2006-03-01 - 8:43 p.m.

not frozen - yet

Hi out there - I'm still around. I'm fine. In fact a lot of really interesting things have happened lately, and I've just been too busy to write any of it down. Partly it's because the 2006 concert season has kicked off and I've either been going to things locally or I've been out of town. And in between that, there's just been too much TV to watch.

Which is weird because ordinarily I don't watch all that much TV. That's not counting the times I'm sitting on the sofa and the TV happens to be on - that's just resting, and I'll get up and leave in the middle of a show to go do something else. But TV I'm actually watching? Not all that much. Until lately...

See, all my reality shows are back now. Survivor is on again, Apprentice is back (I never watched Martha but the Trump one is the funniest comedy I've ever seen) and now Amazing Race is back. I totally lost interest in that show about halfway through last season - the idiotic "family edition." But now it's back and seems to be back to its old self, so I'm back.

Normally that would be it. But I also got caught up watching "Skating With Celebrities," which was a lot of fun, but after watching all but the very last show, which is on tomorrow, now I almost don't want to finish it up, with all the "scandal" stuff about Lloyd & Kristy. Sigh.

Anyway, then there was the Survivor Marathon on OLN. Yes, I felt compelled to watch re-runs of a reality show. I can't help it.

And then on top of all that was the Olympics. For the past 2 weeks I've been watching SOMETHING all night long, any night I was home, either watching something that was on at the time or catching up on stuff I'd recorded. And I'm still not completely caught up - one day I have to find time to watch the dog show!

Just so you know, none of the above are the "interesting things" that have been happening lately.

Here's an interesting thing though.

I got home last night and my husband told me there were a couple of messages on the answering machine I should listen to then delete if I was done with them. One was someone wanting me to call back and confirm something, and the other, he said, was "some idiot who doesn't pay attention to the outgoing message - maybe you can figure out what they want." Basically he thought it was a wrong number. Our outgoing message actually says our names, so he gets really annoyed when people leave messages that clearly aren't for us. Yes, I know. But he enjoys being annoyed so it's okay.

So I went to listen to the messages, and I didn't get ten seconds into the first one when the phone rang. So I cut off the message and took the call. Telemarketer. Yippee. Anyway though, I forgot to go back to the messages after that.

This morning I was on my way out the door to a dentist appointment (with any luck, the last one until my next regular cleaning in several months) and I suddenly thought, hey, I should listen to those messages in case one is a call cancelling the appointment I'm going to. So I run over, and one message is actually my dentist office confirming the appointment. That's the one I was supposed to call back. Oops.

The other one, that my husband thought was a wrong number, starts out "Hey - this is a voice from your past." By the end of the next sentence I recognized the voice. It was in fact a voice from both of our pasts. We used to hang out with this couple - Sam and Pam, let's say - and this was Pam. In fact, both of them were friends with my husband before he met me - so it's odd I recognized her and he didn't. After going on for a couple of minutes she did say her name, but I think he got bored before that and stopped listening.

We haven't talked to these two in years - I'll explain why in a minute. But once I knew who it was, I couldn't wait to tell my husband who had called. So once I got to work, I called him and said, you'll never guess who that was, that you thought was a wrong number. That was Pam.

Dead silence on the other end for a couple seconds.

Then, "Well, fuck that."

Which was good. I was a little afraid he'd say, "You can call her back if you want to, doesn't matter to me, whatever you want." Cuz I don't want to. Good to know he doesn't either.

We were all friends a long time ago, and in fact I was really good friends with Pam. But after a while, I got the feeling that they felt they were outgrowing us. Which is fine, maybe they were. The problem was, they began acting as if we weren't really their equals, so they were going to do us a favor and work on us until we were up to their level. It was like we weren't cool, and they couldn't be friends with us unless we were cool, so they were trying to help make us cool. Every time I was around either of them I felt like I was being instructed and led. Not to mention patronized. Once I told her something I had done that I thought was fun, and she gave me a tolerant smile and actually said, "Don't you think that's a little silly?" Sam was just as bad. I have my own theories about how it got that way from the friendship we originally had - but whatever. In any case, I don't think you can blame us for not wanting to hang around with people who obviously didn't like us as we were.

So... out of the blue Pam calls. She didn't really say why she called - just that she found our phone number, and it's been a long time, and she'd love to hear from us, give her a call...

I feel rude not returning a call. But...

We don't miss them. We don't especially want to see them. If I talked to her and she suggested getting together, I'd have to check my schedule and get back to her, if you know what I mean. I'm really not mad at her about anything. It just got to be no fun at all to hang out... so I stopped.

My husband thinks she just wants to be able to blame us for the friendship ending, and this way she can tell herself that she tried. Maybe. Okay - she tried and I'm a cranky old bitch. I'm okay with that.

So what do you think... do I owe her a call? I'm not really interested in talking to her and we don't want to see them. So I can't really see why I should call. But somehow I still feel rude.

my mood -

the mood of the whole world wide bleepin' web -