Superficial.

Bougie Souliterre's "Superficial."

Naked Music's Nude Dimensions (Vol.'s 1 and 2 trump the 3rd, by far) series was the soundtrack to quite a bit of my earlier life.  This song fits me perfectly.

I once, when living in North Beach, asked someone I'd known for about seven years what he liked about living in the area.  He liked, he explained to me, being able to walk down the street and see forty people he knew.  He liked being able to walk into the local cafe and have his order started without being able to ask for it.  He liked the fact that everyone knew his name.  He liked, he said, the "illusion of having all of these friends."

"Walter," I asked, "does it bother you at all that you're talking about the illusion of friendship?"

"No," he said, "at least I'm smart enough to realise that these people really aren't my friends."

"Tell me, Walter," I said, "Are we friends or is that just an illusion?"

He was pretty mad that I would ask the question.  I'm not sure I've bumped into or talked to Walter since that conversation.  I doubt that Walter and I would end up having a conversation if we didn't bump into each other.  I'm not sure there's a conversation that sums my time in North Beach better.  (Though there might be a couple of close contenders.)

The illusion of friendship?  Not so much.  Don't really need it.  Doesn't do much for me.  Didn't feed me when I was broke.  Never offered me solace when I was in grief.

Superficial?  Can't say I really have much time for you.  I'm not big on superficial.  I'd much prefer deep.

Deep house.  Deep conversation.  Deep Friendship.  Deep love.  If I'm in the hand, odds are I'm looking for a piece of the board that's large enough to take down the whole pot.

I was talking to an acquaintance about some of this.  We were discussing books and literary theory.  She's been diagnosed with one of the anti-social personality disorders, if I recall correctly.  She's actually an extremely personable person.  She just doesn't do much with phatic communication.  She doesn't see much point.  Want to talk about the weather?  Might as well go somewhere else.  If you want to have a meaningful conversation, though, she's a wonderful person to talk to.  Engage her on a level that scratches the surface and delves into something deeper than social niceties and there's a beautiful mind to connect with. 

Superficial, though?

Not so much.

Gratitude.

I was talking to a friend of mine recently.  She'd been going through some rough times. Has struggled quite a bit for the past few years.  Has struggled quite a bit over many years.  She'd been out of work on disability for about a year as she struggled with some health issues relating to anxiety and depression and was having trouble making ends meet.

Her mother suggested that she come try to contact her father and ask for some help.  J. hadn't spoken to her father in about a decade.  He'd never been around much at all.  Left when she was four or five, I think.

She'd eventually given him a call.  Or he called her.  I forget how it went down, exactly.  Her mother put her in touch with her father.

He asked how she'd been.  When she started telling him, he asked her about her faith in God.  He expressed some surprise that she didn't believe in God and started telling her about the importance of faith.  I think this irked her a bit.  He also expressed some surprise that she'd been dealing with depression and anxiety issues.

"I guess if I'd called at some point," he said...

I think he ended up sending her a check for a hundred dollars.

I'd been talking to her mother about it a few months after.  Her mother thought that she was being most ungracious in accepting his help.  "She has to realise that he's trying," she said.

J. thinks that $100 is a pretty shitty take for 26 years.  I pretty much have to agree with her.

A lot of what people expect others to express gratitude for strikes me as behavior that's so baseline (or even so far below the baseline) that to expect to be thanked for it seems to be kind of nuts. 

Trying? Gratitude?  That's laughable.

A Playlist.

An acquaintance recently asked for some music suggestions.  Rather than throw up a track or two, I decided to play around a bit and throw together a full mix.  It's definitely not a complete success.  The site that I put it together on didn't have everything that I wanted to get on there.  It's a bit heavy on covers.  And it moves rather abruptly at times.  But I'll throw it out there anyway...

Here's a good chunk of what I'm listening to.

Anyone up for throwing up a playlist in response?