Friends

I've been noticing lately that I don't see my friends enough. I mean, I see my bloggy friends online, but that's not the same thing. I see some of my other, older friends via email now and then, but that doesn't really cut it, either. Even daycare parent friends and neighbour friends, we are just not getting together with that often lately besides the quick hellos or casual few minutes chatting on the street.

Fact is, I'm too tired and too scheduled these days to find the time and will to make the effort to clean up my house and organize something. I hate that. It sounds like making excuses, like being too lazy to bother, like I just don't care enough to make it happen, while the truth is, I barely see much of Misterpie, and live with him! The days off, I end up with appointments and meetings and so on, and then I work every other Saturday, which means Sunday, I want to hang with Pumpkinpie and Misterpie and do the laundry. (Well, I don't necessarily want to do the laundry, but you know, better than going to work all nakey-like, trust me.)

It doesn't mean I don't think about my friends, though. I do. I was talking to someone recently at the library and she recognized my jewelry, and it turns out she works in a jewelry store I bought some of it at, and I asked about another line that they had carried that I thought would be so nice on my friend Alberta when I saw it some years ago. Turns out they were selling some half price at a new store (bringing it down to merely a bit pricey, from ouch), so last Friday, after my meeting, I hurried up there to buy her a beautiful pair of earrings. I squeezed it between that and buying shoes for Pumpkinpie and buying toothpaste and vitamins and returning that recalled Mother's Day tote bag that Indigo gave me (give your mom the gift of a nasty skin rash!). Because they would be lovely on her, and I don't want to be giving her a baby-related gift, but one that suggests she might some day have somewhere to wear something a little fancier. Because I love her, and I love to give someone something I know they would like.

I think of my friends whenever I see something that I think they would like or something that reminds me of them, actually. I think of Sportypie when I see chunkier silver jewelry or a particularly cool baseball cap or a nice pale blue scarf. I think of Blue when I see a cute dress that would work on the body shape we share. I think of my dad when I am in Grassroots, with all the green funky stuff, or my mom when I'm in a garden centre. I think of sisterpie when I see midcentury modern furniture, or my library guy friend when I see a nice shirt in a colour Misterpie would never wear. I have been pondering, while fretting about her state of anxiety and pain, whether to get HBM a new MothaSucka shirt, or if she'd still have hers, and maybe I should get her something different. I send people book recommendations for their children when I see something that makes me think of their child's name, favourite obsession, or situation. Every time I eat animal crackers, I have the urge to pluck out all the elephants from the whole bag and put them in a cute bowl to give to Motherbumper - but then I realize that that would mean me pawing through them all, and well, ick, so I stop myself.

But still, even though these people are always, always with me, always in my thoughts, I miss seeing them. I just wish I knew how to work this stuff in more effectively with my other commitments and my apparently intense need for sleep and my not-so-hot schedule. How do other people do this? How do you do this? Anyone? Ideas? Because I'd really like to see my friends again.