The return of good friends, facebook, and glamour shots

This past Saturday I had lunch with a friend I hadn't seen or spoken to in something like 20 years. She looks exactly the same, three kids later, and we picked up just about where we left off. I can tell precisely where she is in her life, too, and that's because I've been there. She's antsy, she's wondering what else she can discover about herself, feeling like she's stuck in a never-ending circle while life is going on without her. We ate, talked and shopped for about 4 hours. I came dressed for walking and shopping - tennis shoes, jeans, t-shirt. She came dressed to party - high heels, strategically ripped jeans, and sporting much cleavage. She talked about her husband and kids and the house they've outgrown, the backyard that's overgrown, and how she often fantasizes about the "what -if's" and what not. I related, told her about my time spent in her position and about my bucket list, my trip to Hawaii with my son, which was sort of a coming of age trip, and where I am now. I saw that she understood.

Her mom passed away this April and she's been putting on such a good face, but she just sent me a message on facebook today saying how on Father's Day she'd had somewhat of a melt down. Then, as if ashamed of being sad, her message perked up and she said "hey! Remember our talk about Bucket Lists?" I'd apparently inspired her to write her's out and one of the things she says she wants to do is take a bunch of glamour shots before she gets too old and stuff. lol. She's only 35. But I know exactly where she's coming from because a couple of years ago, I was right where she is.

Taking glamour shots isn't on my list of things to do but I have thought about it a time or two while perusing magazines and lingering over certain celebrity photo shoots. You look at some of these stars and know that they don't look as glamorous on a regular day as they do in those photos. They look happy and perfect and pensive all at once. So I told her "sure" I'd be down.

"Immortalize my shit," (c) Bill Bellamy.

So we're planning to do this. I'm doing it moreso for her and because I think it'd be fun. I think she's doing it because she has doubts about herself and needs affirmation from a bunch of pictures. Regardless of why either of us are doing it I'm sure it'll be great and we'll have something else to bond over.

Right after I read her message on facebook, I read another message from my aunt, my mother's younger sister in St. Louis. On June 8th, her teenaged son made a status update about family drama, lies, and "bullshit." I tried to cheer him up, impart some words of wisdom and he took them as me being snotty, trying to talk shit. After a while I stopped trying to defend and explain myself and just quit responding to him, realizing then that he was batshit crazy and the actual drama monger that he was describing in his update. Fast forward to yesterday and my other younger cousin, who is supposedly a minister, lol, chimes in on that same post from June 8th, trying to check me. Bewildered, I cussed her grown ass out. Then here comes the crazy shit talking teenage boy again, typing like a true lunatic and basically waging war on me. I tried to keep my cool but I was in total disbelief and told him that it was clear he had mental issues which he could keep,"fuck off." Then I deleted him from my friends' list. Next thing I know I'm having a back and forth battle on facebook with his mother, my aunt, who is supposedly grown and sexy, according to her facebook page. She's typing in all caps, I guess to get her point across, and leaving nasty messages on my voicemail. At some point she must realize how stupid she is. Or maybe not, which astounds me. I can't help but wonder what she feels she has accomplished. She certainly hasn't proven to be an adult or anyone with a shred of good sense. And she damn sure hasn't frightened me. I've decided to ignore her. Is she making plans to travel to California to keep it real? Lol, highly unlikely. But this is the culture of the internet, it seems. This week alone, just reading friends and family members' facebook pages I've seen how vicious and cowardly people can be while sitting behind a computer screen. Thankfully, this isn't my life. I'll be deleting my facebook page soon, maybe in about a week or so. Or maybe I'll just be deleting more people from my friends' list and logging on less. We'll see.