My Six Closest Friends

According to My Little Pony, friendship is magic.  And don’t we all need some magic in our lives? 

(Weirdest blog intro I’ve ever written.) 

My 50^th Birthday Party

On December 23^rd 2020, I turned 50 years old.  Eight months later, I celebrated that birthday.  (Two days before Christmas is just a stupid place on the calendar for a birthday, so lately I’ve been celebrating it on the first Sunday in August.) 

This celebration occurred at my sister’s house.  In addition to me it was my sister and her husband, my brother and his wife, and all five of my niblings.  (My brother’s three kids Zeb, Ripley, and Tesla, and my sister’s two kids Macklin and Marshal.) 

We’re all vaccinated (except for the youngest of the kids), and we all practice social distancing and self-isolation as much as possible, so nobody felt the need to wear masks.  A good time was had by all. 

A couple of months earlier, my sister had been pondering the idea of inviting some of my friends over to celebrate.  Officially, this didn’t happen because of Covid.  Unofficially it didn’t happen because, at first glance it would appear that I have no friends. 

This isn’t true, of course.  I have friends.  They just all live far, far away from me, and I haven’t talked to most of them in many, many years. 

Okay, maybe I don’t have any friends.  Maybe I just think I still do.  But either way, here’s a rundown of the people I consider to be my six closest friends. 

The Other Mike

First up is Mike.  (Yes, my best friend has the same first name that I do.  One of our friends once tried to rename us Big Mike and Little Mike, and thank God that didn’t catch on.)  Mike lives – according to Google – 271 miles and four hours and fifty-five minutes away from me by car.  Aside from the occasional comment on Facebook, we haven’t really spoken to one another in 21 years. 

Mike and I met in high school.  I was a writer, he was an artist, and the journalism adviser decided to glue us together to create content for the school newspaper. 

Post high-school we started working on projects together.  Other people’s zines, our own zines, and other similar stuff.  We’re both to blame for a project called “The Phrase of the Day” that had daily entries for over ten years.  I used to call him the other half of my brain. 

He was my go-to transportation to events of shared interest.  Movies, science-fiction conventions, the odd Halloween party, and the like. 

Mike went to art school, then moved to Portland, then eventually moved to Gold Hill.  Wherever that is.  (Somewhere by Medford, I think.) 

Dennis and Leanne

Dennis and Leanne live on the planet Koozebane.  [Cue laughter from old school Muppet Show fans.]  Oh, wait a minute – that’s Coos Bay, not Koozebane.  Sorry.  Let me start over. 

Dennis and Leanne live in Coos Bay, Oregon.  According to Google that’s 179 miles and three hours and eight minutes away from me by car.  How long has it been since I’ve seen them?  Well, they have a kid that I’ve never met, who’s now a six year old.  So, a little while. 

I met Leanne through Darklady.  And I met Dennis through Leanne. 

Back when I first joined PortLUG, they were kind enough to let me stay with them one weekend a month for nine or ten months of the year.  (PortLUG meetings are on Saturday, and the busses between here and Portland don’t all run on the weekend, which meant going up on Friday and coming back home on Monday.)

Last year Dennis and Leanne got married.  I was invited, but couldn’t find transportation to the event.  And it was a ‘friendship trifecta’, as the event was officiated by Darklady. 

The Darklady

Theresa, aka Darklady, lives 61.3 miles and an hour and twenty minutes away from me by car.  I’ve only seen her twice since the end of 2010. 

I’d been hearing about Darklady’s parties for years before I finally got to attend one.  And once I attended one, I was hooked.  First was Halloween, then was New Year’s, and then was her circus-themed national masturbation month party.  Weird. 

Eventually, she converted the basement level of her apartment into event space, and started having her parties at home.  Darklady’s Wunderground. 

It was in the Wunderground that I discovered a love for karaoke.  I’m also fairly certain that I fell in love with Darklady, although she disagrees with that. 

After relocating and leaving the Wunderground behind, Darklady opened a new venue called Catalyst.  And then Covid happened, and she ended up shutting down Catalyst.  

She’s a professional writer, and has one of the greatest voices I’ve ever heard. 

Mallz

Mallz currently lives in Hawaii, so I didn’t even bother trying to ask Google how far he is from me by car.  I’m not really sure how long it’s been since I’ve seen Mallz.  At least seven or eight years. 

Mallz started out as the younger brother of a friend of my younger brother’s.  One day he joined our RPG group, and the next thing I knew he had fully integrated himself into our lives.  (We still don’t know how he managed that.)  He moved in with my brother and I for several months when his family life got weird, back in the early-to-mid part of the 2000s. 

Mallz drove me to my first LEGO convention in Seattle.  (Then manifested strep throat in the middle of the con so we had to pack up and leave half-way through.)  We’ve also gone to a few science-fiction conventions. As well as Portland’s KinkFest event. 

Mallz went to nursing school and became a medical professional. 

Kyle

Kyle lives a mere 43.2 miles and fifty-two minutes from me by car. 

Kyle would probably be the most shocked to learn that he’s one of my six closest friends.  Not just because we only see each other once or twice a year, but because we’ve only ever seen each other once or twice a year. 

We met at Bricks Cascade (the Portland LEGO convention) 2014.  We saw each other again at the annual PortLUG picnic, where we discovered that we were both about half-capable of attending BrickCon (the Seattle LEGO convention) that October.  So we teamed up, pooled our resources, and he drove me and my MOCs to the con and back in exchange for staying in my hotel room. 

We did that for BrickCon for a couple of years.  At some point I arranged to have him drive me to and from Bricks Cascade in exchange for gas money, and we’ve been doing that ever since.  So, one or two conventions a year. 

The majority of our social interaction has been in his car on the way to or from conventions.  And yet, at once or twice a year he’s the friend I’ve seen both most recently and most often. 

A Morbid Tangent

One of the reasons why it’s good to know who your six best friends are is so that your next of kin know who to press into service as pall bearers at your funeral. 

(I should probably mention my high school friend Bob here, in case my sister is taking notes on potential pall bearers.  Bob is probably my seventh closest friend, and he and I were both pall bearers at our friend Chad’s funeral.  After lugging the heavy coffin to graveside he asked me, as a personal favor to him, to lose some weight before dying.  So Bob clearly expects to be called for pall bearer duty.  I have no idea where Bob is right now, and I haven’t seen him since he showed up at my dad’s funeral ten years ago.)

My brother and brother-in-law can probably also serve as pall bearers.  So you really only need to tap three of my six closest friends. 

Okay, enough of that. 

Huh.  Can’t Even Think of a New Subheading After That

I think I need to reevaluate my friendships.  I’m not saying that I need to get new friends (although adding a few new friends probably wouldn’t hurt), I’m just saying I need to keep better track of the friends I already have.  Especially with us all living in the teeny-tiny world of the internet.