Odd how things are turning out.

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As I was about to go crash again the phone rang. A friend of mine from school, one I visited a few years ago and had called recently to check one of my mothers. It had been about a week since I called and left a message so I was thinking he had blown it off. Sometimes, when all news is bad, some people choose not to pass on the news. Well, that, and people are busy these days. Even when we mean to do something, if it isn't vital to us, and it is an onerous task, and we have ten thousand other things going on, things get lost in the shuffle. As it turns out, he is more like me than not. He simply hadn't checked his voice messages this week until today. Good answer!

We ended up having a very long conversation, and a good one. He was one of the "gifted" in our school and one of my best friends. I 'should' have been gifted, but between fighting, being new, having powerful conservative/libertarian notions (against academic notions then as now), and being more imaginative than substantive (to a degree) in my intellectual nature, I was not found as acceptable to the powers that be. At least the group knew me for what I was and accepted me without even a thought about what the powers that be considered. Just some background.

I did note that, since my visit, he has started to attend church regularly. He still has his doubts, but he finds it pleasing and calming to attend services. I would like to think that my visit planted that seed, but I will never probably know for sure. When I visited a few years ago, as I always do, part of the conversations included bits about God, and my story. While not a great Christian, I am a true one, to the point I try to have God as the arbiter of my actions and Lord of my life. Failing often, I know what I must do to get back on track, and to the best of my abilities I do that. I do suspect, in this case, that my story affected my friend. He had quit attending church when he was in college. Being my age, that means that until my visit, he had been to church only for marriages and other social invitations only for several decades, in spite of his mother being a regular adherent. I suppose I hope I planted that seed, it would mean a great deal to me, a man who is otherwise useless to the world, and even to religion, other than just deciding to live (off others) and right through things that others have decided are not worth living through (after some early... tribulations regarding that last).

He doesn't live all that far away. A long days drive or a quick flight, actually, would have him here easily. He has been through this area, and it was striking enough for him to have remembered it. I have invited him here, with mother, or girlfriend, or on his own. I have offered to provide tours, and thanks to my local friend, I do know of some places to go. I do believe, before long, he may find his way here. Whatever else, he seems to like our conversations. He has some odd respect for me. He has seen me in fights, albeit when I was a kid, he has dealt with me as a friend and intellectual peer, and we even used to be players in a D&D troupe together (a damn fine one, too).

We discussed many things. I told him about getting into a home, and some of the neat attributes, like how the stone moderates inside temps. He does gardening, and was picking the last of the green peppers and some berries from his back yard. So I asked him a bit about those things. We both seem to have oddities with women, so I suggested I would find some Game theory links, if he has time to look them over. He has been nearly hooked four times in the last decade or so, and married once before that. He was talking about one that he really liked, one that got away. He was saying he was being a great provider and this and that, and, yeah, I knew. Delta city. I suggested my problems with women are similar, if from the other direction. In any case, I hope he finds a woman, and to that end, I will be sending him Game links. I will offer some notions too, that some of the links are more for understanding, since he isn't into being a PUA either. But it is good to know some things in those realms, much like knowing calculus helps with engineering. If you can engineer a goodly bit without it, you can engineer more and faster in some fields (most, all?) with calculus. Same with women and game.

There is much to discuss. And I think, through time, more will be said. The conversation was much like reliving a part of my life I had thought gone save for memory. It was a good life, then. And I think for both of us, as bachelors, that life is a bit harder. We both see the wisdom of marriage, but for our own disparate reasons have not found ourselves to that place. It is nice to have a real link with another in my shoes, one I have known, vetted, and found acceptable. I think he sees the same.

A good night. Yes indeed. My world of wake and sleep and such might be going down in flames, but real links to real people helps. The internet has been good for me in making real friends, having real conversations, and for frolicking in divine notions, fantastic concepts, sharing stories both real and... questionable, doing academic based work as I am able, and such. But with so much personal history lost, having a human link from my past is a luxury I have never had, but will surely enjoy. My brother, when that works out, would be another good link. Finding out that others liked me, respected me, especially contrasted with my own personal reflections about myself, is a super thing.

Oh, I am still going to go to bed. But my rest should be better. Life is quite good.

Oh, he is planning an "End of the World" party, the date the Inca calendar ends, to which I have officially been invited. I told him, indirectly, that I will be bringing a very good old friend too. Johnny Walker, of the blue varietal. Nothing says "Good night, dear friends, this is the end.", like a bottle of said hooch.