friends

As life sometimes does, my life sent me some strong messages this past week.

First, the overwhelmingly positive experience of the Chicago Pipe Show put me in contact with a large number of very good people, friendly, welcoming, and warm (not to mention mostly stinky, like myself). Because I was surrounded the whole time by people who evidently wanted to be my friend, I now view all people in that light. I've made two new friends (both neighbors, even) since I got home. Hopefully this frame of mind does not wear off any time soon.

Second, Tim died. Tim was younger than me, and an instructor/employee at my climbing gym. Years ago, he gave me and Spu our very first climbing lesson, where he earned the behind-his-back nickname "Faux Hawk", which was also our coining/discovery of this phrase, on account of his comb-up-from-the-sides-and-gel hairdo. Then more recently, he taught Spu, me and hops how to lead climb. He was a really great guy, always joking around and inviting us to go climbing with him outside. We never did, and now we never will.

The missed opportunities of friendship are a tragedy, when we recognize them. Tim's death made me realize, far too late, how much I actually liked the guy, and how the invitations were given for a deeper friendship, which I ignored. And of course, the loss of someone younger and more accomplished than me is just the thing to trigger reflection on my own inadequacies.

But these thoughts are tempered by the sense and joy of community that my Chicago visit brought. I am pursuing the opportunities for friendship presented there, and not only the internet-friends, but the ones who live nearby that I can meet in person.

Omar Khayyam, an old friend whom Chance saw fit to bring back into my life, said, in my very car, via Dr. MLK Jr.,:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

Tim is gone, and the best I can do now is to use his passing as a lesson to improve my life and the lives of my others. I can learn that it will someday be too late to tell my friends how much they mean to me, and that I may not even realize what a friend they are until it is too late to tell them.

So, dear reader, if you care to witness my maudlin and weepy gratitude to those who have put up with me these many years, do read on. I considered attempting a tearful "you're the greatest! Don't die soon!" moment with Spu yesterday, but our conversation turned quickly, inevitably, and inextricably to farts, where the opportune moment obviously did not arrive, and besides, the written word is my fortress where I may say what I will more clearly, freely, and in my estimation, nicely than person to person.

Some people make hundreds of "friends", and are content to have someone to talk or go have lunch with. I prefer to befriend people who have mastered some part of life, people who inspire me in some way, people who can teach me humility because they are in some way or another my better. I am lucky that life apparently is constantly tossing such people in my direction, waiting only for me to expend the effort to reach out to them. Or perhaps in bothering to get to know people, I can see the ways in which they are extraordinary.

First, Steak and Mayonnaise, my second mentor. S&M (whose shortened nickname I did not think of until just this moment, though I've been calling him Steak and Mayonnaise for years) talked to me faithfully and incessantly at a time in my life when I needed to listen. He was the polar opposite of my first mentor. While the two of them share an earnest spirituality that I admire (and have lost, to my detriment), S&M is a man of great physical accomplishment and ambition, an explorer and lover of life and living, a humble person with more brilliance than he lets on.

As far as I am concerned, though, Steak and Mayonnaise's greatest influence was his imparting to me the love of iron. S&M taught me to lift, and to love lifting, and few have had such a lasting impact on me. I recall his words of inspirational not-getting-it when I told him I'd begun to deadlift, that I'd discovered the exercise which to this day motivates me and gives me both fitness and joy: "great, that will really help your squat go up!"

My friend Ka D'Argo is a family man, with a history of great setbacks in his life. Any number of his setbacks have been greater than any I've ever had to face, but he pushes through them like President Truman bashing his way out of a crate in "Roswell that Ends Well". Moments of doubt and sadness afflict him, as they do us all, but throughout, the extraordinary definitiveness of his personality puts him back on course to optimism. His optimism, sacrifice, and resilience are truly an inspiration for me, as well his unrelenting loyalty to his own personality. He knows who he is, and he is that person, and this knowledge and strength of being creates worlds around him. Also, nobody can bust out an "I wish you were never born" quality pun like him.

I know on the order of four Bulgarians, but only one The Bulgarian. The Bulgarian lives in his own world, and shares time occasionally with ours. His world is filled with the joy of discovery and learning: languages, technical details of all stripes, bits of trivia that amuse him to no end and confuse the rest of us. He is an explorer of the greatest magnitude, and the world contains no end of things for him to delight in finding. Even then, the joy of exploration is still in its infancy, as he must scan the vast expanse of his vocabulary to find just the right turns of eloquence to convey what he has found. Majestically unpredictable at times, for the most part, he is a master of the art of contentment, finding peace of mind and enjoyment in ways that would make The Buddha jealous. Not all of us are given the opportunity to create our own worlds, and many of us who are so blessed create an unlivable place. The Bulgarian has made a good place for himself.

Artemis (hurf durf!), my first mentor, taught me the art and science of laziness, the greatest sign of an exceptional programmer, the Tao of which I am still endeavoring to learn. From laziness flow all things, in the best possible way: the way of other people doing those things for me. In some professional circles this is called management, but I see it for what it is, and it extends into all aspects of life. Laziness is the greatest force in the universe, and wielded properly can move mountains, provided there are others around to do the actual lifting and moving and such.

My first mentor put the seed of laziness in me, and it germinated, and now that it is sprouting, the rewards in my life are many. It took my second mentor to point me toward the master, but only much later did I realize that within me were at least two masters, balancing the artful and focused laziness of Artemis with the ass-kicking, all-out-effort of Steak & Mayonnaise.

A person defined by only one characteristic is a dull person indeed, and there's much more to Artemis than laziness, though none of his other traits are so amusing to write about. Greater than the laziness (which I have exaggerated for my own shits and giggles) is his generosity, which I hope has rubbed off on me as much as his laziness. His example has taught me Connectedness To Place, which runs deep in my own life, to the consternation of some of my friends. Through exercising my sense of Home these last few years, I have grown to know and befriend many in my community, and I can see when visiting Artemis that he does the same. It is a rare, old-world trait that I find absent in most people, but absolutely vital in life.

Of course, one could say Connectedness to Place is just another way of saying Too Lazy To Travel, but one would get smacked upside the head for saying such a thing, surely.

Iron Maiden (oh, another good one! So impenetrable she might not even recognize I mean her. I'd better make with the really good description...) interacts with the world much differently than I do. She pours herself into her work, infusing her endeavors with so much of herself, managing every detail with such vision and imagination that she thrives impossibly in a world that cruelly destroys most who try what she effortlessly does. She brings to life a Space which is her own, and stunningly genuine in a time of blatant fakery. People come together around her, she has made a place for new friendships and enjoyment of life. Only briefly and occasionally can I muster the force of creativity that she wields every hour of every day.

The Captain has an awesome and apparently lifelong laser-like devotion to his three interests, and nothing else. His focused devotion has led to an impressive level of mastery of the two endeavors that could entertain mastery, and his oft-ebullient pursuit of the third makes him enjoyable to be around. In my own life, I have too many interests and pursuits to ever sustain the focus that he shines on his hobbies, but his tri-mindedness serves as an inspiration for me to push myself forward on all fronts

hops puts up with me, and grows things for me to eat where gardens seem unlikely. her enduring optimism cuts through my pessimism (most of the time) and she continually leads my life toward a better place. I'd hope that like my brother and my folks, she doesn't need a blog post to know how important she is to me, but omitting her would be rude.

My brother is the best person I know. I'm afraid that's all he gets here, and, brief as it is, is more than my folks will get, since they really don't need additional buttering-up, beyond pointing out that my capacity for enjoying my friends comes from them, in every conceivable way.

Spu, of course, is a douche. The world's biggest sack, His Majesty reigns with an Iron Grogan over the Kingdom of Tards.

So there you have it, a catalogue of the best people I've known and how I see them. sux2bu if you weren't listed. if you were listed, don't let it go to your head.