Social Time

I've been having it.  Social time, that is.

Pity the poor fools who are having it with me, because I know I'm pretty lousy company, but I appreciate it all the same.

Lent started last Wednesday and since then I have spent time with three friends.  See how social I am?  How popular?  I'm practically in the running for prom queen.

I almost broke Lent and canceled my plans on Saturday but then my friend Jamie announced she was coming over with sandwiches and I said okay.  We ate, we talked, I cried.  It was not the kind of fun, chatty, wine-drinking evenings we used to have, but I'm glad she's still there for me.  And maybe the fun, chatty side of me will be back someday.  Doubt it.  But maybe.

Sunday I went to church downtown.  I wondered if I should have given the money I dropped in the offering plate to the homeless dude sleeping outside but then I remembered this church feeds the homeless every Saturday so maybe it went to him indirectly.  The sermon was good, the church was beautiful, and it was nice to meet up with the friend who went with me.  We went out for crepes afterward and although I felt a little teary over brunch, I held it together and was glad that I went out.

Today another friend came over and brought Chinese food and we watched a kind of awful but also totally enjoyable film called Catch and Release with Jennifer Gardner and Timothy Olyphant (and also Kevin Smith was in it but it was nothing like Clerks) and it was kind of about grief because it opens with the death of Jennifer's fiance only she deals with his death in all kinds of inappropriate ways (SPOILER ALERT) like hiding in the bathtub during the wake, and trying to get a trust fund of sorts set up for the child her fiance may or may not have fathered while cheating on her with Juliette Lewis, and also sleeping with his best friend.  All the while she is roommates with her fiance's other best friends, one of whom is in love with her and the other of whom is Kevin Smith, who sort of attempts suicide before befriending the kid that Jennifer's dead fiance may or may not have fathered and then moving in Juliette Lewis and the kid. Oh, and also everybody goes fly fishing because it's set in Boulder.

That was kind of the best part because the movie showed places I actually used to go when spent a summer living there--a bar called The Sink where I had a heart to heart with a boy named Pete about his feelings for my friend Jamie and also Pearl Street, where I went on a double date with a boy named Pat (Pete's roommate) and Pete and Jamie and afterward Jamie and I realized we were in a love square because I actually liked Pete and she actually liked Pat and we never got those issues resolved so we each just continued to make out with the wrong guy for the rest of the summer because that seemed like a better idea than, you know, breaking up with them.  What can I say?  We made some poor choices that summer. It was a loooooong time ago.

Anyway, the movie was not exactly an award winner but it was pleasantly distracting.

I was telling someone the other day that the sadness is pretty much the same but I am getting better at functioning in spite of it.  Or functioning within it.  Whatever.  Granted, it's not exactly a fun way to go about life, but we're still muddling through here.

At the very least, I can say that today is better than yesterday.  There's no guarantee that I'll be able to say the same about tomorrow, but you know how it goes.  Taking it day by day.  Breath by breath.  Missing my baby girl.  Glad my friends are still willing to hang out with me.  And thankful for movies so bad they're good.