Last night one of my very oldest friends came over for dinner.

Steve and I have been friends since he walked into Saint Mary Nativity as a sixth grader, immediately raising the number of Cute Boys at our school to five. I do not remember how we met or why - he was a year behind me - though I think it had something to do with him and Aaron Bertolotti being the only two boys in the whole joint to 1) Wear vests, just like the boys in NKOTB and 2) dance with us. And Steve really knew how to dance, and wasn't embarrassed to do so, even as The New Kid, plus he really liked Janet Jackson.

And I mean really liked Janet Jackson. I believe Steve was describing Janet Jackson as "fierce" before anyone was using the term as such and before any of us realized that Steve was gay. Steve says he was pretty certain of that fact, but it's not like you can have that conversation with your fellow junior-high classmates who were still referring to everything as "gay" with no one chastising them for it.

Steve and I get together probably about twice a year, though we text and email frequently. Our evenings are always filled with fantastic conversations, the kinds you tend to have with people you only see for about ten hours total in a calendar year. There also is wine. We enjoy wine. After dinner, and the rain finally came down hard enough to get us to leave our spots outside on the patio, we went into the house to check something on my computer, an old picture capturing me looking nothing as I do now. And it's only through the kind eyes of an old friend do you really understand how much those things don't matter, how much they really, truly, never noticed the transformation, mostly because they never really felt one was necessary in the first place.

"I always notice your hair," he said. "When your hair looks good, I know you're doing OK."

"That makes a lot of sense. I am doing really well right now. Better than I have in a long time."

"Yeah, love the hair right now. Love it."

I did a quick check of my email to find a very long email from my agent, with the first draft of the proposal for my next book attached to it. I've been dicking around and struggling with this thing for months now, despite having lined up some amazing women to contribute to it, despite having a very passionate vision for the book.

"Are you doing another book," Steve asked.

"Hopefully. Yeah." I kept reading.

In one section of the email, my agent mentioned that while she liked what she read, she was hoping for something more "confessional" and "honest." Like how the essays in Tales were, she said.

"I have to be honest," Steve said, reading over my shoulder. "I haven't been into your blog as much since you stopped writing like you used to. You used to be so open."

I went into this diatribe about how I got sick of dealing with people who seemed to live to bellyache and discuss my life choices in detail, the kind of people who dug through my archives to use previous posts to throw my divorce in my face, people who expressed desires to throw drinks in my face. I took down the comments, I told Steve, because I just couldn't take it anymore and I was tired.

"Being open didn't seem worth it anymore. I didn't feel like sharing my life with a bunch of strangers who turned out to be huge jerks."

Steve sighed. "I just liked it better." He smiled, he hugged me, we talked some more, he went home.

Posted by Erin at 09:44 AM | filed under: Odds and ends