This took 2 hours for my distracted self to write

If Katamari Damacy taught me anything, it's that the world is full of things. Here are some things I like:

tea
peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches
listening to music while walking through a blustery wind
bike riding at 5 am
shopping cart rides
my front porch, and the people I sit with
when the Western Men Against Violence brave the middle of Red Square at 9 am in the freezing shadows just to hold their signs
pictures of other people
this dog
teaching swimming lessons

And just for some perspective, here are some things I don't like:

not being able to find free music on the internet
pickles
when Firefox shuts down and I lose what I've written here
being too lazy to clean my room
rolling over and waking up at 2 am every day for the last 3 weeks
missing friends in far away places

There are a few people in my life right now that I'd like to tell you about. They are all incredibly unique people who, by merely knowing them, are able to make life better.

Ben and Nick are two folks who, if anything, have improved with age.

Ben was my RA last year. He was attentive and supportive to a complete stranger going through an almost year-long bout of homesickness (in a sense). Through knowing him I realized that some people look perfectly normal, act perfectly normal, and come from perfectly normal backgrounds. Then there are the people who look normal, act normal, and it's a miracle that they've managed to pull it off. Ben isn't an RA anymore. He has a girlfriend that he likes to go on hikes with, he's learning to swim (again), plays raquetball, and gets very defensive about what math "is".

I liked Nick for maybe 30 days total last year. The rest of the time I hated him. He was argumentative about everything, arrogant, and basically a complete tool. But when we drank together! Oh, he was my best friend ever. We had some great times, sober ones too. We played X-Men and ate together regularly (even when we were hating each other), we argued about music and argued about books.
Now Nick has a girlfriend and I'm single. I'm attributing our new change in attitude toward each other to these two facts. Both of us are more mellowed out in our current states. We argue less; we're more excited to share new information than to prove the other person wrong. I don't get to see Nick as often as I'd like. When we're together, we both become giddy and excitable, even when talking about how miserable life is. Nick likes to say he's part of the Dead Parrots Society, but I haven't seen any proof yet. He wears indie glasses, dresses indie, and listens to indie music. He has a blog, too, but uses it to hone his writing skills rather than indulge in selfish pleasures (and I envy him for it).

Josh and Alex are two of my neighbors. They, too, are extremely fantastic people.

Alex cooks as if he were born with a skillet in his hand. He probably was, since both his parents are cooks. I hear he's also been around the world and back. My factual knowledge of Alex ends there. Mostly he's just the guy I walk back from my brother's house with. We have fantastic drunken conversations and usually eat some kind of excellent food. He and Josh are both mind-bogglingly active people. Every day there is a new soccer/basketball game to be had, another bike ride to go on, caves to explore and walls to climb and I don't even know what else they do. Alex claims he'll show me these Mt. Baker hot springs, maybe even invite me along on one of those crazy excursions to the bat caves, but until then I'm satisfied with being drunken party friends.

Josh is a vegetarian hip hop artist. Actually, everyone in that house across the street are up-and-coming hip hop artists. They have a myspace page, even. Josh is a hat model about to break into the big-time modeling world. He juggles and wants to learn to knit (though from what I've seen, his juggling coordination skills don't help the fact that he's a boy, and boys have big clumsy hands that don't knit very well. Oh well. He'll get better.) Josh accompanied me on a grocery shopping trip last night. I figure he'll be my new best friend.

Then there's Sharron. I met Sharron in our American Lit class last year. We rode the shuttle together and shared a mild curiosity in our professor's sexuality. I don't think Sharron and I will ever be close, but that's okay. She's slightly crazy and so am I; that's enough. Every couple weeks she says I should join the water polo team, but I'm resisting admirably. These days I like to watch Lost at her place on Wednesdays and watch her surf the internet after class on T/R.

Brent is my only Bellingham relative left. He's my older brother by about 3 years and I'm hard pressed to think of any flaw in his personality. He is sincere, patient, honest, and intelligent. I've heard some people say he's an asshole. That's because he doesn't put up with willful ignorance. To enjoy life is one thing; to not consider how our actions might effect us later is another. Brent is a pool shark. Don't play against him unless you are, too. Brent always has a goofy look on his face, but it's deceiving. He understands more about people and what motivates them better than anyone else I know. Also, he doesn't like being teased. At all.

I'm done writing about people now. I think I'll take a nap.