Best Friends

You may get many friends in your live, but most people only count few of them amongst their "best friends". I seem to have a problem with keeping best friends. My best friends in school ... we started to go to different schools and simply lost sight of each other. Happens, I guess.



But later there came a point where I started having real misfortune with my best friends. When I think best friends - still today - I first think of Susann. Susann and I met at University and were separated when I went to a different University in another city. We still managed to stay in contact for a very long time, years really. But maybe it had already begun ... we started to be less connected, less informed about what was going on in the other ones life. And then it broke apart when she made a cruel remark to me in a very casual way at a time when I was too weak to handle it. I know she did not mean it badly. I gave up on her for the time being, when we re-started contact, maybe a year later, I had the best hope that we could go back to what we were. Stupid! You can't go back, of course. And we were so far apart from each other by that time already that we would have needed to start anew completely. But for some unknown reason that never happened. Should I have pushed more? I guess. But I was already feeling apprehensive of what she thought of the whole affair and guilty for having been the one to give up first. Maybe one day, I'll summon some courage and simply ask her. Some people think that it is never too late. On the other side we will both have changed tremendously in the last years (yes, that rip in our friendship is now already 7 or 8 years in the past) - we may have developed into such completely different directions that maybe we can't build it up again. I think that is the reason why I haven't pushed it ... I'm simply afraid to learn that it is already too late. To this day I count her amongst my best friends ... even though I don't even know her anymore.

The last years I had trouble finding any best friend material. When I finally connected with somebody it was a revelation. I met Ingrid maybe 5-6 years ago the first time at a barbecue party. Before that I had heard of her from friends, that she was living only a few houses away from me and had a boy roughly the same age as my twins. On that party we were sitting a bit apart from each other and I summoned all my courage (I felt so awkward being at a party where I knew hardly anyone apart from the hosts) and asked her if that was true. But at the exact same time someone else spoke to her and she never heard me. I felt slightly embarrassed. We did not meet again until one-and-a-half years later, when my son, one of the twins, changed into the same kindergarten group as her son and they became best friends (forming the famous mice-triumvirate with a third boy, they were a picture to behold in these days, three boys all of them with long or at least longer blond hair and up to no good). So when we met again I remembered that embarrassing first trial for contact I had started years ago and I held back. Despite holding back (or maybe because?) something grew between us and I can say that on my side it grew to almost a bit more than just friendship. I'm not sure if Ingrid would ever have called me her best friend, but in the last three years I know that she was mine. She died 5th of December 2009 at the age of 43, leaving behind a husband, two children and a woman who regretted to not have pushed that friendship more.

Firework of Quotable Sentences

There are books that are fountains of quotes. Jim Butcher writes like that. His Harry Dresden Series has so many good quotes, it makes you dizzy during reading. Every third sentence feels like it should be printed on a T-Shirt.
The book I'm reading right now is "Red Seas under Red Skies" by Scott Lynch. This is the second installment in an absolutely outstanding fantasy series. The first volume "The Lies of Locke Lamora" has stirred the fantasy world - it has by someone clever enough to see the obvious been called the "fantasy version of Oceans Eleven" and that comparison fits well. The author revels in mind games and built his plot layer over layer. To unveil every of these layers can leave the reador in an state of constant amazement. Also the characters are consistent. And then the quotability on top of that ... this is proof of more than just talent, that's more like genius.
Normally I gulp my books up in one go, but not this, you have to read it slowly, turn around every sentence three times in your mind, cause you wouldn't want to miss one of the layers. And savour it.
Let me give you some especially quoteworthy wisdom from Scott Lynch:

"Difficult and Impossible are cousins often mistaken for one another, with very little in common." (Locke Lamora in RSuRS, p. 93)
"As for history, we are living in its ruins. And as for biographies, we are living with the consequences of all the decissions ever made in them. I tend not to read them for pleasure. It's not unlike carefully scrutinizing the map when one has already reached the destination." (Locke Lamora in RSuRS, p. 101)

All new ?

Yes, I know ... it's been a while.
So much happened, that I couldn't keep up. The first reason why I couldn't keep blogging here for such a long time was that I stalled myself by wanting to do everything in order. In July I went to Japan with my husband and after that started making a bit blog entry recounting our journey ... it just got too big too handle and is still not finished to this day.
Many other things happened in between one being that my twins started school. That definitely cuts into my time schedule. They are home earlier than before plus the come home hungry while at kindergarden they got a warm meal for lunch. And then I have to do homework with them. My son gave up his flute lessons and changed to Judo classes. Then they became seven. We got snow. My friend died. My gran died. And then christmas. New Year.

Another reason why I didn't blog was that I thought I needed to think about how I would go about it as I have accidentially ended up with two blogging sites now. That needs explaining. Did I ever mention I started this club on myanimelist.net, the AGUY Anti Girly Uke Yaoi Club? Well, it's growing along nicely and now just before its first birthday is nearing a member count of 500 members. That's by far not the biggest yaoi club on MAL, but then we are only specializing on a certain corner of yaoi, dealing with a certain taste of yaoi ... that which promotes either the strong uke or a relationship of equal rights between seme and uke. Anyway that club has started to feature some especially recommended manga series in its spotlight doing reviews and graphics about that, starting manga discussions about it. That's not me doing all that of course, it is the other admins and helpers and of course the members ... I'm just one wheel inside that machine now, but I really like what this club has grown up to. And on its birthday soon now it will open its first affiliate on the web.
Anyway, this had become very much of a manga blog. But now I review what mangas I especially like either at the club or in my other blog (more about that later). I might mention here what goes on at the other side from time to time.
But I have dedided that the "Letters" will be more a private blog from now on. And I start with something an online friend inspired me with ... pictures taken in/from the back garden of our house a week ago. Great weather again, isn't it?