I learn slow. ly.

The anger and frustration that accompanied my meteorish landing in Cambridge have faded, a little, so that they're vaguely stuck like smoke in the air after one of those great Moonlight or La Jolla Cove bonfires that we used to fuel with anything we could find on the beach. And a shot or two of lighter fluid for good measure.

I miss my friends. I succumbed to this great and novel realization in trying to figure out where the rage was coming from. (Ah, introspection, the first step to a great blog entry, eh?) It always was a silly idea to me, to miss people, as I always felt I'd see them again, or could keep in touch by mail, email, and phone, and that distance and time were never any reason to despair. But this summer I was shocked by not really not being able to keep in touch while I was in Taiwan, and then, when my time at home was shrunk down to a day, I was shocked by the how limited the time felt, that I would have only three hours or a few minutes to sit and talk with the greatest people I know, and I was shocked by the pangs of disappointment when I realized there were many people I'd have to go another four months (hopefully not another year) without seeing. I always took it for granted that there'd be more nights at Hot Java or with chalk in the park or for midnight burritos or even for movies at the Highlands or for the concerts at the Che and elsewhere.

There won't be, though. The next great step in the realization is that there may never be. In the future, if I ever have the good luck of seeing these kids again, we won't be kids (at least, some won't), and the rendezvous will be tamed into lunches and coffee dates and drinks after work things in between our real lives, and always they'll be somewhere else--Seattle, New York, the Carolinas, wherever we may roam. People are astonishingly irreplaceable. Emails, blogs, letters, phone calls even-- they're insulting. But I guess it's all I've got. So it's time to sack up, and be quaint, and go write some letters. If nothing else, at least the recipients can ball up the paper and build a fire when it gets cold wherever they are.