Quiet Contemplations

Emily just made a post about two of her closest friends that I have known since I was very little. They're part of Em's posse, and as her annoying little sister that wouldn't leave her alone when her friends were over, I grew up with them as well. It's strange hearing about them graduating and becoming women that I'm proud to know because in my mind, they'll always be my sister's best friends that were a few years older than me. I offer my heartfelt congratulations to both Kelly and Amy and I hope that their future endeavors will turn out just as wonderful as their past and present ones are.

This turned me to thoughts of my own friends. None of them are graduating yet--most of them are still freshmen in college-- and it strikes me that I haven't retained many friends from when I was very young. Most of my closest friends I made in high school. I've said before that I don't have many friends, but the ones I do have I'm very close to. It's true. I have five invaluable friends, and I trust them pretty much unquestioningly.
There's Caryn, who is the equivalent of my evil twin. We lost contact for a while last year after some issues over Otakon, but we managed to start talking again. Caryn is almost exactly like me only moreso. She's more perverted (don't get me started on some of our conversations), she's more foul-mouthed, she's more impatient with people (I'm pretty good at patience with idiots), she's quicker to anger, and she's faster to recover from a grudge. I admire her for some things, and kindly look aside at others. I know that when I call or text her and say "I'm bored" she'll respond with, "So?" We get into a lot of stupid little arguments, but we get over them quickly because for the most part we know it's just our way of taking out any stress or anger we have. Emotional punching bags, that's what we are.
I've never been a girly girl, and my mom will attest to that. I don't generally like dressing up and putting on makeup. I'm a simple, ponytail and jeans kind of girl. So it never really surprised me that most of my friends in school were guys. I wrestle with them and they usually let me win because I'm a weakling and they feel bad, I talk about their girlfriends with them, we talk about cars, in general I'm one of the guys.
Brandon is one of those friends of mine that I think I would go crazy without. He's always good for a joke and even though it's hard to read his text messages because his key pad is broken and he has to substitue punctuation for letters, it's not hard to find him when I'm bored. Unless it's before noon. He's lazy. Reaaaaaally lazy. But that's okay. Brandon is a videogamer and all my strange jokes about games are not lost on him. He's unbelievably nice and really patient. He's also really smart, in his own way. He's teaching himself the keyboard and he remixes videogame music for fun, which I think is pretty awesome. He's an older brother, and that comes across when he deals with me, because I'm a younger sister. He's primarily the one I wrestle with because he cracks jokes and then can't take the payback he deserves.
Corey is.... Corey. He's special. We're very opposite in some ways, but practically twins in others. We have the same sort of humor, the same basic tastes in anime and video games, and we agree on a lot of the same music. Half of the stuff he listens to is something I got him into. He has no problems tickling me, but he isn't ticklish so I steal his hat. He gets mad at me when I don't watch the movies he tries to get me into (sorry, I'm just not that into vampires). I twitch when he pooh-poohs an anime I describe. In high school, people swore up and down we were dating and we just laughed at them. Even now, his mom asks him occasionally "Do you like Kate?" He's smart, a talented artist, a kind and patient person, and a smartass.
Colleen is Emily's boyfriend's older sister. She's a good five or six years older than me. She is the reason I have 143 episodes of Naruto on dvd. She teaches me Japanese, when she remembers to type up lessons. We're in the middle of a story swap and I have to harrass her to get her to write more chapters. I've just finished 16. She send me 5 about three months ago. Though, to be fair, I do have a lot more free time. Colleen introduced me to a Japanese candy called Konpeito, which is like that sugar crystal candy you can buy on sticks. If you've seen the movie Spirited Away (I highly reccomend anything by Hayao Miyazaki), it's the stuff that the boiler man feeds the soot sprites. Colleen has a manga library I aspire to. Not only that, she lends me entire series of manga and stuff all the time. She is sharing. I love it.
Holly is an indie-rock version of me. She's short, energetic, smart, and does things her way. She's an ear to bend, a shoulder to cry on, a fair judge, and above all, a friend. Holly is my one friend who isn't as into anime and games as I am, but that's okay. I need to have some diversity, right? She's responsible for half my music library. The Academy Is..., Don't Look Down, Sounding the Silence, Cobra Starship, and BoA are all people she got me into. I have Korean pop music thanks to her. We speak to each other in broken Japanese (she's going to Japan with her school next month and claims she needs practice) and then correct each other when we notice things. Holly is a writer, though she's very into photography as well. I've talked a lot about her already, so I find it hard to come up with new things to say.

Those are my friends, and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

Now I see the secret to making the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and eat and sleep with the earth.
-Walt Witman

Also, I was thinking about a camping trip for my birthday this year. I wonder if my friends are up to it...?