Saturday afternoon

The Kraken is upstairs having quiet time, which apparently consists of hurling furniture at the walls every few minutes. It's unclear what else she could be doing up there to make that level of racket. However, since she is not screaming she is probably not injuring herself. And since the noises continue, she is probably not dead or unconscious. So, I choose to ignore it in favor of catching up on everybody's blogs.

It's been a long time since I have had this level of focus with this blog, if I ever have. Posting every few days, checking for new posts on the blogs I read on a regular basis. I'm not sure why the sudden shift. It certainly isn't an abundance of spare time. Work is as busy as it has ever been for me right now - unusual, because we usually slow down this time of year. No dearth of home improvement projects either - currently in the process of refinishing the foyer hardwoods, attaching hardware to all the cabinets in all the bathrooms, and repainting the cabinets in the kitchen (pictures to come soon). Nevertheless, I seem to be making this a priority.

Some of it, I think, is that I'm in a holding pattern with the issue of pregnancy. I am currently taking some medications given to me by the reproductive endocrinologist, and waiting for my period to start after the D&C so they can begin all the fabulously invasive tests. So, there is no snake-eating-its-tail cycle of spitting on strips of paper, followed by insanely frequent fornication, followed by the obsessive peeing upon of sticks. Without my head so full of "why can't I, am I, will I get to keep it this time", I am actually able to focus on other things. Imagine that.

Another factor is the recent re-emergence into my universe of a couple of old friends from college. A pleasure in and of itself, but it has also wrought in me a truly lovely sense of nostalgia. Not for youth, per se. There are whole chunks of that I wouldn't relive even if you paid me. But for the sheer pleasure of those days.

I fear I waxed poetic in the car on the way to Lowes today, and without having met the friends in question these stories mean little to my husband. He has no idea why "Bauhaus. Isn't that something you have to duck to get under?" makes me bang my head on the car window because I can't stop laughing. Almost 20 years after it was said, and with the context all but forgotten. And the fact that I am still trying to compose the perfect spelling for "Mrah", a noise I believe to this day only Julia can make properly. So many stories. Days that seemed endless at the time. A day went by then the way a week does now.

Much of what I am remembering so powerfully at the moment is the laughter. I can remember viscerally what it felt like to roll on the floor in somebody's dorm room, because something was so. damned. funny. that even as it happened we knew that the experience would spawn a catch phrase for months or years to come (see above reference to Bauhaus). I never laughed like that before college. I never had real girlfriends before college. I had very good friends in high school, but they were almost invariably male. The incredible comfort and ease that can come from a great friendship with another girl was all new, and I wallowed in it.

And that's the other part I am remembering fondly. The forging of those friendships and the effect they have had on my life.

Example. Julia and I once journeyed across town to her mother's house to receive our very first cooking lesson. We were rank amateurs. We were useless. Her mother bought us our first cookbooks, and walked us through each step of a recipe. She was decent enough not to laugh at us. Then we sat down and ate it together, in the house where the cat slept on the VCR, only occasionally falling off.

Example. Telling Steel Magnolia (who really needs to get a blog) once in casual conversation that my mother used to make me beef stew when I was sick or sad, and that it was the ultimate comfort food for me. And having her hold that memory in her head until I found myself in a state where I thought my world was ending, and what do you think she made for me?

This weekend, I spent a lovely afternoon in the company of a group of those wonderful girls I acquired in college, at SugarMama's house. We talked about the hard stuff, and the easy stuff, and everything in between. And we laughed, because that is what we do. But we are there for each other too. When one of us is hurt, we rally. When one of us needs help, we come. When one of us is trying to nurse a baby with breasts the size of bowling balls, one of us will spoon barbecue into our mouths while we do it so we don't starve to death.

Because that's how we roll.