No News is Good News?

Sometimes I don't return calls. I pick up the phone, and go through the motions mentally. I have a rough skeleton of the entire conversation so, I yawn and rewatch a rerun of South Park.

Relationships, friendships plateau off endlessly because of time and space. Too much time spent together, or too little. Too much space in between me and her, or too little. Nothing to talk about, too much to talk about.

"We finish..."
"...each other's sentences!"
and that's why we clicked.
"I want to make friendship with you," I said, and we laughed and laughed and laughed until our sides hurt. But, in my defense, even a standup artist can be redundant in his acts. The jokes become predictable. I become predictable. The habits are cute, but the conversation isn't.

Soon, our friendships thrive on other lives. Pregnancy, divorces, secret boyfriends, births, accidents, rumors. Something new, something borrowed, something blue....

Now, I pick up the phone and go through the motions physically. Discuss, analyze, judge, agree, reconnect--reset.

Things must happen, information must be amassed to patch our lines. Otherwise, we are left reading about Sachin Tendulkar's broken toe for over a month in the headlines.

Strangely and maybe even rightly so, by general consensus the best of our very best bffs are the ones on that plateau with us. The 'I can be quiet when I'm with you, I can be myself' kinda buddies. The bored and boring kinda buddies.

The only way that I know of to fix this, is by careful manipulation of time and space. We meet after so long and yet, it's like we were never apart. How have you been? This was so much fun, listen, let's keep in touch this time...yes, yes, let's.