So I thought to myself, "Man, it's been a long time since you blogged, hasn't it?" And I looked at my blog, and the last date was two days ago, and I think to myself, "Wow, you're a freak if you think 2 days is a long time." But it turns out I was only quoting something, and I hadn't Actually blogged since saturday. That's more than half a week, definately a long time, especially in my life. As you well know, fairly-constant blog reader, I can talk about a couple of days for pages and pages. [laughs] Anyway, life is complicated, but isn't it always? Grace wrote, twice, and of course I didn't get them for a day because I wasn't home and awake to check it. I haven't been writing to her often enough either. Half the time, I blog assuming she'll read it, so I treat it like an email. And of course, she's often busy and doesn't get around to reading it, so it doesn't serve the purpose at all. [grins and shrugs] I know it sucks when friends have troubles, but it's been nice to be helpful in terms of talking through things for friends, because it helps me forget my own, or put them on different terms, or just get to a serious level of conversation that people so infrequently reach in normal interactions. By "people" I mean myself and everyone with whom I interact normally. I don't want to talk about their issues in my blog, but for some, I've been there but not quite, and for others, I never have and, being me, probably never will. On the Me front, I have spent a great deal of time thinking about people with positive or negative influences in my life. I was talking about it to Naomi, and she was mildly put out for me to be so blunt about the fact that she, along with most of the people I hang out with along with her, are in the "negative" category. Things that are considered "negative" and help put a person in the "negative" category: smoking around me and destroying my lungs, drinking with me and encouraging me to drink away more brain cells, living a carefree and amoral lifestyle, joking about the unavoidability of immorality or the morality of things being dependent upon circumstances, being self-centered to the point of being oblivious to others, talking about sexual exploits or fantasies in impersonal or exaggerated ways, encouraging sleeplessness, causing "drama", causing the other people with whom I'm hanging out with to obsess about "drama", and kidnapping me from church for any of the above (yes, it was a good party, though). Things that are considered "positive" and help put a person in the "positive" category: participation in anything related to religion, and encouraging others to participate in anything related to religion, not smoking and trying to encourage others to not smoke either, deciding not to drink some nights, going to bed early, having a steady job, having a steady relationship, talking about the Relationship in your steady relationship, noticing when I'm depressed and rescuing me, reminding me to get a job, asking about Grace (even if I can only answer, "I don't know, I haven't talked to her in a few days"), knowing what I mean when I say "most of my friends are really only acquaintences", having deep conversations, and kicking me out/sending me home/driving me home because you know I need to sleep even on nights when you don't. If you would like to "rate" yourself based on this list, feel free. But you know where you are. And so do I. And it makes me sad.