A friend

‘Friend’  is a trite word, the way most people use it. Working with you, knowing your name, being a neighbor, lunching at the same table, or passing a few sentences at a coffee shop doesn’t make you my friend. Please. I have standards. 

You’re a friend if I can relax around you, and you're not offended or angered at something I might casually say, and if you can relax around me, without saying something stupid. That's all, but that's a lot, and that's why I’ve never had more than a few friends.

It feels like the truth, though, to say that I spent this evening with a friend, my first friend in San Francisco. I was Kallie’s little helper, shopping for supplies and then helping pack for her vacation. She’s going to the shores of some northern California lake, where she’ll be camping alone with a two-week’s supply of marijuana.

That sounds like a great vacation, even without the weed. Or without the camping, for that matter. It's the 'alone' part that makes it sound ideal.

We went to Radio Shack for batteries, Woolworth for a tablecloth, and the Rainbow Store for food and miscellanea. Kallie did the shopping, and I did the toting, because of her bad back. 

She bought us dinner at the Chinese Gourmet restaurant in Glen Park (it was good, not great), and I schlepped the supplies into her house. Kallie showed me her collection of Rolling Stones albums. I’m beginning to suspect she likes the Stones. Her flatmate, Janey or Jilly or something like that, remembered me from the other time I’d been there, and I remembered her — all chatty and bubbly and annoying again.

Kallie danced (alone) to “Start Me Up,” offered me some pot (I declined), and then I came home. The time with Kallie was better than sitting alone in my rez hotel, and I like sitting alone in my rez hotel, but transcribing it further would be boring for me and for you.

My one-week vacation starts on the last day of her two weeks, so it’ll be three weeks after tomorrow before I see Kallie again. Maybe I shouldn’t be counting? I’ll miss her, though. Not sure what she might be or become to me, but Kallie is a friend.

♦ ♦ ♦

Today I took no aspirin, to see what the raw pain levels might be. The infected gap was painful from alarm clock to nighty-night, but the pain was bearable, and didn’t get worse as the day went along.

With a flashlight at the mirror, I can see that the good extraction has completely healed — it’s smooth and painless, and the same color as the gums around it.

The evil extraction is still white and fuzzy with whatever is growing on it, and I’m still bathing it with Bactine on a q-tip, and the q-tip still stinks like moist moldy diapers when I whiff it. No more stinking pus has been found in the gap, though, and the gums are slowly closing in around the white fluffy fungus — what had been a tooth-sized gash in my mouth is now only half as big. With the aperture closing, the white inside looks sorta like a sleepy eyeball looking at me, and it's getting tight, poking the Bactine q-tip into the eyeball.

Should I worry that what looks and smells and feels like an infection is slowly being sealed inside my face? Nah, I refuse to worry. After all, my dentist’s receptionist tells me this is normal.

From Pathetic Life #6
Thursday, November 10, 1994

This is an entry retyped from an on-paper zine I wrote many years ago, called Pathetic Life. The opinions stated were my opinions then, but might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting things, so parental guidance is advised.

Pathetic Life 

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