My Friends are Bruce Lees

This is a view out one of my windows. It’s a gorgeous day here in the Shire. Weather is sunny with scattered cumulous clouds, 66 degrees. And, wait… hold on! I think Julie Andrews spinning around on the top of a nearby mountain.
The sun’s been up since 4 a.m. (don’t think I’ll ever get used to how short the evenings are in the summer) and it isn’t going anywhere before 1-2 a.m. In fact, it’s been nice all week.

Wonder how long it will last.

Its days like this…cool, bright and so perfect; you’d have to work hard to break even a bead of sweat. These are the days I miss my friends the most. These fleeting, peony-sweet days when we should be running around having waterbomb fights while tipsy or arguing over which black exploitation film from the 70s should have been made into a musical. Or should Foxy Brown be made into a musical now? Should the actor who played Steve Urkel from Family Matters have a big role or a minor one?
Anyway...you get the point.

I don’t know about everyone else, but I am privileged to know some of the most amazing people and they call me friend. It doesn’t matter what’s going on; what I’ll say or do either. They are like family. These are my people.

“So, you really like gay male porn?”
I cheerfully answer, “Yeah, I do.”
“But you’re not a gay man. And most women don’t go for that kind of stuff either, Peggy.”
“I’m not most women.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
Pregnant silence.
Did I alienate them? Is it just too much for someone to hear? Did the joke go too far? Should I have kept that to myself? Shit. What was I thinking?

And what a relief to hear them laugh.
“Well, Peg, guess that’s just how you roll. Ok, whatever then!”

My friends truly accept and love me.
This blog’s whininess was brought to you today by my listening to Brit folk-ish band, Nizpoli. Their cult hit, “JCB” (the British brand name of a backhoe company), is about one of the band member’s memory of his father as his hero during those tough, bullied, early school years. It f-ing just breaks me down every time. It draws the kind of emotion that makes me want to hide in the bathroom, so noone (even if the house is empty) knows I’ve been crying.
Although this song is about a boy’s idolized thoughts for his father, it reminds me of my friends.

If I need my friends, they are always there.
Period.
Day.
Night.
It doesn’t matter.

Sometimes, it’s the little things--I just a need a drink or to have lunch with them. If they have to spend 3 hours straight convincing me that I do have something worth contributing to archaeology, they do it. Have done it. Hell, still do it!

When I wanted to have a “Thank God, I still have my Uterus Party” a few months ago, noone batted an eye over my theme! The night of, the house was packed with people ready to eat, drink, and dance in celebration that my surgery turned out ok.


Friends dancing the night away during my "Thank God, I Still Have My Uterus" Party

They are the people that spent the night with me to make sure I didn’t die of blood loss several months ago. They are the ones that flew across the country, or drove across town to take me to the hospital for emergency surgery at 5 a.m. When I was ill and needed medication but had no $, they got it for me.

They flew to Paris with me when I wanted go and didn’t have a boyfriend to take me. They fed me when I couldn’t feed myself. They are the ones to yell at me when I was getting in the way of a potential beautiful relationship. They’ve sat on rooftops with me, getting drunk and playing with my really badly made voodoo dolls of co-workers that sucked.

When I’ve been viciously attacked professors, and was told I’m “worthless”, I’ll never “amount to anything”, and told that I “have no real friends; they’re just too scared to stand up to you”, it was my friends to stay up night, eating greasy Chinese food and watch Diana Ross overact in “Mahogany” with me.
Why?
Well, cause if Diana’s lack of acting skills didn’t stop her, why should anything stop me?

And when that doesn’t work, they hit with the tough love, tell me to "stop the fucking crying and handle [my] business."

I gotta stop playing this damn Nizpoli song. It’s only making me miss them more.

Damn those lyrics: “And we’re holding up the bypass, me and my dad having a top laugh…
I’m sitting on the toolbox. And I’m so glad I’m not in school, boss, I’m glad I'm not in school.
I’m Luke. I’m 5. My dad’s Bruce Lee, he drives me ‘round in his JCB! I’m Luke. I’m 5. My dad’s Bruce Lee, he drives me ‘round in his JCB!”

And if the simple yet heartfelt lyrics and melody don’t get you, the ridiculously cute animated video, made as if it was drawn on lined schoolbook paper, will rip at you. There are no survivors.




Or maybe it just gets to me because I didn’t have that kind of a relationship with my folks, especially not with my father. It was quite the opposite.
But I do have that relationship with my friends.

All of them…they are all my Bruce Lees.

But hey, maybe I’m just pms-ing.