And Lex Luthor said.....

Friendship looks differently to me than it used to. I no longer need or want a large group of adoring fans who totally understand me. This excuses me from totally understanding a whole bunch of other friends who are interested in constant activity. This kind of swarming, I think, is an artifact of being in one's twenties.
I find I am happily involved with VBM, with whom I don't share everything, but he definitely knows what is going on with me. Or at least he knows my schedule. I do not need him to totally understand me, and I am fairly certain that he's keeping me in the loop, too. The nature of relationship seems less intense, but more sweet than it once did, all the way around.
People I am close to know that I'm scared, or embarrassed, or uncertain. They are the people I feel safe with while being a beginner at things: riding horses, skiing, pedaling my mountain bike. I don't know about you, but I just don't have the energy for constant detailed disclosure like I used to have. Also, that shit is boring.
Last night I got on the phone with the girlfriend I have had for the longest time. She's like me, and not like me, and we have had our ups and outs and there are times when we talk alot and times when we talk hardly at all. Lately it has been more talky with us, because she bought a DSLR, and is in that amazing phase of playtime with a camera where one remembers what she forgot when she retired the film SLR and starts seeing things again. It is so much fun to hear her get excited about lines and shadows and how to not wash out the sky. She looks at all my pictures, and I look at all her pictures, and in a sense, it is a way for us to be together, and sometimes, even though she is half a continent away, we are taking the same pictures.
I sat out on my Portland front porch last night, talking with her about the latest shit to go down with Stefano DiMiera and Sami Brady and then we moved on to some other silly pop culture stuff that we both enjoy. For a minute, I felt like we were seventh-graders again, earnestly discussing the effing greatness of Duran Duran, in total agreement, solidly connected, far across the void of all the things we don't agree on, the long times in between a shared meal, and all the ways we've changed over 26 years of being friends.