Friendship, I Guess

First things first. Cuckoo's Nest is AWESOME. And also extending another week. Which I'm not sure I'm happy about, but whatever. Anyway. Couple Dating is going to be very good, I think, as it's rather funny, and you should all come see it. Dooooo iiiiittttt... You know you want to. Moving right along... So, a few days ago, I was rather bored. Now, when I'm bored I either draw or write, and I was pretty much doodled out at that point, so I just picked a starting point and went. I wound up writing almost four pages... It's a bit rough, but I think it has potential, so I'm going to post it here because... Well, just because I bloody well can.

Friendship

Friendship is an interesting thing. It's a word, a term, a description of something that can't be described. To say "Oh, we're friends" is truly one of the most confusing ways to describe a relationship possible, because there are about six million definitions and connotations of the word "friend", and no real way to specify without going into an impressive monologue every time someone asks you if you know someone. Drawing purely from my own experience, I can name at least ten different versions of "friend", and if asked about any one of them, I would be forced to reply with the standard "Well, we're friends." However, there are huge differences, from one person to the next, what the definition of friendship is. For example, Teresa. (Author's Note: Names are not changed to protect the innocent, mainly because I don't know any innocents. However, I won't use last names, and will change a name to an alias if requested. And tipped heavily, naturally.) When I say Teresa is my friend, I mean that we've known each other since forever; that I'd trust her with not only my life, but with my secrets; that we can talk on the phone for hours about absolute nonsense; that we're more like sisters than friends; and that I sometimes think she can read my mind. (Seriously. How else would she know exactly what I'm talking about when I say something along the lines of "Remember that one movie? The one with the actor in it, that guy with the hair? What was it called?" Fairly sure she actually got the name of the movie that time, too... Scary.) Entirely on the other end of the spectrum, you have theater friendships. Now, I don't know if it's different between actors, but tech to actor, or even tech to tech, tends not to work. I've done three plays in Central Oregon now, and the pattern is pretty clear. I started with Steel Magnolias. We had a fabulous time, we all wound up pretty close (I've never seen so many exchanged gifts during a show), and we all swore up and down that we'd keep in touch. Okay. So far so good. The thing is, I'm still regularly in contact with exactly one person from that show, and I think that it's mostly because she was in the next show I did, and because she's directing the next thing I'm doing. While I do talk to Truvy every once in a while, it always winds up rather awkward and stilted, and we never really manage to talk about anything interesting. The next play I did was Harvey. Aside from Susan, the carry-over from Steel Magnolias, I don't talk to anyone from that cast, ever. Currently, I'm teching Cuckoo's Nest, and I can tell you now that I'm going to lose track of most, if not all, of them once it's over. The majority I don't really talk to now, so skipping over them, we have Turkle, Candy, and McMurphy. Turkle I'll hopefully keep in contact with, since he mentioned wanting to use me in a photoshoot. (He's a rather good photographer, so I'm good with it. Hopefully I can get some good shots of myself out of the deal.) Candy has been driving me home, which is part of the reason we actually talk, but we seem to have enough in common that we could theoretically keep in touch after the loony bin closes its doors. As for McMurphy... I don't know. Todd's a difficult one to categorize. I've known him since just before Steel Magnolias, technically (he helped set build, I helped paint), but I don't really know him any better than the rest of the loonies. The thing about Todd is, he's one of the most big hearted people I know. So yeah, he'll give me hugs (when I beg for them. At least he's not laughing at me for it anymore, or not to my face anyway...), and he's generally pretty nice, but when it comes right down to it? Once this is over, we're right back to "he knows me, but he doesn't recognize me..."

At this point, whatever was boring me had ended, so I just stopped writing. A few days after that (so, you know, yesterday.) I decided to condense all my friends down into categories.

Class one: People I've known forever, people I could tell anything.
Class two: What most people would refer to as "best friends." The people I would call if I needed a hug, or someone to talk to.
Class three: Immediate family. Pets.
Class four: Celebrities. People I don't actually know, but I use their movies to cheer myself up, so... It counts. Also includes fictional characters.
Class five: Distant family, and people adopted as family.
Class six: Long distance friends, people met at college, people I see once in a blue moon.
Class seven: Theater friends. Anyone met through the theater who doesn't fit into another category. People I enjoy spending time around, but no guarantees I'll see them after shows close.
Class eight: Facebook friends. Anyone I'm "friends" with on Facebook, but don't really talk to in real life.
Class nine: My head people. The voices in my head, who have gotten me through an awful lot.


So there you have it. The ramblings of a mostly unfiltered mind. Return to what you were doing, since I'm sure it was more interesting than me, and I will see you later... My friend.


~Charlotte the Pirate