Hormonal Lethargy with a Dash of Antihistamine-Glazed Eyes Produces Nostalgia-Palooza

I wrote this yesterday, but was too tired to check for errors (yes, I check. Shut up), so I saved it for later. I'm feeling slightly better today, thanks for asking...

I can't raise my hands above the keyboard. I'm cold. I'm hot. I'm cold again. Mostly, I'm holding onto the couch and eating chocolate kisses.

Other than being a little achy, I don't feel so bad. Just like somebody opened a drain in my big toe and let all the energy run out. And filled my head with cotton. No, packed my head with cotton.

Since I have no energy for anything else, I keep drifting over to the computer, and once there, not knowing what to do with it. So what did I do? I looked up my best friend from when I was a kid, and was shocked, no, freaked out to find that she was right in the Qwest telephone directory in the town that she was living when I last saw her twelve years ago. That was too easy. Now what do I do?

I guess the only right thing to do is to get back in touch with her. Calling her on the telephone is out (please refer to title of blog - an affirmation that is decidedly not working). I will have to write her a letter. How queer (definition 1: odd) is that? What do I write? "Hey, remember that time when we told each other we would grow up and marry Elton John and Roger Daltrey? Ha-Ha!" Who wants to be reminded of that?

I could write about my fascination with her gerbil "Tilly" (no, this was very pre-Jennifer Tilly). I can't remember where the name came from, but I thought it was a cool name. And Tilly was so small and cute. I wanted to take her out and play with her, but that was not something that was done, so I didn't. But I wanted to.

I could write about dancing in her family's big front room to her Monkees records when we were maybe 7 or 8. I still like to hear a Monkees tune from time to time. And I probably still dance like I did when I was 7.

I could write about our trips to my family's beach cabin in Florence (Oregon) (classy joint with an outhouse, complete with boogy man for nighttime trips). When we would roll into town, Mom and Dad would stop at the store to buy presto-logs for the stove and food to stock the icebox and let each of us buy a handful of candies, which would become our "provisions" for our expeditions to the beach (okay, we are not talking about beachfront property here - what, do you think money grew on trees? The beach was a quick 1/2 mile walk through huckleberry bushes and beach grass. This was no sissy cabin).

I could write about our trip to Canada a little later on, when we were probably around 13, wishing we were around 21, looking around 11, and feeling like hot, hot stuff. Oh, my poor parents.

I have a few pictures of a trip taken maybe a year later, when we went on an epic canyon tour, hitting Brice Canyon and the Grand Canyon and I'm sure many other hot spots where the two of us were much more interested in our looks than the scenery. That's the trip where I lost my contacts and had to borrow my mom's glasses whenever I wanted a glimpse of the world past my nose for a few days until a new pair could be shipped to me care of General Delivery, Podunk, Utah. My poor parents.

Our friendship withstood a lot of things that would normally end tenuous kid-bonds: first, her family's move to a bigger house in a nicer neighborhood when we were six, and when I was nine, my family's move an hour away (if you drive fast on narrow windy roads). Despite the growing distances, we kept hounding our parents for visits and writing lots of what I'm sure, if I had saved them, would be thrillingly artful and clever glances into the lives of pre-teen girls. I'm sure we thought we were being artful and clever. I only remember one rule of letterhood, and that was that all letters must end with the phrase, "and my ol' lady, she don't care!" - a reference to a bit of an Elton John song that had at one time been the punch line of what I'm sure was a hilarious pre-teen joke, now lost to the fog of time.

But the high school years were a little too teenage, a little too melodramatic, to try to bottle up all the angst and freak into a letter or a weekly call or monthly visit. Our letters and visits slowed and eventually stopped as we resorted to friends closer at hand to be our sounding boards and/or shoulders to sob into. As we soaked in more of our own town's culture, we were a little puzzled at each other's differences. What we thought could never change, changed.

Now we are way old. What would our teenage selves think of us now? I'm sure they would be appalled. But it sure would be fun to sit down with my old friend and a bottle of wine and reminisce.

And my ol' lady, she don't care.