I value many things–home, food, a family, my many, many pets, and perhaps, most of all, my friends. Dictionary definition: these are the people in whom you can confide; they listen and…sometimes…they offer advice: of which it is your choice to follow or disregard.  They have no Insert Cash Here buttons to make a little compensation off your worries–no; in fact, wealth is the farthest thought from their mind.

For true friends it is.

You know how there can be artificial friends? I like to think of them as one dimensional blankets: you seek their comfort and cherish it…until you stab at them once, mistakenly; and their front is compromised. They bolt. In tatters. In scraps. In the mind they never want to speak to numero uno you again.

Luckily I have not frequented many thin blankets in my time; however, all of us, at least once, have met people, people we call our friends, who, when the shit hits the fan–literally…although that’s gross–those somewhat thicker blankets smile and run and bury their heads in the sand.

Nothing wrong with it. Not at all. I just happen to appreciate genuineness. Sound like a snobby art critic, “Yes…this work was..ah, it was a fake…look at the way the watercolors smear and the brush–oh, the humanity!”

When you get the real friends–well, you just know. I like to call it a connection, see, because as humans we connect, or disconnect, with thousands, millions, of people everyday of our lives. With real friends that connection surges all the time. It is as if the two of you are fused together on a circuit box the electrician forgot to disassemble; and each volt shooting through those wires is felt simultaneously.

Woah. And a bunch of other crazy existential shit…

I hope–I honestly hope I am not speaking to a brick wall. I’ve done that…it gets boring.

Most everyone has a friend, most everyone values their friend.

I am not trying to say–actually, I am saying not all of us value our friends. We need to–it’s an epidemic, larger than the Black Plague or…or the H1N1 virus–stupid swine–and those of us who have taken the cure: pat yourself on the back; you have earned your friends.

Here:

Think of a life without friends.

What life is that?

Think daily,

A Southpaw