friends, etc.

Nothing better than good conversation. When I came home after a particularly rough night for me emotionally (more on this later), I turned on IM expecting to find noone but ran into a number of friends, old and new.

First to respond was my friend Blair. He was checking his email before bed, and we were able to talk about the usual stuff for a few minutes before he went to sleep. Blair’s a great guy: a real Boy Scout, literally. He made it to Eagle Scout and is a Scoutmaster in South Carolina. We’ve been good friends for nearly a decade.

Next was my new friend J.T. We’re both mall guys and J.T’s also into country roads big time. Our conversation was long and took a number of different tangents. He’s the guy behind the Rich’s tribute site, and his other road websites are great too.

My new friend Shariq and I had a great conversation as well. He’s a friend from the Men’s Health forum, and we’re both into clothes, architecture and girls. It was fun chatting with him on those subjects and more.

I should also mention another Men’s Health forum friend: Kris. Kris and I have been communicating back and forth for a short while. We talk about some of the same things Shariq and I talk about, you know, clothes, architecture and girls, but there’s a little bit of religion thrown in because he works for a Lutheran church and I grew up around a several religious people, particularly my grandma, who was the pastor of three churches she founded. Kris is a great guy with a good head on his shoulders and I feel like we understand each other pretty well even though we’re just now becoming friends.

Ladies: Blair, J.T., Shariq, and Kris are all stable, eligible bachelors, as well as your friendly neighborhood blogger. Hint! Hint!

Finally, I should mention my cousin Cindy and my friend Ken, neither of which are available, but nice people all the same.

Cindy called this afternoon, and we talked for a long time. She lives in New Jersey and is a very beautiful woman who works in a medical office. She has a great husband and some of the cutest kids you want to see. We only get to see each other when someone dies or we have a family reunion, but we keep up a good rapport over email. I don’t have a lot of friends who are family, but she’s definitely one of them.

Ken is a guy I need to get in contact with, but I’ve been so preoccupied I haven’t had a chance. I think I’ve mentioned him here before. We used to work together at LMW and he was the guy who convinced me to buy my electric bass, though since he’s been away, I haven’t done much with it. He described himself onetime as humorous, helpful and odd, and I think that’s an accurate description. We’re kindred souls: after hanging out with him for a week or two, I totally ‘got’ him and him me. We’ve been close for at least a couple of years, and sometimes I wish I lived closer so that we could hang out more.

You know, that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my friends: there’s Tim, Todd, the other Todd, Eddy, Angie, Faye, Sonya, Judy, Wayne…I better stop. I’m going to forget someone ;)