he moved here two weeks after I did...."

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I've thought before that my formula for determining my best friend is some function of:

• length of friendship
• current rank of closeness
• peak rank of closeness
• how quickly we reconnect after time apart
• how much I don't actually think about this formula because obviously they're in my top friends list

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Robert Putnam (whose book I really need to read) and others who study the General Social Survey talk about how Americans have fewer and fewer close friends. Shrinking social networks no matter what Facebook tells us.*

I don't think my delay in answering the question was due to not having close friends. I think it was the way I categorize friends.

But I think I'm also going through friendships in transition. The process of losing touch with people I was once close to. Realizing that some of the connections I've made here won't follow the friendship trajectory I originally placed them on--some because I didn't expect to be friends at all, others because I expected to be much closer. Bracing myself for further separation as people move. If I knew who my best friends were, say 10 months ago, I'm not sure the same holds true anymore. Maybe.

Are they your best friends if they change?


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Tomorrow morning I get to have breakfast with one of my best friends from college. We haven't seen each other in almost 3 years. Rarely figure out the time zones enough to schedule a Skype call. And who knows when we'll manage to see each other again. I'm super excited to catch up. And need to straighten my apartment so I can show her around.

My life may never fit the sitcom style. The core group of three to five bestest buds who hang out together at the same bar/coffee shop/apartment. But the best friend model has never been my style. And I think that's okay.





*Speaking of which, one of my best camp friends and I became Facebook friends this weekend. Love how one of the few people who I've kept in touch with since before I went to college, someone who I've traveled the better part of a day to visit, someone who can ask about my other friends who she's never met hasn't been labeled a friend in the new normal way. (And that several of my other best friends still aren't.)

Letter to The Woman My Best Guy Friend is Monogamous With

Dear G,

I’m not allowed to not like you. It hasn’t been said, but it’s been made clear nevertheless.

It’s funny because he’s never been nervous about me meeting a girlfriend before. (Though when confronted he denied the nerves.) Granted the major ones I already knew. It’s just the non-major ones that I’m somehow never introduced to. I miss the concert or party or whatever group event that is the relationship debut. (Because it’s my finals or I already had plans with other friends or, once, I got the date wrong and showed up for the party the next night and had an only somewhat awkward exchange with a roommate who I’d never met.) I’ll hear how everyone else liked her and say, “Well find a time for us to meet each other.” But it always seems to end before that happens.

But you. Girl, the expectations are high. People don’t like you, everybody loves you. The little old ladies are telling you to marry him when they first meet you. Parental eyes are smiling knowingly. At this point I’m expecting rainbows and unicorns handed out when you appear.

And I’m not allowed to not like you.

To be clear, I’m not worried about it. There were about ten minutes when you entered the story where I was frustrated by the way you messed up the narrative. I didn’t like you then. But as your backstory was explained and your character developed I couldn’t stay mad with you. At least by now, I like the stories about you.

I’m not allowed to not like you. Neither am I allowed to contact you prior to an arranged meeting. When I went to IM you back in a window on his computer flashing “Tell her hi,” he freaked. It would be too weird. It’s not my place. I shouldn’t send you a message on Facebook now. Instead I should wait until he messes things up (because, let’s face it, he will). Only then am I allowed, even required, to reach out with some sort of apology-explanation on his behalf. Saying something to the effect of how special you are. That I hope you can work things out.

And even before I meet you, I know that’s true. I hope you can work things out. And that, more than anything, is why I’m not allowed to not like you.

Reverberating boom 6 "one thousands" after the sky changed colors

Thunder and lightening and rain. Maybe we actually are on the warm side of winter.
Amazes me how I much miss this sound. And how comforting I find the fear of the storm.




Though I would trade the sound of wet cars for campers in a heartbeat.