I had a long conversation with Ann when she drove me home last nite in her car in front of my house, where Mr. W came out to check on us and Ann’s chihuahua Max who was hanging out on my lap decided to make it loudly known throughout the neighborhood how unwelcome Mr. W’s advance to the car was. In this conversation, she mentioned that she’d told Claudio she was surprised he drove all this way out just for this. Seeing clairvoyants was not Claudio’s “thing” and he did not come equipped with anything to ask her. Reportedly, Claudio had answered that he really only came to this “for her,” gesturing at me, presumably acknowledging that we hadn’t had the opportunity to hang out or communicate recently like we used to (I say “used to” as if we had a history extending beyond a year, heh). I was touched that he would do that for me, drive 200 miles round-trip for a few hours at an event that he wouldn’t normally attend on his own. That got me thinking about friends and friendship. I think I am the type of friend I’ve always been, but I was always hurt and offended in elementary school and high school because my crappy friends then would take whatever I gave them in the interests of friendship, but it wouldn’t even occur to them to reciprocate. I was asked to and expected to go out of my way for them, which I did even when not asked, but given the opportunity, these friends didn’t do the same for me, with very few exceptions. I remember being hurt by this as young as age 6, and high school was a long lesson in distancing myself from people, not expecting anything of them. However, even my brand new friends now seem to appreciate me and reciprocate. I hear a lot about how I’m a great friend, but I think they’re great friends; they’re the types of friends I missed badly in my childhood. I don’t know whether it’s that like-minded people drift together when we’re old enough to know the difference, or whether people mature and become the types of friends they should’ve been all along, but I love the family of friends I have around me now. For the most part, the garbage has been thrown out, and the gold kept.