I was looking at my bookshelf and noticed a book an old friend gave me. It's "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote, the third printing of the paperback. It's yellowed and has that old book smell, of decaying paper fibres. And it made me sad. What does it say about your friendship when you get that as a gift? That friend stopped talking to me a little over a month ago, for reasons I can only guess as we never discussed why. I can gather info about how he's doing from his website, that he seems to be well and happy and sociable, that's he doing stuff he likes. But I feel the disconnect deeply. I thought we were friends for almost a decade. I realise, of course, I was wrong.
Selfishly, I hoped cutting me out would have a negative impact and he would change his mind. Instead, the opposite seems true. Or, rather, I had no effect at all.
Now I'm doing an inventory of friends, trying to figure out whether or not they still like me based on the conversations or messages we've recently (or, in some cases, not so recently) had. Whether I should be planning on more defections from those around me. More and more I'm finding that I don't really know what to expect from my friends.
I don't feel like I've been very nice lately, that I've become too insular and solitary and dealt with others the same way. I push people away, either by smothering or by neglecting. I don't know how to be that middle ground, the vanilla, the background noise that no one minds hearing. I can only be the gaudy lamp or the non-descript wallpaper. Lately I've been the wallpaper. I long to be the coffee table, useful but not too in the way.
Maybe I'm just disappointed that four old houses were torn down a block away, leaving a huge pile of rotting wood and musty house entrails. The former front lawns house battered carcasses of fridges and ovens. It will be a new apartment building, likely with plastic siding and no character, frequented by people with domestic beer shirts or shorts in the middle of winter. A little part of my neighbourhood has died. I hate when things change against my wishes.
I'm sure I'll only be at this level of self-loathing another day or two. Fret not.
On the upside, I'll see Rose Melberg play on Friday.
Currently listening :
Winter Pageant
By Softies
Release date: 21 January, 1997
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