just to see you smile: 11.29.04

It may have been the slight, lingering effects of the marijuana I smoked yesterday, but pulling up outside my place last night, going inside, petting the puss, generally getting settled, and then falling onto the futon in a haze of boredom and lonesomeness was too much. Too maudlin for me even. The problem was that this experience followed 48 hours in B-more, where I was constantly surrounded by good, good, good friends. Many of my oldest, best, completely no-check-on-myself-when-I�m-around-them friends. And yeah, things have changed over the years.

I had a bit of a Big Chill big chill when J. and I took off for a spin around the block to chill away from her twin 2.5 year-olds. We checked out her new baby-mobile car and laughed about the GPS navigation system that should�ve talked ghetto (�oh no, you DIDN�T just make that left, girl�.you lost now!�) and just shot the shit and smoked a bit. And then we went back in the house which was warm with cooking smells and her kids� constant action and friends hanging around�.and the rest of the afternoon was comfortable and undeniably pleasant. The night before had been drinks with old and older friends, running into people about whom the internal soundtrack was just replaying, �I wonder what happened to�� and then pancakes and open back door Baltimore morning light (why is it always so pale and watery there?) in a kitchen where I had been standing and crying 5 years ago on a humid night close to my birthday. Oh man. It�s weird when so many things happen to you in one particular place that you get to revisit, isn�t it?

But then back at home last night, there was just an empty apartment and phone calls from people I didn�t really feel like seeing, and the one glaring absence of the person I did want to see. And the rest of this month is so much travel and trying to align schedules and worries about lengths of stay and missed phone calls. Man. I just can�t wait until next year. Then I�ll get to see what this all might be.