So, I just read a myspace blog of a high school friend that leads me to believe everyone I considered a friend in that era is/was/will be doomed. A seven month (or longer) battle with alcoholism landed him in jail twice, in the hospital for pancreatitis, and otherwise destroyed his life.

I'd like to express to him that his ordeal was very interesting to read about and I remember him as an excellent and interesting friend, but I do not want to talk about it with him because what he's gone through is so foreign to me that I can't even empathize with his story.

Other people's experiences are often wholly alien to me, leading me to neglect their pasts and beliefs and deal with everyone on a completely superficial level. This makes it impossible for me to keep friends who I do not see on a day-to-day basis, and it makes it impossible for me to have any reaction whatsoever to their trials and tribulations and what-have-you.

Part of me insists this is an incorrect way to handle my interactions with others, and the rest of me is all, like, whatever. Fuck it. You get along magnificently without them.

And the truth of the matter is I do. I don't dislike people, and I am capable of a mildly convincing disguise that I don't mind being around them, but for my entire life, I have had exactly one friend at a time. It has always been more than enough.

Having anyone else enter my realm is often exhausting.

I understand that my friend (or boyfriend) cannot always be available to entertain me, and that works out perfectly, because I am an utter loner. I thrive on solitude.

I think I got very far away from my original point which was to say everyone I was friends with in my graduating class has, in at least one way, train-wrecked their lives.

I consider marriage at the age of 19 train-wrecky, even if they have managed not to fail in any other way. Alcoholic battles and jailarity are train-wrecky. Having a kid at age 16 is train-wrecky. Shooting your father in the face is train-wrecky. Getting a divorce at age 20 when you have a baby is train-wrecky. Methamphetamine addiction is train-wrecky.

And yes, admittedly, being a college dropout barista at (almost) age 23 is train-wrecky, too. It does not help my ego any that my boyfriend has a masters degree and is only (almost) 26.

I don't use myspace for social networking. I use it to silently observe and (perhaps) unfairly judge the lives of my peers.

Fortunately, most of the people I was friends with who graduated a year, or two, after me, have not fucked themselves up at all and are carrying on quite well. Hoorah.

I mean, apart from that whole marriage thing. What's with that? Is it a Southern thing?

Anyway, sometimes I think I should keep up better with my friend-quaintances that I've made down here on the Gulf Coast, but it always comes back to me not being able to relate or wanting to engage in the trivial, so I don't bother.

Maybe I'll get bored enough to, someday.

Man, this coffee is really not kicking in fast enough.

And now for something completely different.

Thirteen was supposed to get his rabies shot yesterday but B had to reschedule because of some huge clusterfuck at work, so I'm taking the old dog to the vet today to get stabbed in the ass.

B seems to think that he has asthma, which apparently is a chihuahua thing. He keeps having these wheezing fits, so I'm going to ask the vet about that. I just don't want it to be lungworms or something horrible like that. I once picked up a stray cat that had lungworms. We named her Minerva and then we had to have her put to sleep.

B is really, and I mean really in love with this dog.

So, asthma, yeah. Or, even better, just lingering kennel cough.