Thursday 17 July 2003

Pic of the day: Screenshot from The Sims. I am sure it needs no further explanation.

"Just friends"

I was waiting for her. She had called me yesterday, unexpectedly. Well, she had said long ago that we might meet this summer, but I no longer really believed it. Now I was standing at the place we had agreed on, waiting for her.

I was wearing new trousers and a new shirt, both of high quality, and not cheap by any reasonable stretch of the word, even though I got them both way below normal price. It's been a long long time since I used to buy clothes, now. I have plenty of clothes. I don't need more. But, well, the trousers were a bit worn, yeah. And I am really short on summer clothes for such hot days as these. It won't become a habit. Not ever again. I had talked with the nice lady at the quality clothes shop just a few days before, outside the shop, and told her that I really had plenty of clothes. I considered adding "I guess it's kinda official by now that I don't have anyone to make myself pretty for". But I did not say it – it's not really a businesslike thing to say. I guess in retrospect that was just as well.

A faint calling of my name filtered through my thoughts. I turned, and saw her stand a bit away. She had parked the car a few blocks away, due to the work in the streets. There seems almost always to be some reworking of the streets in this city, or at least a change of one-way driving direction. Like we're rats in a maze, constantly being tested. Anyway, she had tried to call to me for a while, so she said. I hurried toward her, and she turned and started back.

It has been so long ... or is that just in my imagination? It certainly seemed a long, long time ago. But she was still the same. The feminine curve of her hips in the informal but well-fitting skirt. The flowing honey-colored hair falling over simple, colorful textiles that she had bought since last time I saw her. The fluid grace of her movements as she picked her way over the broken ground. With another, I might have been content to just trail along. But she is not another. I used my longer legs to catch up with her, and glanced at her from the side. Her skin may never again look like a baby's, but apart from that it is a beautiful face, symmetric and well proportioned. And above all, this is the face that has shown up in my dreams again and again, for years and years.

I am a fairly healthy male, and I guess few humans would have held it against me if my eyes had left her face then to visit other parts of her front, now that I wasn't caught in the headlight of her bright blue eyes. But it really wasn't necessary to look elsewhere to prove her femininity. The finely chiseled nose, the lips of course, the thin eyebrows, even her cheeks reveal her intrinsic womanliness. I doubt she knows, perhaps she will never know, how overwhelmingly feminine she can be despite all her working out and being "one of the guys".

We slid into her borrowed car and the doors clicked shut. We were alone together.

***

Doesn't that sound just like the beginning of a romantic short story? But in truth, it is not fiction. Also, it is not romantic. The beautiful young woman is (or at least used to be) my best friend. There is nothing mysterious about her showing up in my dream, as I have known her since she was little. (I vaguely remember carrying her, but I never saw her in diapers, thank the Light.) Also, she's probably the most intelligent child I have watched grow up. Now she is no longer a child by any stretch of the imagination, but now I am growing old. So, sadly for you dear readers, there is no blossoming romance to peep in on. Instead, we drove to her sister's place.

That said, I had a wonderful evening with her and various family members of hers. Her father, an old friend of mine, asked for the address of my web site again, as he had lost it. So I thought perhaps I should make him cough up a hairball if he logs on and finds this entry! Ha! I owe him that much; it is his fault that I'm bordering on overweight ... he fed me free dinners for a year! Now he can regret!

Actually her father is, or at least tries to be, a nice guy. He and his wife completely and utterly act as if they're my in-laws, despite the minor problem that none of his daughters want me. (OK, I haven't asked them all, but it is kinda obvious.) I don't mind at all, they're nice people, very civilized and among the more sane families out there. He even convinced the family to have lasagna for dinner (my favorite food, pretty much) instead of turkey (which I find disgusting and only eat to be polite). Although my best friend claimed afterwards that she would have remembered that I liked lasagna, if it had been a question in a competition with large money rewards. ^_^

We talked a lot and around midnight I took a taxi home. She came out and gave me a hug as I was about to go into the cab. That's fine by me: I would rather have a hug from her than a kiss from most other girls. Although our lives grow steadily wider apart, I will treasure all my memories of the best friend I ever had in this world.