Good Company | Stories and photos about your best friends and how they've been there for you

Things Good Friends Do

So I turned 40 a few years ago and while I wasn't exactly freaking out about it (turning any age is a privildge, if you think about it, it means you aren't dead) I also wanted to celebrate it with something positive that didn't involve those gray balloons and stupid over the hill and fart jokes.So I asked my best friend of over a decade to help me organize a special weekend. We found a really weird all suite hotel near the Newark Airport that practically free during the weekends because it's primarily a business hotel. We rented two suites, one for guests and one for cooking and hanging out, and then invited our friends. Some people came for the weekend, some people came for just a few hours. We were looking for hotels with outdoor pools but apparently hotels around the Newark airport tend to to prefer indoor pools since the fumes from the airplanes make outdoor pools really hard to keep clean. At any rate, we swam in the indoor pool and hung our in the jacuzzi and played games and,if I remember correctly, one of my friends even made an arts and crafts room and we all did a bunch of semi spontaneous arts and crafts.

But one of the most amazing things my best friend did for me was take email all our friends (near and far) asking them the question “how has Kelli made the world a better place?” and then she printed out all the answers and pasted them into a blank book. I still look through it almost every day.

Good Friends Talk...About Everything

I recently went to a very loosely run support group after losing my second partner in a row to cancer; in 2007, my partner died of ovarian cancer, after a few years of healing I met and fell in love with what I was sure would be my “very long” partner. After two years together, she developed cancer and after nine months she died from side effects of the chemotherapy she was on.The facilitator or perhaps mediator of this (as I mentioned) very loosely run support group asked me what I wanted from the group. I had to think about it. When my first partner died, a specific bereavement group for LGBT people who had lost their partners was very helpful. After my second partner died, I tried the exact same kind of group. The people were amazing but I didn't finish out the group, it seemed like everyone was at Grief 101 when I was at graduate level bereavement. It was hard not take on the role of Wise Sad One. I hated it and stopped going halfway through the ten week group.

So I thought about why I was trying another group, this one less structured and open to anyone dealing with life threatening disease, caregiving or bereavement. I said to the facilitator “well I keep thinking of the ideal of aging in place, that people do best when they are able to continue their normal lives and their normal activities even as they get older, that with the proper supports people didn't have to go somewhere special to get old and die. That's what I want; I want to grieve in place. I want to talk with my friends about my partner naturally, and I want to find tools to do that.”

The facilitator smiled “well, grief is a language. Maybe we can help you find people who speak it.”

Cats Are Good Company Too

Historically, I am not much of a pet person. I kind of inherited a cat from my partner when she passed away, and so now I have a pet of my very own. I wouldn't say that this has turned me into a pet person, but I have found that Lulu (that's the cat's name, if it's not obvious) certainly adds a special kind of friendship to my life. Many people talk about that it's nice to have a pet because their pets “don't judge them” I am not entirely convinced of that. I am pretty sure Lulu is judging me. She doesn't seem to like it at all when I don't make the bed, and when I leave too much stuff on the bedroom floor, she seems to tiptoe through it with fairly obvious disdain. Even when I leave too much clean laundry around, if it's in her way, she definitely cops an attitude. And since she's a cat, everything is in her way, since she thinks she should have access to everything, all the time. It probably sounds like I am complaining about her, but there are some ways in which she is very good company.

For example, as I am attempting to fall asleep, she crawls onto my chest and starts purring so loudly I can feel it through the blankets. Not hear, mind you, actually feel. The problem with this is that I then feel compelled to pet her, and she is a very thick coated (part) Russian Blue. It's hilarious to watch the static electricity fly off of her, but she gets annoyed.

I Get By With a Little Help...

So I've been planning this show for a loooong time. And by long time I mean six months, maybe not non-stop but on and off the whole time. It's called Queer Bodies Queer Selves and it involves myself, two other comics, five community agencies, a half dozen volunteers. Oh and I'm bringing in a friend who is a nurse to take blood pressure and do blood sugars and a local agency is doing AIDS testing and my ex-boss is even coming because her kid is selling girl scout cookies and we're all trying to support the Girl Scouts these days. I've done press interviews and event listings and all sorts of crazy stuff to get the word out about the show. The show is scheduled for tomorrow.

The weather forecast is for snow.

I know I know it's January so I should have had a snow date in mind, but I can't imagine wrangling all these people again. So I started emailing all the participants asking “hey can we still be on” And then, my amazing, long-time pal Christopher Bartlett, who is the executive director of the William Way Community Center where the event is supposed to take place emails me and says he is committed to making sure the Center is open. No matter the weather. And Dan Horrigan says "I'll be there, I'm from Buffalo" and R. Eric Thomas says "I'm from Baltimore--we're trained to navigate inclement weather of all types so as not to slow down our constant murdering. So I'll be there too!" So great to have such tough friends!

Refrigerator Rights?

If you're struggling with your search for community, for good company in your life, I highly recommend Refrigerator Rights. I read it a number of years ago, and was surprised that it never made to it best seller status. I suspect that has to do more with the unwelcome message of the book than the quality of the writing.

The thesis of the book is (this is my paraphrase obviously) is that Americans are very very lonely people because we aren't geographically close to the folks we have the deepest ties. We have few people with whom we have what the author calls “refrigerator rights” that is, people with whom we are intimate enough to look in the refrigerator and help yourself without asking if it's okay or being offered first. The author's conclusion is that this is caused by gegraphical disbursement of families, usually for jobs.

It's an interesting conversation because I think of myself as a very connected person. I would say I have more friendships than I am able to manage, including some very intimate ones. But when I think about it, I don't actually have many folks in my immediate geographic area with whom I have refrigerator rights. I do have folks who have helped me through some of the hardest times in my life, and for whom (I hope) I have been equally as present. My friend, for example, who was bringing me dinner when I was sitting at the ICU bed of my partner who had cancer. She stayed with me while my partner died. How could this person have shared anything more intimate with me? Yet, I wouldn't go to her house and open the refrigerator without asking first. I live in New York City? Is this something about our scattered landscape and the fact that we don't visit with each other much in our homes, that public space is private space? I'd be interested in hearing from people who live in the suburbs about this as well.

Friendship in the Family

After my grandma's husband (aka "Tiny") died I went down to Florida and spent a week with my grandma, which was amazing, because my grandma treated me like a friend. I said "Hey Grandma, let's just do whatever you want to do."What she wanted to do was play Skipbo 12 hours a day.

She was glad for the competition, she said, because all the "old people" at the senior community facility where often went to play...well, they were "getting senile" and "always miss the best plays." At the time, my grandma was 96. She was still watching QVC like a fiend (QVC hosts are the televangelists of this generation of old people. The same money in exchange for allusion of community, but I respect that at least QVC is honest about their intentions) and cleaning her own apartment. And, of course, eating the same breakfast (a slice of toast with applesauce on it, cut into quarters) she had been eating for decades.

This was the year there were multiple hurricanes in Florida in one summer, and after the third one hit Daytona Beach, where my grandma was living, my grandma was a little tired of being without electricity by herself. She called my mom to suggest a hurricane party.

“It was really amazing” my mom explained later, “I realized she and I are friends.”

My mom and my mom's husband (aka The Colonel) picked her up headed over to their house; since the ice cream was melting in the freezer (no electricity, remember) my mom made them all big chocolate milkshakes for dinner. And then, a few hours later, with my mom holding her hand, my grandma died. No, not from eating a huge chocolate milkshake. Mostly from being 96. But, you know, if you have to die (and, well, we all do, eventually) it's nice to do it with a bellyful of chocolate milkshake - and holding the hand of a friend.

12 Pack of Green Friends

To say that I am a lover of Diet Mountain Dew is quite an understatement. I don't know what it is, what draws me to a substance of a bright green color not known in nature, but the pull is strong with me. It is an extremely tasty and refreshing caffeine delivery system, but it's hard to locate and must be consumed ice cold in order to be truly enjoyable. I travel quite a bit for my job and feel like I have, not a girl in every port, but a friend in every port. For example, during a recent week long trip to San Francisco I visited with my best friend from Bible College, with whom I have been friends 25 years, friends from my early years and then later years in Philadelphia, many friends from political organizing groups and still more mutual friends from a partner who passed away in 2007. I am a single forty three year old person after losing two consecutive partners to cancer (yup you read that right) but I am in no way alone. I feel so grateful for this and try to remind myself daily how unique and beautiful my chosen family is.

Perhaps most notable of all, I have a best friend of a number of years. She lives in Philly while I live in Brooklyn but we see each other frequently. We've had weird adventures over the years, never once dated (each other) although we say we we went directly to “ex” status, and have watched each other become adults. But I know I am home when I stop by her house because there is always a twelve pack of Diet Mountain Dew waiting for me.

Start a Club

Recently a few other homeschooling mothers and I decided to start a Spanish club. A couple of us speak Spanish (one is a native speaker), I lived in Spain for a semester in college and taught there, and all of us absolutely love the language and culture. The club will be for both ourselves as well as our kids, and we plan on exploring everything from authentic Spanish food to music, culture, and language.

If you’d like a bit more fun in your life, I would definitely suggest starting a group or club around something you care about. In the past year or so, my family has joined several clubs, from homeschooling to 4-H to monthly game nights to volunteering, and it has really enriched our lives. We look forward to all of these regular meetings with our friends and we really enjoy ourselves during the activities. If you want to start a club or group, here are a few helpful hints:

Focus on something you are interested in. You may not know a lot about chess, but if you want to start a chess club, that’s a good reason to do so.
Keep it cheap. Most of our groups are free, save for field trip costs per individual. Some require annual fees, but none are more than $19. You can save money by making meal events potlucks or bring-your-own-snack (or have one person sponsor snacks per meeting), having meetings at a free public place (such as the park) or members’ homes, and keeping it casual. Once you have leaders and people expecting to be paid to keep records, it can get complicated.
Ensure that everyone has a say. You obviously don’t have to have a democratic organization, but it wouldn’t hurt—and people might enjoy it more if they have a voice in what’s happening. You might, say, pick the day you’re meeting on since it’s your group and you have to plan it in your schedule, but allowing others to suggest other times or dates, or where to have the meeting, can be helpful.
Engage other people. Even if your philosophy isn’t the more the merrier, your club won’t be a club without other members! Invite people you know, or start a free Yahoo! Group for people to join. You can also try Meetup, though it does charge a fee. Try recruiting people at relevant locations, such as a dance studio for your musical club.

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