Keep in touch with old friends and make new friends

I normally avoid answering phone calls, but today I spent at least an hour catching up with my friend Jessica, a truly amazing person. I also called my literacy tutoring guy and asked him how his tests went, and spent some time on facebook leaving messages for people that I haven’t talked to in a long time. It’s not the same as a phone call, letter, or face to face conversation, but it’s something.

I found my cousin from NS on facebook and sent him a message. He wrote back right away. I know that I love my family in Nova Scotia, but I forgot how happy it makes me to hear from them.

... with the exception of talking to my friend Jessica who is living across the country, so it can’t be avoided. This week I actually initiated 2 phone calls to old friends. I even enjoyed them, sort of. I also made another horse-obsessed friend. She’s going to adopt our retired race horse, and while getting to know him, she’s kind of become a fixture at the barn. It’s good to have her there, because she’s fun… and at some point I’ll get tired of her bullying me into riding and will actually learn how to do something other than shovel manure, clean harnesses, and bandage legs.

I really miss having some female friends at the racetrack, like I did when I lived in Canada. I’m not sure if it’s because everyone is broke around here and in a terrible humor, or because the track is 100 years behind normal society when it comes to gender roles… for women, you basically are who you hook up with and unfortunately there aren’t very many attractive (let’s be honest, even bathed) males to go around… but the end result is that the women my age are vicious. However, there’s a very laid-back, hard-working, no-bullshit kind of girl named Ann that works at the track, and she offered to teach me to ride and help me jog if she starts working at Sam’s. Neither of us have proper riding horses, just some trotters that we hope won’t mind terribly… but it’s a start.