backbeat the word was on the street. the thing about having friends for many years is that you can see them change, and they can see you change, and you can cut out all the in-between BS. when you've seen a person go from elementary school to high school through to post-college, there isn't really anything they can do to hide how they are, how their natures are, how they used to be.



at this point in friendship it's all about acceptance and understanding. one of the great things about everyone (meaning friends from here) splitting up to go to various schools across the country is that now everyone is back, in some permanent form or other. and now we are able to piece together and talk about what happened in those missing four-five years and how we've changed and grown and evolved. all without losing that sense of communal family and friendship.



i never kept in regular contact with my sd people while in college or new york because i knew that anytime i came back to san diego, the feeling of ultra comfort would be the same. we slide right back into our patterns and our grooves and our ways of getting along. but along with that comfort is added a few new things, a few new perspectives, a few new "wow, i didn't know you were like that" type of deals. instead of verbally and physically getting to know someone, as you would at college, friends that you've known forever (like ten plus years, the so dubbed "ten-fers") are a part of you. you may not know exactly what they think all the time, what their opinions are, but you have a sense of having been around them, of having grown up with them. the pretenses are dropped and truth and humor and cutting edge sarcasm can come flinging out.



it's also a time to gain a renewed appreciation for someone, not because you didn't appreciate them before but because the old perception of them is no longer relevant, or they've grown out of the way they were, or your initial impressions were way off anyway. it's a good and bad thing to have friends from way back. on one hand they know you, but on the other hand, they know you. so you can't get away with wack ass shit. which i guess is also a good thing. so really, having lifer friends is never bad.



anyway, no idea where i'm going with this but thanks to george for hosting us this weekend and to vu for letting us crash at his place despite his not being there. all the weekend stuff, the eating, the driving, the wedding, the zooming in on virtual breasts, it was fun stuff. and that's an understatement. [pictures]