Nikki, Julian, Chuck

I'm still trying to process the experiences of this afternoon, but I'll note them here for safekeeping.

This is my friend Nikki:



Forgive the photo. Nikki's eight-year-old son Julian took that photo with my crappy cell phone camera just after he took this self-portrait:



(There are other, better photos of them, but I didn't ask their permission to post their photos on my blog, so I'm posting these blurred bits.)

We met here, a place where one should (if one is a thirty-something childless spinster like me) abandon all hope before entering:



We shared a medium cheese pizza. (Kelly First, upon hearing that Dave and I were going to meet Nikki and her son at Chuck E. Cheese, said something like, "You may as well eat a bucket of lard!" I note that for a couple of reasons. One is that Kelly First is rarely openly cynical about things. The other is that, sadly, the pizza was a lot like eating a bucket of lard smeared on those biscuits that come out of a can.)

What am I wanting to say about this experience (not the pizza eating part of it, but the meeting my friend from high school part of it, I mean)? Who knows?

Here is some random stuff about...stuff...

We graduated from high school 20+ years ago. Nikki went off to college, and I got a job in a restaurant. We made a half-assed attempt to stay in touch for a few years after and then just let go. No biggie. A couple of months ago, she sent me a note through a social networking site and I answered. We traded e-mails and arranged to meet when she came into town to see her parents for Christmas.

Nikki looks like an aged version of her high school self, which kind of freaks me out a little bit.

In the two and a half hours that we spent together, she asked exactly three questions about me, and she interrupted me about fifteen words into two of the questions. I associate that kind of behavior with a kind of desperation about one's own life. (Oh, I do a version of it, too. No one's judging that here. Or not much anyway.) Something in her, too, resists the kind of restlessness that I embrace.

Has Nikki always been this way? Well, yes, kind of. I actually had a falling out with her in high school because I just couldn't take it. As we got closer to graduation and we had a bit more freedom (didn't have to see each other every day, I mean), things relaxed a bit. I don't know that I'd be friends with her if I met her today. But I'm just like that.

I'm grateful too, though. I am.

Toons?

Before going off to meet Nikki and child, I spent a chunk of time today on iTunes, spending a gift card from Dave's sister. I bought one of the A Perfect Circle albums that I don't have and a bunch of random songs (some Fela Kuti, Robert Palmer, The Police, The Proclaimers, The Offspring, and some Manfred Mann). I actually had a good time cruising iTunes for music as I've been desperate for some new workout tunes.

Gym?

Yes, I'm going to the gym tonight. In about fifteen minutes.