I'm just waiting on a friend

As J would say, I'm done with all this noiz. By noiz, I mean, in this particular instance, whining. So, I'm not whining at this moment, but more, pondering a current dilemma of mine. Compare and contrast, peeps:

Friday night, I am walking to a Chinese restaurant in Stroller Valley with my iPod mini keeping me company. All is right with the world. I almost trip out of my slides at one point as I cross the streets, because my head is nodding to Ibrahim Ferrer. The guy across the street looks at me, and I just laugh at myself. It's best to just laugh when you have tripped. Believe me, no one is buying the look-down, hey, what just jumped up from the sidewalk and caused me to stumble? glance. I've tried it, it doesn't work. But anyway, I am content. It is a beautiful evening, and I am having dinner with friends I have not seen in nearly a month.

It's one of those San Francisco evenings. It's not foggy, but there's mist in the air, like a cool humidifier, sprinkling barely visible drops of water. My kind of evening. I get to the restaurant, and I am a little stuffed up. It happens some times when the weather is like this. My eyes are watering ever so slightly as I meet my friends at the table.

MG turns to me, and says, "Have you been crying?" She says this and she is unable to hide her excitement, near enjoyment at this prospect. She has never seen me cry. She does not know what could break me. I did not think it was something your friends yearn for, but apparently, she has been yearning for a breakdown.

Here's the thing- by the end of the dinner, I had the right response for the question. If I had known how fun dinner was going to be, I would have answered, "No, but I will be after two hours with you guys." Seriously. When did it become fun to spend a Friday night with a side of Woe Is Me on the menu? Especially when the only source of woe is your single status. One of these days, the dam is going to burst, and I am going to go all Shatner-on-SNL on these people and yell out, "Get a life!"

Contrast this to Sunday morning. I am usually awake on a Sunday morning at 8 a.m, but mobile? Yeah, not so much. But sure enough, it's closing on 8:30, and there is J, joining me on a little tour of San Francisco. Also known as a drive to Vinod's apartment, to pick up a surprise guest. A surprise guest who was none too pleased about being awake at this hour, but a surprise guest nonetheless. Fifteen minutes later, we are sitting with maisnon and Vinod, having breakfast in same said Stroller Valley.

I might shed a few tears at this breakfast. There is a lot of laughter, and my lacrimal glands some times go haywire when I'm laughing so hard that my sides hurt. It is ferociously early in the morning, reminding me of how my friends and I would drag ourselves to the dining hall after a late Saturday night, and talk over pancakes and omelets for three hours. And just like college, after brunch, I must dutifully trudge back home to study.

Something, beyond the pancakes and eggs, is satiating about it. It is the lack of drama, the lack of a gloomy cloud, even on an overcast morning, darkening my dish. Everything is light and airy and easy. On some level, I know that a sincere, deep friendship requires more density than that. But on another level, I think maybe I don't want a deep friendship just now, in that case.

Completely unrelated-- after leaving J et al, I got in my car and turned the radio on. I was then compelled to call the bro-seph immediately, and blare Don't Cha in his ear through my cell phone for three minutes. The last time we were out at a club together, he was praying for this song to get on rotation. Not that this negates the weirdness of our behavior towards each other. The day before, I had nearly driven him off the deep end by suggesting that, rather than getting a professional car wash, I could just wait for the rain to inevitably take care of the job. His head almost spontaneously combusted.