Another righteously cold day

Today is another cold day in the short string of freezing weather we've had up here in Seattle. For some of us, that's not such a bad thing, but for others it can be a real drag. For instance, I love this weather. I live near downtown Seattle, so anything I need is within a relatively short distance from my house, including my school. I actually enjoy the snow, probably because I don't have to drive in it, for I take the bus damn near everywhere I go.

However, I have two friends in particular that it's pretty much the opposite for. One is Sabrina. As I have mentioned in a previous post, she lives pretty far up north. This led to a pretty nasty situation a couple of nights ago. When she was on her way home, she discovered that every road that leads to her house was closed off. The poor girl actually had to drive all the way back to Seattle and find a place to stay with one of her friends. She even left from school early today because there's supposed to be another storm rolling in this evening, just to make sure she made it home before she got snowed "out," as it were. I feel really bad for the gal. I ended up offering her my couch as a definite place she could stay if that happened to her again.

The second person is my friend Jill. She lives down south, but she doesn't have to go to school. She's actually a massage therapist. She is suffering from the exact opposite. She's somewhat snowed in. Not in the traditional sense, but she just bought herself a snazzy new car and she doesn't want to take it out on the icy roads and risk ending up in a ditch somewhere. See, she lives way out in the middle of BFE, where the plows don't go, nothing. So if she wants to go somewhere, she has to brave horrible roads. I called her up about an hour ago to see how she was doing and she is hating the fact that she is pretty much stuck in her house. She can't go to the store, can't go to work, etc. She's just going stir crazy in her own home. Poor Jilly.

For some reason a little friendship thing just popped into my head. A while ago I watched a special on the Real World where one of the guys was talking about another guy, explaining why they cannot be friends. It's something that hit home with me and something that I keep in mind when I'm meeting new friends. In order to be a close friend of mine, you have to satisfy three different trusts. First, I have to trust you with my property. I have to be comfortable enough with you that I could leave you the key to my house without worrying about you. Second, I have to trust you with my words. I have to be comfortable knowing that what I say to you will be kept with you, that you won't rumor me out to someone else. That's actually a pretty big one to me. I tend to truly open up only to really close friends. And, lastly, I have to trust you with my love. That one is kind of twofold, though. The first meaning, and probably the obvious one, is that I have to be able to actually love you. Not in the physical sense or anything like that, but the pure love sense. I have to know that my caring for you won't be taken advantage of and that the love will be accepted unconditionally, as it will be given unconditionally. The second part of that, the not-so-obvious part, is I have to trust you with others that I love. I have to be comfortable in the fact that I can leave you alone with any other person I care for and know that you would be respectful and kind. Maybe those are a little too much to ask of some people. And, sadly, if they are, then that person and I probably won't be anything more than an acquaintance. Yes, those things mean that much to me.

I'm going to get going now. Dinner is calling. Hope you all have a great evening!