Pre­vi­ously on our pro­gram, I dis­cussed a close friend, lost five years ago. When I was writ­ing that post, I had my friends in gen­eral on my mind. Liv­ing where I do, I haven’t got a social life out­side of work. OK, yes, I pop into the city once, per­haps twice a month and see a cou­ple peo­ple, but that’s it. When I was in Rochester, I went out with friends a few times a month at most. So why am I now giv­ing a damn? One might say it is because it is one thing to have an option to see friends and choose not to do so, but it is another thing not to have much of a choice as to whether or not one sees friends. That per­son would be right, but that’s not the meat of it. I think I have per­formed my trade­mark uncon­scious stress­ing over changes in my fam­ily struc­ture and per­formed my trade­mark obliv­i­ous­ness towards how I feel on a day-to-day basis. Dammit: I have really loved con­vers­ing with, spend­ing time with, and just feel­ing the warmth from my friends over the past 18 months.

I don’t think Chris knew just how much I loved spend­ing time with him. No, I won’t beat myself up over the missed chances to tell him so. So I think I’ll now make Novem­ber 4th the Bizza Memo­r­ial Trib­ute to My Friends. A guy as hon­est and kind as he, it makes sense.

I am afraid that I will step on a few toes with the fol­low­ing action: I’m going to tell a bunch of peo­ple how they’ve been won­der­ful in my life lately. I sus­pect some peo­ple will feel offended if they’re excluded. Well, er, I am sorry — if we’re still friends, then I obvi­ously like you. If you know me, you know I have lit­tle tol­er­ances for wankers. I wouldn’t keep you around if you didn’t mean some­thing to me. It’s just that…well…some peo­ple I really have to give them applause. It’s noth­ing per­sonal to you. Con­sider this an Oscar speech where you shouldn’t be offended by falling under the “and every­one else who means a lot to me” head­ing. I hope you understand…I assume you do, you’re smart enough for me to be friends with. ;) On that note, and in the order in which you all come to mind, let the pub­lic dis­plays of affec­tion com­mence. I love you all:

Peter Car­bonaro, J. Chris­t­ian Guer­rero, and Shawn Rah­man: of course it is fit­ting to thank the League as one, even though you are all seri­ous fuck­ing indi­vid­u­als. No fool­ing here that I look up to all of you as the cool older broth­ers I never had, and I always feel blessed to be in your pres­ence. You raise my game. May the classy-assed hijinks con­tinue through­out the years. Thanks to you all for hav­ing kids as well, because you give me hope for the future.

Noah Stu­pak: miss me now, don’t you, you fool? Ya shoulda never moved out. Oh, er…

Melissa Far­nand: …I’m glad Noah moved in with you. Always won­der­ful to drop by for din­ner and a movie, even though Lola hated me. I think.

Bran­don Snavely: a week in PA was really per­fect for us, eh? We both we say­ing good­bye (which was tougher than I fig­ured), and hang­ing with your par­ents is always decent. I feel I sorted a lot out talk­ing to you under the mete­orites that night.

Jes­sica Rider: nobody ever tried harder to get me out in pub­lic and meet new peo­ple. It was an utterly thank­less task you took upon your­self, but it has done me good and I just never knew how to be grate­ful (or grace­fully decline). I am very glad you cor­nered me before Edline’s class three years ago, and I am more glad you weren’t offended by my sour face.

Daniel Pon­tillo: thanks for help­ing keep me sane through my last year of RIT when I just wanted to split and get my fuck­ing life in gear. It was brief, but we’ll always have Boris and Antichrist (nobody else wants ‘em, probably).

Dave Loehlin and Genevieve Waller: thanks for being one of the odd­est bits of domes­tic­ity I had in Rochester. Duden, Bog­gle, and kale was always a good time.

Judy Margo: I am very glad your mother raised you to be a sen­si­tive per­son, and your tol­er­ance and desire to under­stand are unpar­al­leled. Thanks for lis­ten­ing to my wack­i­est ideas in their most unfin­ished states and help­ing me to see what I was thinking.

Niall Munnelly: I am glad you are here, happy, and forth­right. You’re a fuck­ing good egg, and I can’t see how someone’s life would not be improved with you on their side. Thanks for help­ing me out here out here.

Cristina Stoll: why the hell are you so easy to talk to? Seri­ously, I was drag­ging out crap I rarely tell any­one about in your pres­ence, and very quickly. Oh, Deutsches Voodoo auß New Orleans…? Macht’s kein prob­lem. I hope some­day to repay you, at least for the crash space.

Keren Flesh­ler: as if it wasn’t enough that we met after I left NYC, did you have to rub it in by mov­ing two blocks over from my old place? Fid­dle­sticks. Thanks for being so tol­er­ant and gen­er­ous. You were the per­fect per­son to go see a-ha with.

Kristin Brum­bach: thanks for open­ing the door, and also for giv­ing me time with a kid that was awk­ward in how decent it was. I’m happy you’re one of my repro­duc­ing friends.

(last but far­thest from least)

Yoli: no list of grat­i­tude and love for the good peo­ple in my life is com­plete with­out you. No list of good peo­ple in my life is com­plete with­out you. No life of mine is com­plete with­out you. I’ve tried time and time again to put into words all you’ve done and do for me, and, even if I talk for hours, I never come close to all that could be said. Many things between us are, per­haps, bet­ter left unsaid…words just don’t cut it.

no alco­hol was involved in the writ­ing of this post