Monday, July 28, 2008

Random Musings

Yeah, yeah, I know I owe my loyal readers, I think I'm up to 8 or 9 of you now, a bunch of reviews on a bunch of stuff. You don't even know what I owe you, because I've been keeping a mental list, but I feel like because it's in my mind it's a done deal...I owe you. I owe you reviews on the movies Kung Fu Panda, Get Smart (although I fell asleep thru some of the best parts -- but don't hold that against the movie), and most recently, the Dark Knight. I also plan on a bunch of food reviews: a second review of J.J.'s French Pastry and breakfast and Diamond Head Market and Grill.

But for now I just feel like babbling. Maybe if I babble a bit, I'll get all of the excess energy out of my system and be able to focus on finishing the reviews I owe you. So what is it I want to babble about? Well, all kinds of things really, which is probably why my mind is so cluttered.

A while back, I mentioned that my reunion is coming up. This weekend, in fact. Part of the fun of a reunion is not just the reunion itself, but all the things that come along with it like planning, and the "are you going?" stuff, as well as catching up with people you haven't seen or talked to in a while. The funny thing is, there are some people who you can not talk to for 5 or 10 years, yet you can pick up as if you just spoke with them yesterday. And I find this applies to all kinds of friends, from the super close ones you were friends with for years, to the ones you may have had a sort of short-term friendship with. Applying a timeline or term-limit to a friendship is really a misnomer. Although I have had one or two friendships that have been terminated for one reason or another, I really consider the majority of my friendships to have a life term.

Why am I getting all "deep" about this stuff? I guess every so often I really think about how important friendship is to me, and my reunion has led me to "renew" some of my friendships, long-distance and short-distance. So today, one of my long-distance friends who is visiting from the mainland and one of my short-distance friends and I spent the day driving around the island, which reminded me of what we used to do 15 or so years ago. While we were driving around, we pieced together what's going on with who, and reminisced about what teachers said when we were in 7th grade, the teachers we had in high school, and how we used to get into trouble in trigonometry class.

I only communicate with my long-distance friend maybe once a year. This visit was unusual since I recently saw her in November. And my short-distance friend, until earlier this month, I probably haven't seen or communicated with for maybe 3 or 5 years. Does that really matter? Really? No, not at all. Life goes in cycles. We all have lives. I don't hold it against anyone, and I hope they don't hold it against me. Friendships should be based on quality, and not the quantity of time spent. People have different philosophies on this...some people feel it's good to know lots of people and to constantly be surrounded by them. I probably know more people than I think I do, but I don't care about that. It's my oldest friends that I consider my closest, regardless of the cumulative amount of time I've spent with or communicated with them. Even though I've developed some pretty close friendship in my adult life, even the closest of those friendships do not hold the same bond that my older friendships from intermediate and high school days do.

Anyway, I'm getting too deep. So deep that I'm starting to confuse myself and my brain is starting to hurt. So let's talk about something to relieve the pressure on my brain, and yours too, if you're still reading.

So my short-distance friend has introduced me to his own blog, which has links to his friend's blogs. My blog is linked on his site now (thanks!). Sometime soon I'm going to revise this blog and will add links to other blogs as well. Anyway, so his friends have some really cool blogs! And likewise, his friends blogs have links to their friends blogs, which are also cool! One of the fun ones I spent a bunch of time on last night was about bentos. This girl has an obsession with creating festive and colorful bento. Some of you have probably seen e-mails going around with cutesie pictures of bento, and I suspect a lot of those pictures came from her site. Some of the other sites have stuff about food, weight loss, pregnancy, photography, and travel. All cool stuff! What I think is really cool is that I find myself enjoying reading about these people I don't even know. Their blogs are exemplary of them and their interests, and they are very skilled in conveying their thoughts, emotions, and opinions through their blogs in an entertaining and compelling way. I can only hope that someday my blog will emulate what so many other blogs have to offer.

In addition to my class reunion, this weekend I'm also getting together with some girls I worked with a LOOONNNGGG time ago at Bank of America. To give you an idea how long ago this was, I left that job in January 1998 -- yep, 10 years ago. I've been really lucky that with all of my jobs, I've made some good, lasting friendships. The "bank girls" get together a couple times a year. Usually we have a holiday get together, and maybe one or two other outings. Out of this group, only one is still at the bank (now American Savings) -- this Sunday makes her 20th year anniversary with the bank! Amazing! And congratulations!

Ok, I think I have gotten the excess energy (and thoughts) out of my system for now. My short-distance friend refers to this as "brain dump," which is quite literally what it is. Thanks for hanging in there with me. And remember, I owe you...

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