Cardigan's New Kitty

I've really been lax at updating this thing, I see. Guess it's because I'm just sooo busy.

Okay, I guess that wasn't entirely sarcastic. I've had some things going on. But let's at least approach it all chronologically.

The weekend before the holiday, I did an author appearance at the Celtic Faerie Festival in Fair Oaks. (Please don't ask me what a Celtic faerie is. I really don't know.) It was a similar event to the Harvest Festival I've appeared at for the past couple years, but not as well advertised. Attendance was poor. But that was also due to lots going on that weekend, and a holiday in the middle of the following week.

But, while my book sales were poor, and I got a sunburn, I did get something really great out of it: a new friend. Let's see. She needs a pseudonym, here. Let's call her Smartass. Oh, wait. That's what she calls me. Um, I'll call her Kitty.

And the following night (Monday) after the festival, she invited me to a birthday party. Not hers, but a friend of hers, who owns a pagan shop up in Loomis. So I went. And it turns out I actually knew more people there than just Kitty. But I didn't know any of them very well. I got there at 5:30, and when people started arriving in large numbers (around 7:00), my introversion kicked into high gear. I could only tolerate being there for another hour, and left at 8:00.

It would've been better if I could've spent more time with Kitty, but she had others to see, not just me. But I'm still glad I went.

On the 4th, I was over at Boss A's house. Her husband did up an interesting mixed grill on the barbecue: veal, lamb, elk, and ostrich. I like game, so the elk was my favorite. The ostrich was pretty good, too.

I'm doing some work for him, on the side. He's getting his landscaping business up and running again, so I'm doing a lot of his promotional items, including his website. We talked business for an hour or so, before and after lunch.

Aside from that, I didn't really do much for the holiday. But then, I'm not really much into holidays.

Over the past week, I've reconnected with three acquaintances from my home town, all via MySpace. Damn handy sometimes, MySpace.

One of these folks was actually much more than an acquaintance. We were close friends for a while, but drifted apart, as friends often do.

Well... in my mind, our drifting apart sort of had a cause. See, Jon and I were friends during the period where I was just a fresh little atheist. And, as many baby atheists are, I was a little... well... touchy. Jon and I had had many discussions on religion, and he himself was in a sort of questioning phase.

And then, his father passed away. Very sad. I liked his parents a good deal.

Understandably, this rocked Jon's world a bit, and his questioning phase took a turn toward acceptance of religious claims. And I, in my brash youth, said something like, "You're only saying that because you're having trouble dealing with the loss of your dad, and you don't want to accept the idea that he's not 'continuing on,' somewhere."

That was... insensitive, at best. At worst, it was fucking rude. Not that I meant it that way, but I could see that it upset him. And it wasn't long afterward that our friendship was pretty much a thing of the past.

I brought this up to him last night, since our email conversation (oh, sorry, Lucky... our MySpace message conversation) had turned to the topic of death, somehow. I told him I hoped the statute of limitations on apologies hadn't expired, yet, because this has been mildly troubling to me ever since it happened.

His reaction? "OMG....no... I have NO recollection of that...and I can promise you it's nothing I ever held against you."

One of the things we folks with abandonment issues do... we blame ourselves for stuff like this, even when it isn't even a factor. And this simple sentence of his... geez. I was actually stunned at how much relief I felt after he said it.

I got some new strings for the Les Paul. As an experiment, I got them in three different gauges. Yesterday, I put on the heaviest gauge, which are actually jazz strings. They're similar to the ones I used to play with, back in the day.

Holy crap. They're way too thick. How did I ever play with these damn cables? Guess my playing back then lacked the subtlety it now has.

And no wonder.

Kitty and I have chatted for hours, the past couple nights, on Yahoo. We're still early in that "getting to know you" phase of friendships. But it's been fun.

I shared with her some of the humorous blog entries from here, and some of the funnier ones from the Cardigan's Corner days. She seemed to get a kick out of them.

But I dunno... How good of friends can I really be with someone who doesn't like Alfredo sauce?