Have you ever been alone in a crowded room when I'm here with you?

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room; well I'm here with you...

Ohhhhhh man. 4 more weeks of prac.

I was talking to Ted when he came up to Kingston about who he was seeing during his rather short stay and among the many people I named, I came across one particular mutual friend (or ex-mutual friend, I guess I should say). Ted thought about this for a minute and then shook his head, saying that this particular friend wasn't particularly good at arranging times/meeting up with people. And it got me thinking.

There is a term, by the way, for this: flaky. I thought about the nature of flaky friends. I have, by this point in my life, pretty much stopped putting in the effort to stay in touch with flaky people (so if we still talk, congratulations. You are, in my estimation, less flaky than most) because I do understand Ted's sentiment. Or at least, it's not so much that I've stopped putting in the effort to stay in touch with flaky people; I've simply stopped caring about them.

Because here's what I've learned. If you depend upon flaky people, sooner or later, you'll realize that it's practically impossible to keep your life from spiraling wildly out of control. No joke. They will drive you batshit insane if you put enough stock in their friendship because they don't seem to operate on the same plane of understanding that the rest of us do. There seems to be something in them that justifies/validates their tendency to do things like say they'll call and then don't, or not respond to messages, or to always hit "maybe" on facebook invites.

For those of us who don't operate in this ethereal world of uncertainty and undependability (<-- not a word) this can be incredibly frustrating and/or disheartening if you care too much about these people. And the thing is, most of us do when we first meet them. Why? Because it's hard to be flaky if you're not cool, pretty, or interesting. If you message someone, suggesting that they hang out with you on, say, Friday night and they don't respond, I'm pretty sure they're not twiddling their thumbs at home on Friday night, looking for something to do, intentionally ignoring your message. Flaky friends are not necessarily bad people in that sense. A lot of the times, they simply lead a fairly busy social life and a. don't have the time management skills to cut up their time pie properly, and b. aren't socially considerate enough to empathize with the people who they've left out and as a result, just don't bother to at least tell these people that they are busy.

A part of me understands that sometimes, they just don't know what it's like to be on the receiving end of their own rather inconsiderate social behaviors. How could they possibly understand how irritating it can be to have someone not respond to them when they're always the ones doing the responding? How could they possibly understand how disheartening it can be to have someone cancel on them last minute when to them, a last minute cancellation simply means they're no longer double booked? I mean, maybe the only real flaw in their character is a simple inability to empathize with other people. And if THAT'S their flaw, 99% of our population wouldn't be able to criticize them in good conscience because it'd be like the pot calling the kettle black.

In my experience, people who lead a fairly busy social life tend to be attractive (and I don't mean physically, though that might also be the case). Simply put, they make good company. They have to; otherwise they wouldn't lead such a busy social life. And as a result, it's hard not to care about them and to put stock in their friendship because even though some part of you knows you shouldn't depend on them, they're just so darn pleasant to be around that you want to vindicate them when you ARE in their company. And that's where the balancing act really has to come in. The perks always come first - they have to or else you wouldn't have gotten to know them in the first place - and as much as you love their immediate company, you slowly begin to realize how hard it is to procure said company. And if you forget this, it becomes a sort of forbidden fruit that you'll eventually grow to curse yourself for wanting.

Because of this, I think I've grown to become very careful regarding the relationships I actually allow myself to value. I mean, I always give people the benefit of the doubt. After all, you really should trust first, not doubt first. But I guess what I mean to say is that in my mind, I've become ultra-sensitive to the "red flags"," of a flaky friend. Ironically, it's actually allowed me to have pseudo-friendships with flaky people. I enjoy their company when I can get it, but then I recognize that I'm probably not going to see this person ever again ("ever again" being the most generous estimate) and so prevent myself from hoping/expecting it. And I've realized, this is the only way I can go about interacting with flaky people; otherwise, they'll end up irking me so much due to their unreliability that I won't even want to see them anymore.

So call your friends dammit! And let them know they're worth it.

I've been watching a string of bad to mediocre films lately. Mostly my own fault - I have been choosing films for entertainment value over other merits.

Our feelings aren't rational. And the only thing that prevents us from going crazy is the fact that others seem to understand this.

I just thought I'd make a note about my previous post. For those of you who liked it, you will be glad to know that there might be more to come; more self-contained mini-stories I mean. I'm trying to come up with a good passage to use as an interlude for my informal writing project, between the first and second half. Something that's not directly related to the story. Call it a breather of sorts. So if I have the time (and creative juices), I'm going to try to write more and then pick the best of the lot.

What an odd way for the entire thing to unfold. Me on a cold December's eve, trying to make a hot beverage while simultaneously realizing that I was missing the second page to my linguistic assignment - and you, just happening to be the only one home when I called. I have to admit, I wasn't prepared to talk to you. Usually, that's fairly important to me when I make phone calls; I can't even punch in the numbers unless I know exactly who I want to talk to and exactly what I want to say. Naturally, then, when you told me Jill wasn't home, my immediate goal became, "How do I end this conversation as quickly as possible." I mean, it wasn't so much that I didn't want to talk to you. It's just that all I wanted was the linguistics assignment. But then you asked me how I was doing so what else could I say?

"I've discovered that I can't brew hot chocolate without milk."

That part was true. I don't know why the instructions on hot chocolate always tell you it can be done with water and that milk merely makes it "richer".

"Some hot chocolate can be made with water - if you need milk, just come get some."

You said it in the most natural way possible. As if walking 4 blocks through the snow for a cup of milk was something you did every day. And I couldn't help smiling a bit as I said,

"Too late. This one was supposed to be brew-able with either. And not having milk, I tried using water... and now it's turned into some brown pasty thing."

"Aww..."

"Oh well, you live and learn I guess."

"I have chocolate Ovaltine if you want."

"Currently brewing?"

It seemed like some crazy coincidence that you'd be making hot chocolate at the same time I was. And of course, that wasn't the case. But then you said this:

"Not at the moment. But it could be if you like."

Suddenly, walking 4 blocks through the snow didn't seem like such a crazy idea. As I made my way over to your house, I realized, maybe for the first time, that I had no idea what I was doing or why I was doing it. All I knew was that I wasn't trudging through the cold for the sake of a dinky mug of Ovaltine. And then it hit me...

Maybe this is what it's like when you wake up to the realization that you like someone. Early on in the whole sordid affair, whether it might eventually turn out good or bad, way before you even dared to use a term as loaded and heavy as "being in love"... maybe this was it. That you find yourself doing insane things like braving snowstorms for mugs of hot chocolate, not knowing why you're doing it or what you expect to happen - not even sure of what you WANT to happen - but sure enough about your feelings to know that you wouldn't be making the effort if she were any other girl.

I turned these thoughts over in my head until I got to your doorstep. And even then, I wasn't sure what I wanted to happen; in all likelihood, I could never have known, no matter how long I thought about it. I think it's one of those things you will always have to play by ear. So I tried to push these thoughts out of my head as I rung the doorbell.

"Hey, come on in. Your hot chocolate is just about ready."

You waved me over to a couch as I took off my jacket. It was a cozy little place that looked like it always emitted the warmth that I currently thought I was feeling. I never understood why people liked living in big houses. In my experience, bigger houses tend to just BE colder because nothing is close together. At any rate, I was glad your house wasn't one of them. It wouldn't be, I guess. We were just kids after all.

You walked in with a steaming mug and commented on how you decided against putting Mexican chili peppers into the hot chocolate, even though that's how the Mayans traditionally brewed theirs. I said that I doubted if I would have enjoyed it and you grinned at me as you threw yourself onto the couch next to me and began rambling about the various ways of making hot chocolate. Before long, we had tangented into any topic that came to mind. And everything in those moments just felt right. We were so close on that couch and it didn't seem to matter. I was feeling so strongly that I wasn't able to think about anything beyond what was demanded of my brain as it pertained to the immediate discussion. It was weird how everything seemed to switch that way.

I decided to leave while the evening was still perfect. It was tempting to just let the night go on for as long as it could but something told me to leave you with a good taste in your mouth. So I mumbled something about "needing to find someone else who has the linguistics assignment" and started putting on my jacket. As I was about to leave, though, I knew that to say "I'll see you around," would be the kiss of death - it would reduce everything that had happened that evening to the realm of "things I did on a regular basis". Except it wasn't.

"Thank you for making me hot chocolate," I said. "It was... really good. And tonight was... special - you're special. And... maybe sometime, you would do me the honor of letting me take you out to dinner."

Before she had a chance to say anything, I added,

"Wait. Don't say anything right now. Just... think it over. And take this." I pulled a pin out of my coat pocket - it was one of those Christmas pins I got from the parade last week - and handed it to her. "I'll be back on Friday to give Jill some of her notes I borrowed. If your decision is a 'yes,' wear the pin. If it's a 'no,' don't wear it. But know that if you do, I'll have a place picked out."

With that, I walked down the steps and into the snow. As I began the walk home, I heard her call out,

"I'm not a fan of seafood!"

And all of a sudden, the night didn't feel quite so cold.

Christian once wrote this:

"I truly think that learning to write at least half-decent poetry is a major step toward writing excellent prose. You can write good prose without being able to write poetry, and you can likely get toward excellent without it, but I can assure you that being able to write poetry hugely improves your ability in prose."

He didn't really explicate this statement at the time but I recently discovered why this was so. It came about partly because I was writing my own poetry and partly because I was teaching a poetry unit to my class. They had just finished learning about short stories in the unit before so I thought I would tie my poetry unit into that one by turning a poem/ballad into a short story. Thus, I took the song, Your Ex-Lover Is Dead by Stars and spent an entire weekend turning the lyrics from that song into a short story and when I finished, I sat back and looked at the short story I produced.

Now, I'm a fairly concise writer. But I looked at the short story I generated from the song lyrics and thought to myself, "It is amazing that the lyrics to Your Ex-Lover Is Dead can encapsulate, in 3 short verses something that took me 3 pages to write out in short-story format." And then it hit me...

This is why poetry is so important to writing good prose. To quote Coleridge, poetry is "the best words in their best order". I realized this when I was writing my own poetry - in order to produce GOOD poetry, you have to work to ensure that every word is perfect and that the order in which they come is perfect as well. It forces you to come up with the best possible combination of the best possible words. And of course, this is a skill that is essential to writing truly excellent prose. In a sense, you have to put yourself in the same mindset of writing poetry in order to write great prose - something that is easy to neglect because there appears to be less pressure to ensure that every word is perfect in prose.

Prose lets you get away with some things that you wouldn't be able to get away with when you write poetry. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing. But put it this way. When I write prose, sometimes I write about the environment and the atmosphere of whatever setting about which I am writing. I take the time convey to the reader what my characters are feeling and I explain the circumstances that have led up to the event in question before the "action" starts happening. And because I'm writing prose, I have every right to do this. But poetry - poetry is the ability to write in such a way that all the things I mentioned above are implicit and indicated in the way the "action" unfolds. In order to do that, your words and how they appear have to be perfect and nuanced.

This, I believe, is why writing good poetry is essential to writing great prose. See, you never stop learning as a writer.