9:36 a.m. - September 20, 2002
Friendly Friday Five
1. Would you say that you're good at keeping in touch with people?
Sometimes I am. It all depends. There are some people I'm better at keeping in touch with; I try. Lately, though, I have less time to sit down and write letters or e-mails. So I just respond to the people I like the most/care about the most first, and everyone else can wait a bit longer for a response from me.

2. Which communication method do you usually prefer/use: e-mail, telephone, snail mail, blog comments, or meeting in person? Why?
There's nothing like the thrill of opening a letter adressed to you. One that isn't a bill or a circular, or some sort of cheesy advertisement or newsletter from a business wanting your patronage. I also like email, too--it's quick and is an easy way to have conversations with people like my best friends from college and some of my other best friends, such as the one in Canada.

3. Do you have an instant messenger program? How many? Why/why not? How often do you use it?
Yes, I do. I have IM and ICQ. I don't use ICQ a whole lot, but my IM is on. That doesn't mean I go around IMing everyone on my buddy list. I don't do that anymore. As I mentioned before, I have less time to do things because of grad school, so it's occasional at best. I prefer IM because most of my friends use it. I've found that it's mostly Germans/Europeans that use ICQ, but even when I was there, it was rare for me to go on ICQ. As I said, I preferred IM--most of my friends use it, and if I had both chat agents open, it just got to confusing to me.

4. Do most of your close friends live nearby or far away?
Most of them live far away. One lives in Toronto; one in State College, two live about 45 minutes away, and one is in Germany, but lives in California. Finally, one is moving to South Carolina tomorrow. ::sob:: That's the disadvantage of making all your best friends in college (with the exception of the Canadian, whom I'm going to talk about in a bit).

5. Are you an "out of sight, out of mind" person, or do you believe that "distance makes the heart grow fonder"?
I'm the person who believes that "absence makes the heart grow fonder" person. I always find myself wondering about people who've faded out of my life at some point in my life...I wonder who they've become and what they're doing now. Are they married? Are they dating someone? Are they happy? What are they doing now? Do they remember me? And I've found myself wishing I could run into them sometimes, even to chat for a few minutes, so I can walk away, satsified. Or perhaps more yearning to start our relationships all over again. I discovered during the course of last year that I started really appreciating my friends and life here. I am not the one to burn all bridges to the past; sometimes it's always nice to go back and rediscover what made those friendships so good before something happened.

Whew. What a Friday Five. Ironic, too, because I came here with the intention of writing two things, and one was about my Canadian friend...

Last night, talking to her on IM, I realized that she is my best friend, or at least one of my very best friends. Somehow this surprised me. All of a sudden, that realization came to me and I went to bed smiling, then I lay there for a while, wondering if she thinks the same about me.

See, what happened is this: we've known each other since I was maybe 14 or 15 years old--one of those scruffy, sloppy teens, and she was a grad student at the program I am in now. Somehow, we met each other and we kept in touch very sporadically. We'd see each other at conventions, and over the course of last year, we started chatting and planning for this award that we're planning. And somewhere along the way, we started becoming even better friends than before. And I love it.

The other thing I wanted to write about was my brother's friend. Anyway, she's the girl that my brother may or may not have a crush on--he had one on her for sure a while ago. If he has one now, he's not saying a word.

Anyway, she had been dating this college boy that she met while working on a play. Anyway, she and the guy broke up just now, and yesterday, she accosted my brother and said, "I broke up with my boyfriend. You're coming to Homecoming with me."

So my brother, willingly or not, is going to Homecoming with her. I thought it was hilarious. And a part of me is jumping around in joy. I want them to be together. I want them to date each other at some point in time--they're good for each other. They're such good friends and they trust each other and so on.

The other part of me realizes that if they start dating, that's going to be pretty strange to me: not only would my baby brother be dating a girl, I don't even have a boyfriend, and I'm six years older than he is! I mean, it's not a life or death situation if I don't have one, but it's pretty pathetic, I should say.

But I want them to start dating each other...

And one more quiz:

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