Damn, doods. I just saw one of my oldest friends, Rob. I met him in my hometown in Illinois my junior year of high school, and he was one of the only interesting people around. We both came to Seattle within a week of each other in ’95 and now he’s leaving for California, which I think is a great idea for him and his fiancee.

Pictures of Bonni and Rob on one of their epic trips, taken by each other, of course.

He really surprised me today. He has a tattoo now on his ring finger, after years of swearing he’d never get one. But it is for romantic reasons, and I think that’s pretty cool. I have only met his fiancee a couple of times, but those two really seem awesome together. They have a myspace together, which kills me with punk-rock adorableness. Their song on their myspace is the theme from The Dark Crystal. I can’t stand it.

He says they’re getting married around Easter-time which is another thing I never thought Rob would do. I can’t wait to see that. So he’ll be in Oakland soon, and I’ll be in San Jose for Blogher, but I doubt we’ll be able to hook up. He agreed to design my next tattoo for me, which is fabulous, because he’s an amazing artist.

I think I did sort of a half-assed job of apologizing to him for losing touch with him when I lived in Phoenix for three years. Rob and I were really close when I left, but living on top of thousands of dollars of cash and drugs when I was first married really screwed me up. SeaFed told me about his line of work shortly before we got married, and I thought I could handle it, but I really shouldn’t have moved into a drug house when I was eighteen.

So I told Rob today that I was pretty much agoraphobic for the first year I lived there. After we moved away and I got out of that house I was very happy, but I also locked up. I only left the house to go to school, and I didn’t really talk to anyone when I was there. I froze up if anyone knocked on the door or if the telephone rang. I could not answer the phone at all and would turn the ringer off for days at a time. For a while I didn’t want to have a phone at all.

I’m sorry I lost that time I could have kept in touch with him. And then when I moved back to Seattle I had Franny, and he was building up his band, so we had opposing lifestyles. But I think we’ve done as well as we can. We check in every couple of months. He’s one of the few ties I have to my past.

In Other News: Writing Because I Can’t Stop Writing

Also, it’s worth noting, or something, that my blog has been back now for one year as of the fifteenth, and I missed it. Ah, well. I’ve never been the sentimental type anyway. I think I will have to do a special five-year anniversary week in September, though. Even if this blog has had some service interruptions throughout its sordid history, it has lived in my mind, at least, for all five years.