An Introspective

One of my new favorite songs is "We Used to be Friends" by The Dandy Warhols. I wanted to put up a video of the song here, but I don't have the time to figure out how to load a video (especially one I don't own), so if you really want to hear this song (and see a corny video), click the link below. Wait! A word of warning before you click. If you watch this video and you decide the music's pretty good, you might be tempted to watch other videos by The Dandy Warhols. The video called Bohemian Like You (uncensored) really is UNCENSORED. You might want to avoid this one. Okay now you can click here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NgrRRNwj7mU

Anyway, the lyrics to this song say, "A long time ago, we used to be friends, but I haven't thought of you lately at all." This has gotten me to thinking about some people I haven't thought of for a long time.

There's Claudette, who was my best friend from about first to fifth grade. It was with Claudette that I finally learned to ride a bike. My dad had tried and tried to get me to learn to ride, but he was pretty scary when he was frustrated, so I couldn't learn from him. One day I just hopped onto one of Claudette's bikes (as I recall it was a huge, yellow 10-speed) and we rode and rode. I didn't ever want to stop. She got tired of me going around and around the block and went home. Claudette and I departed ways when I came out of my shy shell and she didn't. Claudette was so shy that she would be embarrassed if I clapped at a basketball game. As long as I knew her, she remained incredibly shy. I wonder how she's functioning as an adult.


And I haven't thought about Anna for a long time. I hung out with Anna in the fifth and sixth grades. But only at school. See, Anna came from a different family. A family outsiders weren't allowed into. Anna came from a polygamist home on Buckhorn Flats. I never went to her house. She never came to mine. After sixth grade Anna quit coming to school. I guess she'd gotten to that age where she had to get married and start a family. The next time I saw Anna was in the tenth grade. She had three little kids with her. Sad.

Then there's Chris. I met Chris during my junior year of high school while working at KMart. He was the sexiest thing I had ever seen. We dated for about a year. Then he told me that he loved me. What do you suppose I said? Was it something nice like, "I love you, too" or "Really, I'm so happy"? No. What I said was, "No, you don't." It pretty much ended our relationship. Which was probably a good thing. Our relationship was totally based on physical attraction and it wouldn't have been good for us to stay together. Chris was the kind of guy who was not shy about letting me know how unhappy he was if he thought I had gained one pound or didn't look just perfect. I don't need that kind of guy in my life.

I'm sure there's more people who I could write about, but, well, I haven't thought of them lately at all.