Life is an endless series of kicks in the ass.

It seems nary a week goes by (did I just the word "nary" ??) that there doesn't seem to be something that makes you stop and think:

"It's just not supposed to make sense is it ?"

Exchanging emails with you today - I felt a subtle deflation of some of the idea's I had breathed air into.

Then I had a conversation with a close friend (Tp).

We had met three years ago at Crowbar- he didn't know me yet, but knew Lucky from the gym. He obviously had a crush and didn't realize when he came up to give Lucky too friendly a hug. That he was next gonna meet me - the boyfriend. I was quick to move to protective boyfriend mode and I'm gonna bash your head in if you lay a paw on him again buddy veneer. He spent the night - not approaching Lucky, but approaching me. Apologetic, and respectful of how much I cared for my boyfriend. A week later - I let him work in on a couple chest sets with me at the gym. We talked : about film (Lynch, Almodovar, Besson, Cronenberg), we talked about art and poetry, architecture and form, we talked about advertising and design, sports and enthusiasms - we talked. He was several years younger and so amazingly unique. Almost ashamed to be attractive he hid behind a shaved head and black framed glasses. He exuded eccentricity and charm in a single breath. In short we became friends - and mutual admirers. In the end - my boyfriend made it clear that the boy who used to have a crush on him - had become too uncomfortably fond of me for his tastes.

Slowly I pushed Tp out of my circle and distanced myself from him - and lost him pretty much altogether. So for the past year there have been a few uncomfortable hello's at parties - Lucky staring him down, me shuffling me feet. I handled this wrong, but we do that - sometimes the one's we brag about we handle effortlessly, and then there are the other ones - we just let slip away. So Sunday night I run into Tp - me giddy and drunk and flirting and having a blast (repeatedly using conjunctions) with my friends and I smack right into Tp. The thing about true friendship - even when it's be severed, soiled or stalled - if it's real, you still know how to read each other. Tp - a huge outdoor enthusiast had been rock climbing the day before with 3 others when his rock-climbing partner had fallen 100 feet. He was in a coma. Everything brushed off of us - any hurt, any confusion - and I held him in the middle of the bar as other patrons shuffled around us - he crying in my arms. Monday, Tp called - they had declared his friend brain dead - he told me he needed me, how much it meant to him that I had been there at that exact moment that he needed me. Tuesday, they pulled the plug. He was only 29. Tonight after the gym Tp and I are going to talk, and though it doesn't need to be said I'm going to apologize that I let him down.

And I think I'll reflect on how much I've lived between 29 and 33, and no matter how rough some of the parts were and how great some of the others were - I lived them.

Life's such a kick in the ass.