Friendship.

 

Friend, n: A person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection

Levels of friendship:

1. A friend will help you. 
2. A good friend will help you move.
3. A very good friend will help you move and dispose of a body.

Hopefully, none of my readers will have friends at the third level, unless they work in a hospital or mortuary.

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Over the years, I can easily say that I've had a handful of friends in the second category.  And I'm pretty sure that at least one of them might have upgraded themselves to the third category if the need arose. (This potentially gives a whole new meaning to having a "Skeleton in the closet." 😁 )  But as we get older, it gets harder to find a level 1 friend, much less a level 2 friend.  I think this truth is behind the growth of meetup.com - most of us crave human connections, and we will do almost anything to get them.

Sometimes, people will battle over friendships.  Other times, people collect friendships the way others collect stamps.  I've seen people do unethical things when friendships go sour.  But I won't dwell on that now.  Instead, I'll focus on the power of friendships.

One thing I learned by being widowed, was that the one person I could lean on to cope with a situation was no longer there to help me in my time of need.  Good friendships can end with that same problem. Some people are lucky enough to have more than one good friend to lean on in times like these.  And yet, when I look at MWL, she still is affected by the loss of some of her friends in her age group.  (No, I'm not going into any details about her here.  I'm just making a quick comment on how the loss of friends can affect a person.) 

For many of us, we lean on our friends as much as we lean on our families.  They help us out in times of need.  They listen to us when we need to process our feelings.  And they provide targets for us to show our compassion for others.  In the case of many of us transgender folk, we often bond with other transgender folk, as we are the only people who understand what we are going through.  I consider myself lucky to have been able to keep most of my friendships so far, as well as keeping on good terms with my relatives.  This may have been the biggest miracle of all....

It felt much warmer than it was today

 

No, this was not the outfit I wore today.  It was a Mario day - and I couldn't visit either of my friends wearing an outfit like this.  Not only would it be inappropriate to meet a new friend this way, but the skirt doesn't go well with the top.

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The first thing on my docket was a date with a woman with whom I wanted to get together for a while.  Things seemed to go very well, and we will find out where it goes when I call her next.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.  Maybe, this time I'll get lucky in love.  Right now, I don't want to count any chickens before they hatch.  But we had a longer conversation than either of us had planned for a first date.  We'll see what happens when I tell her about Marian.

Afterwards, I went to see MWL.  By the time I got there, it felt too hot to do much of anything outside.   So we ordered a pizza, and brought it back to her place before going to see "Free Guy".  This movie is a well crafted piece of fluff.  It is a story of an AI becoming self-aware, where it is no threat to humanity.  Instead, humanity is a threat to the AI.  Without spoiling things, I will say that like most "fluff", this film has an appropriate happy ending.

When the film was over, we went back to MWL's place to chat for a while.  The dog she babysat took a liking to me - and it felt comfortable with me from the minute it came into the room.  Too bad it won't be there the next time I see MWL - I like the pooch.

It's amazing how little information I retain these days.

The title of today's entry is misleading, as it leaves out the context of how one memorizes things.  In my case, I have driven to a particular town in Jersey many times, and I could get there very easily from TCL's house.  However, since MWL takes a different way to the same town via back roads, I can't seem to remember the route because I'm not driving the route.

In the past, I didn't need to develop a form of mental muscle memory for routes from one town to another.  Now, I have to drive them a couple of times to pick up on the details my subconscious needs to know to do the route by myself.  This makes me worry a little about whether my memory is starting to betray me.  But I'm remembering enough things to make me realize that things are normal for a person my age, and that it'll take much more for me to be at risk for major or rapid cognitive decline.

There's a part of me that wishes I could selectively forget things.  Yet, in many ways, I'm glad I can't forget some things.  Forgetting things makes it possible to make the same mistakes again.  And I don't want that.  When I started going out as Marian, I needed encouragement and help to continue doing so.  For this, I will take a former friend for being there when I needed her.  Although there was one person who said I should be proud of what I accomplished, I feel sad that this person couldn't accept me for the person I became.  These are the types of memories I'd like to forget.

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Yet, I ask myself: "What would happen if I go further down this path?"  Would I want to forget more of my past, and manufacture a new one for public consumption?  That I will never know. All I can say that I wish I had a roadmap for the future.  And this doesn't exist yet.

 

It's hard to keep up with my friends and family, but....

 

Ever since I've been "post retirement" working, I'm finding it impossible to get together with many of the people I'd like to be with.  Last year, it was the pandemic.  This year, it's been work exhaustion.  What will it be next year?

What I find strange is that the older I get, the harder it is to meet with people.  Some of the people I know are dying off.  Some are moving away to retirement residences (in low tax states).  Then, some are taking care of others, and not able to get out to do things for themselves.  In short, everyone has a life, and we're all trying to make as productive use of our time as possible.

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Recently, I got together with FH after several weeks of looking for a time we could get together.  We had a nice day talking about life and catching up on things.  Of course, I wasn't going to screw up a day with MWL to spend a Saturday with her.  Vicki #2 is impossible to meet up with these days, as she has important family problems of her own that she's dealing with.  And I haven't seen my brother in what seems like ages.  We all have responsibilities that we have to manage, and I respect my family, friends, and acquaintances for doing just this.

The other day, I found out that a cruise I was thinking of taking was sold out. As a result, I realize that I now have an opportunity to see some people I haven't seen in years.  The first is a transwoman I know who has cancer.  I know her through a woman who once was a close friend.  If I see this transwoman, it will have to be soon, as I know what cancer can do to a person.  In better times, I'd offer a seat to this former friend on my trip. It's doubtful that the two of us could be civil long enough to visit my acquaintance - so I will not even suggest it. (Neither of us were pleased by our last communication, and I don't want a repeat of this incident.)  Since it doesn't make sense to gamble on being in this city just for the sake of visiting this acquaintance, I'll make sure that I'll visit the usual tourist spots and get together with someone I met on one of my cruises.  The second person I'd meet is a train buff who reads this blog.  It'd be nice to catch up with her in Baltimore when I finally get to visit the B&O Railroad museum.  If I was lucky on this part of the trip, I'd also get to meet a transwoman (and her wife) who I haven't seen since my only trip to Fantasia Fair.

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Several people I know have moved to Florida over the years.  I am not in a rush to go there.  But when I do, I will try to visit them.  Yet, assuming I do, I will need to make sure that my trans identity doesn't get in the way of doing things.  It'd be nice to see YGM again....

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Years ago, my wife and I went to the wedding of the daughter of my late uncle once removed.  (That is, my grandmother's brother's daughter, my cousin once removed.)  I don't remember much about that day, save that we didn't get to the church on time.  Since then, her dad, then her mom passed away.  My brother and I talked about going to visit her, but never did.  Hopefully, I will get the chance to see her soon.

 

 

 

It was nice to see a friend today.

 

Today, I met a friend for lunch.  Although we met via OK Cupid, we knew from the beginning that we'd be friends, and not much more.  And this is a good thing.  She would be a little bit out of my league if we had tried to start a relationship.  As friends, we can overlook things that we could not overlook in a romantic partner.

My friend and I have been trying to get together for a while.  Her health and her business has gotten in the way, and I hadn't had the opportunity to get together with her since the beginning of summer.  So we decided to meet somewhere in the middle (we live 90 minutes from each other), in Beacon.  

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No, we didn't go to the restaurant above  If we did, we probably would have gotten very sick. In fact, we may have needed the following maneuver performed on us if we choked on our food:

Instead, we went to a place called Meyer's Olde Dutch for an early lunch.  It WAS FILLING!  My friend, who barely weighs 100 lbs. soaking wet, was filled on her salad.  While I was filled on an oversized, overloaded bacon cheeseburger.  Yum!  I'd go back there again. Over lunch, we talked of many things, such as one Catskills area property not selling.  My friend had sold her place for just under $1 million, and within 18 months, it has recently been flipped for $1.700,000.  Right now, a place either has to have character, enough vacant land to build a place with character, or be cheap enough for someone to tear it down to build a place with character.  The unsold place fits neither of these conditions,  So it remains unsold - for now. For the most part, we talked about her business and her upcoming vacation with her boyfriend.

Next on our list of things to do was picking up some gluten free goodies for her boyfriend and his daughter.  For this, we made the mistake of walking a little over a mile to a store on the other side of Beacon.  And neither of us thought the heat would be getting to us.  To make things worse, I was wearing the wrong shoes for this walk, and my right foot loudly announced that this was a big mistake.  We sat down for a few minutes, then returned to our cars.  Hopefully, she will be able to make her overseas trip soon, as I just learned that her destination country has enacted new quarantine requirements for United States residents.

Once done with my friend, I drove to Poughkeepsie to pick up some stuff at Target.  I've been intrigued by the above dress for a while, and to drop $20 to see how it looks on me.  It looks comfortable, and it is something I can wear on hot summer days.  After I was done with Target, I stopped into Walmart to pick up some food on the way home.  It was strange to see an empty space where the in-store McDonald's used to be. But I guess Mickey D wasn't making enough money in their Walmart outlets, and prefers to make its money off of franchisees by renting out the land their franchised restaurants sit on.

Eventually, I made it home and decided to take a nap.  Even after 2 hours of rest, I didn't feel rested.  I could have easily gone back to sleep.  But I decided to stay awake and call up MWL to chat for a little while.  While on the call, one of my OK Cupid ladies decided to call me (very late), and I wasn't going to break off my call with MWL to speak with someone for the first time.  I was glad when MWL decided to end the call, as both of us were tired after our long days.  Hopefully, I'll have more energy for tomorrow's Brunch Meetup in Peekskill.