scorchin' hot days of summer

This has been by far the hottest day in Oregon this year. I am sweating and have been sitting in front of this fan the entire night. Afraid to move unless I cause my body to exert more energy creating any form of heat radiating from my body. Its on days like this that I dream of air conditioners (if I can sleep long enough to dream that is) and spend my free time wondering around Fred Meyer. One could spend hours and hours wondering around that place. In fact you could most likely find everything needed for life there...food, clothes, security systems, and otter popsicles. yum yum.

bff??

Tales of disasterous love abound, but there is something about a failed friendship that makes those involved guard it like a shameful secret. Even country music, with it's laundry list of heartache and longing, won't touch it.
But friendship is suppose to be made of sturdier stuff, a less complicated, more enduring relationship. Because of this, the story of a breakup with a friend often feels far more revealing than that of a failed romance. As if it exposes our worst failings and weaknesses. After all, an exfriend is someone who knew our deepest secrets and then vanished, someone we drove away or who chose to leave us. And still yet in some we see mirrors in which we desperately hope to glimpse a sharper and clearer, or simply more interesting image of ourselves.
Losing a friend is painful, even wrenching. A loss of this sort leaves a void that is impossible to fill, since it is impossible to recreate the quirks and qualities, the gifts and strengths, and even the flaws, that drew us to a particular person, that move us to chose one person rather than another, as our friend. Often this person knows a self we have kept hidden from the rest of the world, a self we may have hoped to retire or to pretend never existed. They know our history, and they remember it. And for this reason they continue to haunt us.