h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks to everyone who provided some much-needed moral support last week when I was in a foul mood.

K and I went to the DIY store yesterday and picked up a new faucet and some water supply lines, as well as some channel locks and putty. K's buddy is coming by this evening to pull the old faucet and lines out, and between the three of us we'll have the new one in this evening, I imagine. Since turning the shutoff valves back on results in the old faucet base spraying us with water, the plumber we spoke with last week assures us that once the new faucet is in, we'll be all good to go.

Meanwhile, something else happened last week. Backpedalling a bit... several months ago, I finally allowed myself to be talked into setting up a Facebook account. So now I use MySpace just for band related stuff, and Facebook for mucking about with both RL and internet friends.

An old high school classmate sent me a friend request, and I accepted. I've no desire to become buddy-buddy with every single person I attended school with, but he was a nice enough guy and we were casually acquianted, so I figured this wouldn't turn into a high-maintenance thing. It looks like he's added everyone from the neighborhood regardless of who was friends with who at the time, which is kind of nice.

Well, lo and behold, I notice that among his friends is my dearest and most special friend from high school. She's a year older than me and graduated a year before I did. Unfortunately, her mom passed away soon after, and she joined the army right away. Well, long story short, I sent her a friend request, and now we are back in touch after 20 years.

And now I am going to have lunch!

Hurrah for all of that, especially the bit about lunch.

I'm wondering if there's anyone I knew 20 years ago who I'd actually, truly like to resume contact with. I'm not sure that I'm the same person. They're probably not either. H'mmm. The prospect alarms me. But that's just me... Other people are probably less perplexed by such issues.

I don't think I've changed all that much. My old friend appears to have changed quite a bit- but not necessarily for the worse.

There are three old friends I've frequently wondered about over the years, and she's one of them, and the one I most wished I could hear from sometime. So I'm glad I've had the opportunity to catch up.

Still haven't had lunch yet- I keep getting interrupted with interruptions that aren't really interruptions, but enough so to prevent me eating my actual lunch.

"old" school friends can be tricky to handle.

Just a few blocks from here lives a woman I some thirty years ago went to high school with. During the last year we were in the same class, a rather small one, and her dorm was adjacent to mine so we spent some time together then. After high school she moved back to the town where both of us live now, I moved there some ten years later. We kept contact on and off over the years and she shows up unexpectedly a couple of times a year. We haven't got anything in common anymore and I just feel uncomfortable.

My old friend lives quite a ways away, and hasn't been back to the Chicago area more than a couple times in all those years, so the odds are good we won't be spending much time in person. It's that tricky bit that made me leery of "friending" anyone from school on Facebook at all. I'm not all that keen on small talk, and I'm not even all that good at keeping in contact with friends I have in my life at the present (not for lack of desire, just too busy!).

At least for this person I have enough of that deep caring left to renew at least a casual friendship by email or what have you, if only to make up for being so bad at keeping in touch when I should have. We may never be as close as we were then, but I'm glad to know she is doing really well, has a happy and healthy family, and all that kind of thing.

It's kind of weird, though. Not uncomfortable weird, at least not at this point. But weird.

Thank goodness, though, for the internet.

Yes, the interweb can be fabulous for finding people.

I recently by pure coincidence found an old ......acquaintance on a cultural website. We haven't seen each other for thirty years or so, but he looked about the same - just more of him and less hair. We were very good friends and sometimes over the years I have pondered about finding him again.

If he still is married to the same woman I'd might not bother to reconnect. She had a little hard to cope with his close female friends.

>>I'm wondering if there's anyone I knew 20 years ago who I'd actually, truly like to resume contact with.<<

I would. I asked the man of my dreams to marry me 20 years ago and he said "No, certainly not!"

We were both 5. He was my best friend all through kindergarten. Turned into a chess geek now, but still kind of cute, judging by the pictures I found online

Oh, and I'm glad of your good news, of course, PC!

Had to leave my kitchen sink in the old flat because we found out there are no individual shutoff valves, just one for the whole house! Good luck getting your new faucet installed.

It's half done now. The old faucet and sprayer are out. The new sprayer is in. The supply leads I bought have the right side connections, but the things on the shutoff valves are compression fittings, so K and his buddy went to the DIY shop to exchange the 16" lines I bought for 20"+. They're flexible, so any size more than 19" will do.

This faucet is nicer- lower profile, if you know what I mean?

Oh- and the spout tilts a bit higher, which will be appreciated when filling various stock pots and tea kettles.

Sounds good!

oooh, progress! Must do some diy this weekend. No really, I must. Prob won't do as much as I need to though!

Ivan
"I'm wondering if there's anyone I knew 20 years ago who I'd actually, truly like to resume contact with. I'm not sure that I'm the same person. They're probably not either. H'mmm. The prospect alarms me. But that's just me... Other people are probably less perplexed by such issues."

I feel exactly the same. Then again I was never any good at the whole social thing.

I'm reasonably good at the social thing, but if I haven't bothered to do the social thing with certain individuals for a couple of decades there's probably a reason for it apart from laziness.

Well my external drain's blocked again.

There is good reason why I've not bothered contacting numerous people over the years, too. Generally it's because either we weren't all that close to begin with and have just merrily gone on our separate ways, or else the person acted like a at some point and I purposely quit dealing with them.

I'm sorry your drain's blocked again, Ed. What keeps blocking it, sludge or something? How annoying.

Kitchen sink is fully functional once again- better than before. No leaks!

'Sludge' is probably putting it politely.

Ah... a ginormous wad of shit, then?

Y'know, I think your bid for front page Qoute of The Day is not going to work pc

Well a man's been and stuck his long hose into our pipes and blasted out the wad of shit. He says there may be a bit of something stuck there, though.

The important thing is the toilet flushes now and the water goes where it's supposed to?

Ictoan, I'm sure that sooner or later I'll inadvertently say something amusing enough to warrant Quote of the Day, but hopefully it won't be a posting about poo!

My next bit of DIY derring-do will be to attempt to tighten a leaky bathtub tap. I'd like to get it tight enough to stop the constant drip; even better would be if it were tight enough that I could shut it all the way off using my feet, rather than having to go to the extra trouble of reaching the taps with my hands.