I was thinking: she's always been flaky, and even though I thought I wanted to consider her a "good friend", always in the back of my mind was a doubt. Oh well, life's to short to pine away for a flaky person, no?

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Francis is in my life again, after not talking to her for a month. We just didn't talk, no big reason. She travels a lot for her job, and I don't always have weekends free to hang out with her.

Anyway, she's been going through a LOT lately, and the past 3 weeks I've been dreading talking to her again because sometimes she has a tendency to go onandonandonandon about her problems. When we hung out a month ago, I had no tolerance in my head, but didn't show it. Amor was there too, so he did more listening than I did. I sat there at the restaurant table mainly digesting my food, watching them interact, not really listening.

Sometimes I just have no empathy, and I hate that about myself.

Anyway, so Francis and I hung out last night. I was on my way home from a BBQ and she called me. I picked up. I had left her a message earlier telling her that she should hang out with me tonight. I was in this rare altruistic mood, with thoughts like, "Francis really shouldn't be home by herself tonight. She told me she's been crying for the past 4 days about _________" floating in and out of my consciousness.

So anyway, so she calls. I pick up. "I don't think I'm going to hang out with you tonight, Acorn. I'm just too bad right now. Oh wait, my mom's on the other line, can I call you back?"

I had told her I'd go pick her up. She lives 10 minutes away from me. I insisted, a little bit.

She called me back and said to me, "Acorn? Can you come get me? I just can't drive right now."

So I did, and we spent the evening together. We talked a lot. She stood in the doorway of the kitchen and watched me in there for a couple of hours. I made cereal bars, and the lemon cake for Amor's b'day tomorrow, and some candied lemon zest. She ended up feeling a lot better about things. The kitchen (our kitchen) has a lot of love.

I felt so good hanging out with her. My track record with chick-friends is horrible. (Just ask Anneliese, I've known her the longest of all the women in my life, second to my sisters.) Anyway, I was telling Francis about me being so guarded around women, and she acknowledged this with such understanding, coming back at me with, "Acorn, really, if you ever need anyone to talk to about anything, your anger, whatever - you can always come to me. I will listen to you without judgement."

I swear, that's what she said to me. It took a few hours for that to really sink in, because I really think she meant it, no chick's ever said that to me before, and it was so selfless of her, in her current state of woe. I was alone in our bedroom, pondering this, and I cried a tiny bit.

I mean, what a contrast from the encounter I had last night with Patty, who I thought maybe was good-girlfriend material. Right?

Life's so crazy.

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It's raining so hard right now, there was just this horrendous crack of thunder. Did you hear it? I've got the sliding glass door to our balcony open so I can hear the rain.

I just spent the last 3 hours on the sofa listening to the rain. I was reading the latest Nat'l Geo, and I also get this magazine called Nutrition Action.

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