Friends

I wish I had more friends.

I've shared about my friends before, but just to update how I'll refer to them and to any new readers here, let me tell you about my current cadre of friends.  This won't take long.  .

I have A and E.  I went to photo school with E and then worked with him and A as a photographer.  We became good friends and even though we don't live near each other, I still consider them my best friends.  I actually served as the officiant in both of their weddings. I'm sure if I were to ever get married, they'd both stand up in mine if not actually officiate it.  When I travel down to Dallas, I'm traveling to visit with A.  I'd travel to visit with E, but he lives in San Francisco and that's an expensive flight or a very long drive.  We vacationed together last year in New Orleans.  We text each other fairly often in a group chat and just share stuff.


I have An.  An and I went to truck driving school together.  We bonded fairly quickly over the fact that neither of us wanted to be there and neither of us were cut out to be truck drivers.  We stayed in contact after we got individual jobs driving, considered team driving, stayed on contact after we both lost out jobs, and then became good friends.  We now travel together.  When I talk about taking most trips outside of Dallas (the Mardi Gras trip, Mexico, Chicago, Detroit, upcoming cruise and Cuba...) I'm generally traveling with An.

And that's about it.  I know people at work and I'd certainly consider them work friends, but once I stop working there we'll lose contact.   Oh we'll go back and forth on Facebook but I doubt we'll see each other outside of any work related events.  I was good 'work friends' with several people at the last facility I worked at, but I never saw them outside of work and haven't seen them since I transferred to my current facility.  I can't imagine it will be any different with my current group of good 'work friends'.

There's my family.... Mom, brothers R and B, sister in law, niece and nephews, aunts and uncles... but that's family.  Mom and I have a distinct adult mother/son relationship.  It's fine, but it's not a friend style relationship.  R and I get along fine but if we didn't live together I doubt we'd hang out together all that much.  B and I get along pretty well and would probably qualify as friends.

About the only other person I would put anywhere on the spectrum of friendship is my brother B's friend Er.  We play Dungeons and Dragons together along with B and my nephews.  He's fine and a good guy, but I doubt we'd ever know each other or hang out if there wasn't already a connection.  I may start hanging out with him more, but that says more of my desire to have more friends than it does about our compatibility as friends.  He's considering purchasing a handgun and wants to go to the range to shoot.... that may spur me on to buy that Ruger .22 I've wanted for awhile and so I might do that and join my newest 'friend'.   

I guess some of this is like a more serious romantic relationship.  For the most part I'm not interested in searching out for a girlfriend (or boyfriend), but even if I were it would be incredibly awkward once we got past the 'getting to know you' stage as the next stage inevitably involves 'Oh yea, and I live with my mother'.  Well the same thing applies with a friend... I mean the things I'd like to do with a friend would include watching TV or football or movies together and while I have a sweet ass TV setup... I don't want to invite them over and have Mom make us some snacks.

And there's the point that I have to admit... I'm not a good friend.  I'm a big stubborn asshole a lot of the time.  I have a lot of internal stress that comes out as anger issues.  I DO have a good side of myself that says don't lash out at friends so instead of being mean I sulk and just be a general asshole.  And it's only taken me four decades to figure this out.  Lemme explain.

A couple weekends ago An and I took a trip to Grand Rapids.  Now, I've lived in Michigan for all but one year of my life (that glorious and terrible year in Chicago).  I've always look at Grand Rapids Michigan as the second largest city but also as the dullest city.  It's the Christian Conservative, furniture making, dullsville of western Michigan.  But recently... maybe a few years ago... I found out that Grand Rapids is the center of Michigan's craft beer universe.  And Michigan, if you didn't know, is HUGE in the craft beer industry.  Most Michigan cities have there own local breweries and there are more popping up every day.  I live in a smallish down of around 30,000 people and we have four breweries in town.  FOUR!!  Grand Rapids, on the other hand, is a town of almost 200,000 and has almost forty breweries!!!  One of Grand Rapids nicknames is Beer City USA and it's well deserved as their breweries include Founders with their award winning Breakfast Stout.

So An and I planned a trip to Grand Rapids.  We'd stay in a nice hotel downtown so we'd be within walking distance of plenty of breweries.  It would be a long weekend of Friday through Sunday.  Most of it would be visiting as many breweries as we could and sampling as many beers as we could, but there are other things to do in a city of 200,000 including art and museums and food and music.  We booked the hotel back in March to make sure we got the room, so we knew long in advance of how long we'd be there.  Check in was Friday afternoon.  Checkout was Sunday morning.  We'd be doing a lot of drinking so checking out early shouldn't be something on the agenda.

A couple weeks before, An invites me up to his place the Thursday before so that we could hit a breakfast place that he likes.  I should add that An lives about 40 minutes from me and Grand Rapids is about 2 hours from either of us.  So the vacation has already been extended earlier and has me sleeping in a spare bed for a night.  Don't get me wrong, it's great that I can hang out with An, drink, and sleep at his place without worry about driving home late tipsy or drunk... but doing this just for breakfast is a stretch.  And we've been to this place before.

This breakfast place is good, but it's an acquired taste.  It's a hippie place. Normally it's a VERY long wait as they have a big following but a small seating area.  They've been that way for years and years and evidently refuse to move to a larger location.  Hippies.  They play music loudly from one speaker in the corner and we were seated near that speaker, so we could barely talk.  It took forever for us to get our food, but the food was really good.  It was... well it wasn't worth driving up late the night before and sleeping in An's spare bed.  A night in my own bed would have improved my mood.

Hey, I'm old and sleeping in my own bed improves my mood.  Get off my lawn!

So the trip didn't start with me in the best of moods.  We then took An's car.  I was expecting to take mine and had actually had my car detailed before driving up to An's place.  Now that's a control issue, and one of us is going to be pissed, but it was also convenient as we had to drop An's dog off at the kennel.   So we got to GR and started out weekend of brewery hopping.  Friday was fun and we ended up hitting 8 breweries.

I had planned three other things I wanted to do in Grand Rapids.  There is a really good Contemporary Art museum there.  It's small so it wouldn't take all day, but it's still highly regarded.  There's the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park and it's one of those 'bucket list' Michigan things that everybody is supposed to see... and I've never seen it.  And there's the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum.  I know full well that An is not a fan of these types of things, but at the same time he knows that I'm a BIG fan of them, so I figured a compromise would be hitting one or two of them.  I had mentioned them earlier in the planning stages but didn't even bring them up on Friday.  Friday was all about the beer.

Now, before I get into Saturday, I should explain about one of An's and my problems while traveling.  We work on different clocks.  An is a night owl, I'm an early bird.  An can easily stay up until 4am and sleep in until 11am.  On vacation I still like to go to bed between 1 and 2, and get up around 7am.  Now, I've tried to tell him that I don't mind him staying up, drinking, smoking, watching TV, or doing whatever while I lay down and go to sleep.  I can go to sleep whenever I want and once I'm asleep, I'm fairly difficult to wake.  So An could pour himself a drink, turn the TV on, and continually step in and outside for cigarettes.  It's not going to bother me.  But he continues to think that it will and makes an effort to 'let me sleep' and will go out and stay out.

In the mornings, I try to be quiet, but I still get up and get my day going.  I jump in the shower, get clean, get dressed, head out, get a cup of coffee somewhere, have a cig or three, then head back to the room to watch the news and use the bathroom (the shit in the shit/shower/shave trifecta), finish my coffee, then head back out for some more smokes.   But where I'm difficult to wake, An is easily awoken.  Evidently I wake up him up by getting in the shower.  And getting out of the shower.  And getting dressed.  And stepping out of the hotel room.  And stepping back in.  And getting into the bathroom.  And flushing.  And turning on the TV even if the volume is right next to mute and I'm three inches from the screen to hear it.

Oh... and we both snore like locomotives, wake each other up and get pissed off at each other.

So this trip we made a vow... we both got these wireless bluetooth headband/headsets that could pipe music or whitenoise and would help us sleep.  I would use mine to combat An's snoring (as again, I could get to sleep just fine with him watching TV), and he would use his to combat my snoring and my morning routine.  I would also take care to leave him be in the morning.  I'd still shower and use the bathroom, but once I left the room, I'd stay out until he woke up.  I'd just go find a coffee shop and set up camp there with my phone for news and facebook.

Saturday morning comes and....it's raining like cats and dogs.  And while Grand Rapids is a big town, it's not Chicago big.  The nearest coffee shop that's open is 3 blocks away and the hotel while modern and cool doesn't have a cafe or coffee shop in its lobby.  They have coffee in the rooms... but that would wake An and ruin my plan to let him have his vacation morning.

I find an awning and have an only slightly wet cigarette or two, and then return to the room.  I still want An to have a morning, so I quietly sit on the corner of my bed and read.

In the dark.

In the silence.

Without coffee.

For an hour and a half.

I go down for another wet cigarette, trying very hard to be quiet as I exit and re-enter our hotel room and thankfully don't wake An... but then repeat that exercise for another hour.  Dark, silent, reading of the internet.  After a half hour I finally make a cup of coffee which still doesn't wake An, but the coffee only makes me want another cigarette all that much more.

Thankfully when I get back up from that cigarette, An is up and ready to go.  And I hate to say it.. but I'm pissed off.  Yeah, I did all of that so that he could have that exact experience.... but I had a shitty morning for 2 and a half hours and he gets to just get up, shit/shower/shave, and then get going to breakfast.   Fuck that noise, I was in a bad mood AT his good mood.

Breakfast was good and some food in my belly got me going into a better mood.  We started walking to our first brewery and I mentioned the museums and sculpture garden.  An said we'd best hit the Ford museum in the heat of the afternoon (it was supposed to be hot and humid that day) and I agreed.  But 20 minutes later after we crossed the river and were walking by the museum.... we went in.  Not because it was a good time to visit it, but because it was nearby and he had to use the bathroom.

Grr.

So we went through the Museum and learned about our 38th President.  I found it thoroughly amazing and entertaining.  An got bored about an hour in and left.  Now I could have joined him as we were close to the end of the museum... but damn it I wanted to see the whole thing and it just brought my bad mood roaring back.  So fuck it, I went through the rest of the museum by myself while he waited outside by himself.

When we met back up we started up the brew tour again and had a pretty good day... but my bad mood was right under the surface and ready to poke it's head up at the smallest of provocation.  One of those 'smallest of provocations' came from a curb.  An unexpectedly tall curb that I stepped off of without seeing.  And sprained my ankle.  I'm not talking about spraining my ankle in a way that gave me a slight limp... I"m talking about I could barely bear any weight on that leg.  Oh I tried... but after 10 or so steps I looked like a drunken sailor and was near tears of pain.  So now instead of walking the reasonable 1 or 2 miles between breweries, we were going to have to take Ubers or Lyfts.

Fuck.

Fast forward to that tattoo.  We got to the one non brewery drinking establishment we hit up in Grand Rapids.  It was a distillery that made a whisky from beer.  Seriously.  They took local beers (obviously, there's a lot of them to pick from!) and then distill it down into a whisky.  And it's glorious!  As we sat and sampled their whiskys and some of their other fine drinks, we noticed a tattoo parlor across the street.  I mentioned to An that he should get a 'test' tattoo.  He had been talking about getting a tattoo on his shoulder for awhile now, and I figured that maybe getting a small one somewhere else just to experience what it was like to get 'some ink' might be a good idea.

On my forearm?

He agreed and even convinced me of the same.  You see, I'm considering getting a tattoo myself.  I want to get a stylized Rod of Asclepius on my forearm, but I don't want to start getting that tattoo and realized part way in that I really can't handle the sensation of the tattoo gun.  So.. we agreed to get small tattoos each.  An decided to get the anarchy symbol and I decided to get a camera aperture.  I wanted mine where I could show it off fairly easily, but still a place where it would be hidden all the time unless I specifically showed it off.  My chest seemed obvious. I wear shirts where showing off my shoulder or back is difficult, but I can unhook one or two buttons and pull open a shirt enough to show off my chest.

An agreed on placing his in a 'hidden' place.  So he got his on his right forearm.  Umm.... what?

Anyway, the tattoo parlor we were looking at was closing in a half hour and couldn't get us in so we looked online and found a place that could ink us up that night.  Yeah... now that I write that out, I chose a place to permanently put ink onto my body by the fact that it was open in a city that I've never been to before.  At midnight on a Saturday.  Okay, maybe the booze was having more of an affect than I was originally giving it credit for.

Anywho.  We got a ride over to the tattoo parlor, signed in, was informed that it would be about an hour, found a nearby bar, and had another beer.  The quality of this tattoo parlor was... well it was pretty shady.  The price seemed to be whatever we were willing to pay.  Our inebriated state was something to be taken advantage of instead of something to be warned against.  Now on the price of things, I should say that I was less than engaged.  I was paying for the room so An was picking up the tab on everything else until we got to even and that included the tattoos.  I was told when we signed up that the tattoos would be $90 each.  They ended up being $150 each.  I have no idea why the price jumped by $60 except that An accepted a $60 drunk tax.  I probably would have accepted it too as we were both pretty geeked, but still.... $60?  $60 EXTRA!?  Fuck those guys.  It's not even like the tattoo artist drew our tattoos.  We had to email him clip art that he printed out on some kind of printer that transferred the ink to our skin.  He then traced it with the tattoo gun.

Yeah... he was coloring within the lines.  I guess I should just be thankful that he DID stay within the lines.

It's also Aperture Science!

Anywho, I got the camera aperture on my left chest right near my heart.  And just like photography in my life, it burned.  It did give me pause about my original plan for the rod of asclepius as I wanted to have that start on my palm, cross my wrist and go all the way up into my elbow.  But I've heard that the palm, wrist, and elbow are all sensitive areas to have tattooed, and that the palm would wear out faster (as well as the wrist under my watchband).  With as much as that burned getting done and burned while healing the first week, I'll probably just get it done on my forearm from just above the rist to just below the elbow.

I'm happy with it, now that's done scabbing over and doesn't burn.  I've shown it off and am excited to get another.

After we were inked and happy, we got a ride back to the breweries to get a celebratory drink.  Walking was still out because of my ankle, so we got a Lyft.  An directed it straight to the brewery.  Once we got out though, he mentioned that he was out of cigarettes and we needed to go to a convenience store to get some.

Umm... what?  Remember what I said about the coffee ship that morning?  Well convenience stores at 1am were about the same.  They weren't nearby.  I was immediately pissed off that he didn't just direct the driver to a convenience store, or even to our hotel first.  Fuck.  So I had to limp 3 blocks to find... a closed convenience store.  It wasn't exactly An's fault as the website said it was supposed to be open, but it was his fault when he said he could get by for awhile as he did have 5 cigarettes.

THEN WHY THE FLYING FUCK DID I LIMP THESE THREE BLOCKS!?!!????

I mean seriously, my ankle is THROBBING at this point.  We walk/limp back to the brewery, get in, and order up a beer.  I use the bathroom and when I get back to the table and have a sip of my tasty beer I look down at my shirt knowing that I have permanent ink underneath it and see.... well I see what looks like a gunshot wound on my shirt.  There's a bloody spot on my shirt about 4 inches in diameter.

MOTHER FUCKER!!!!

The damned tattoo 'artist' had put a bandage over the tattoo and told us to leave them on for 24 to 48 hours.  It was a good clear, breathable bandage that should easily hold back any fluids.  And being a nurse, I know damned well that a tattoo this size (it's about 2 inches in diameter) is going to leak fluids.  But a closer inspection shows he didn't get the bandage on good enough and it didn't' cover all of the tattoo... hence the leaking of fluids onto my favorite expensive hand stitched WHITE shirt (technically the shirt is red, but it has two white panels in the front and the tattoo sits right under one of those white panels).

MOTHER FUCKER!!!

An's reaction is to shrug and laugh.  I'll admit that it's kind of funny, but at the time he had to see that I was NOT amused and quite upset at what was happening.  At that point, I was done for the night.  An had the balls to ask what brewery we were going to go to next, but I just walked/limped us back to the hotel where I proceeded to try and wash the blood (it actually wasn't blood, it was plasma, but damned if it wasn't bright red!) out of my expensive favorite shirt.  I wasn't in the mood for discussing the plans for Sunday, but I knew it would be more beer, maybe the museum (probably not), hopefully some good food (there's a brewery that sells specialty pizza in sampler flights just like you can get sampler flights of beer), and some other fun stuff to end the weekend before heading back. 

Speaking of good food, that's something An and I agree on... good food is SO worth it.  It doesn't always have to be farm to table fresh or artisan hand crafted organic specially made... but good food is good food and good food is always worth it.  A chain restaurant is food for when you can't find anything else.  On our vacations we always try to fill our bellies with good food and this weekend was filled with that.

So Sunday comes bright and early... and as soon as I wake up I remember that none of my late night plans were going to happen.   Andrew had called an early leave Sunday as he wanted to pick up his dog before he got charged an extra day at the kennel.  That means picking him up by noon.  That means leaving by 10am at the latest.  And as I was getting out of the shower, it was 9:30.  There wasn't even time for breakfast let alone a museum.

So right out of the gate, my mood was shattered.  And to be honest, it never recovered that day.  An was in a hurry but seemed to forget that I couldn't move faster than a turtle.  He tried to make it up and stop for breakfast, but ended up stopping at Bob Evans.... Bob Fucking Evans.  And while there were two parking spots right near the damned door, he parked half way across the lot because... reasons?

Driving back he kept the windows down and the AC practically off.  It was only morning but it was still hot, and windy, and noisy.  And he was in a hurry so he didn't shower so it wasn't exactly a bed of roses in the car either.



So why the long story?  Well... An is my best friend in many ways.  Yeah, I consider both A and E as my best friends, but they live over a thousand miles away.  I see A one or two times a year if I'm lucky.  I see E once every year or two if I'm lucky.  An is the only friend I see on a regular basis.  And I can't remember the last time I saw him that I wasn't pissed off at him for about half of the time.  That's the relationship that I have with him.

We're on the same page on a lot of different subjects.  But we're far apart on so many others.  For most people, I'm the most liberal person they know.  But An is far more liberal than I am.  I'd say that most people looking at us on most issues, wouldn't see much difference... but the details are where I think it all matters.  An is an absolutest on a lot of things and it's impossible to argue or debate with an absolutest like that.  Hell, it's hard to even talk to an absolutest.  For example, universal healthcare.  I think it's the best way forward.  I think eventually we'll get there and we'll be better off for it.  But moving from what we have now to any type of universal healthcare system is a pipe dream and therefore a complete and total waste of time.  Instead we should focus on fixing (or saving) what we have and moving toward a universal healthcare system.  An wants universal healthcare now and anything else is wrong.   A public option?  Wrong.  Expanding Medicare to more people?  Wrong.  Expanding Medicaid to more people?  Wrong.  Those aren't universal healthcare, so they aren't the right answer, so they're wrong.  And that's the end of his argument.  He doesn't want to talk about them so we cant' even get close to talking about private insurance or group insurance or the insurance industry as a whole.  Most liberal hotbutton topics are like that.

A and E and I... (I need friends whose names start with O and U and a sometimes friend whose name starts with Y), we all think universal healthcare is a good idea but we can talk for HOURS about how to get from here to there and not even mention universal healthcare itself.  Hell, we can talk about the opposite side of things we believe just to flesh out the ideas there and see if theres anything worthwhile.  I'm fairly sure we've talked about a capitalistic non regulated healthcare industry to see what advantages it has over universal healthcare (I think we did that in New Orleans).

So An isn't an ideal friend.  If he were, I'd probably hang out with him a lot more often.  But he IS a friend that can stand me.  He tolerates me.  I'm sure I'm as infuriating to him as he is to me.  We're planning a cruise for next year with a nights stay in Havana.  We're all ready butting heads over it as I want to just book the cruise and he wants to go through a travel specialist.  I highly doubt I'm going to like the cruise, but it's hanging out with a friend and I do need that.

I wish I had more friends.