Friends.

She was pissed. So pissed, that normally she doesnt get into details, and Ive learned not to ask.. but this time she felt her friend had crossed the line.. and hoo.. she was nuclear.

So she asked me what would I do.

I knew how she felt. Keenly. I woulda done what she was feeling like doing, which was to take out the knife and cut - to show her friend just how deeply she had cut to the quick.

In fact, she used as an example a person who had done the same to me.

I quieted my own anger and told her this:

When I slept in my car in my youth, I had to lay out my priorities. What was it that was most important to me above all else when i had nothing else.

And these are the three things that I appreciated are my priorities:

- Me.

If I cant take care of me, I cant take care of anyone else.

- My family

When push comes to shove, no one else will care as much as they will. I gotta look out for them.

- My friends.

Friends may come, they may go.. but you cannot get anywhere in life without 'em.


Everything else is irrelevant. Money, status, sex, ambition... nothing else matters.

Which is why, I told her, when my friend cut me - I didnt automatically cut him off, even though Ive been sorely tempted.

He had been a friend to me, and I would never forget that.

I told her to let it pass. Dont forget what happened, but let it pass.. and I told her why.

I dunno how she resolved it, but I tried to distill in a few minutes the decades of what Ive been through.

You cant get anywhere without your friends.

Sometimes its hard to know who are your friends.. which is why I set a few rules, guidelines.

In this rootless age, if you look up and someone is still there after about a year giving a damn - count 'em as a friend.

Hold the gate open.

If they do things that make you upset. Hold the gate open. If they leave, let them go. Sometimes youre glad to see 'em go, sometimes you hope they dont walk away, sometimes you wish they'd come back, but hold the gate open.

Sometimes people walk through and away when you least expect.

Welcome the ones who come in, and let the ones who leave, leave freely.

But hold the gate open.

If you keep it closed, they may leave anyway.. and may not come back.

Be a friend.

When you look up and around and no one is around... just remember.. you have to be a friend to have friends.

You dont have to buy their affection.

And vice versa.

Your friends have to trust you to be loyal to you. They dont need your shit.

And vice versa.

I couldve gone on for donkey days about this, but wisdom is brevity, so I tried to tell her all this as briefly as I could, without preaching.

And I told her this, because she is a friend of mine.
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Shit, lurking in Unix-oriented IRC rooms (they even have a Bi-sexual femme Unix channel!) and reading Unix for Idjits isnt getting me anywhere...

JPennant: Yeah, Im getting nowhere trying to learn Unix. I need to set it up from scratch.
Kid: thats how I learned. and stop calling it unix, it's linux or bsd :p
JPennant: heheh. Fine. *nix. :-)
JPennant: You see Im old
Kid: yeah, I know. :-)
JPennant: I remember when Linux was just a twinkle in someone's eye. :-)
JPennant: And it was ALL Unix. :-)
JPennant: I worked at AT&T Transtech when all they ran on was Unix V, because they invented it, few people knew what the hell BSD was and PC's werent at all connected.
JPennant: Shit, I learned programming in High School on keypunch cards and IBM 360 midframes. :-)
Kid: :p
JPennant: Now, go get granpa some bourbon. :-)
Kid: as if.
Kid: I only stock tequila.
JPennant: heheh

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