Bio 2: Dramatis Personae
May. 23rd, 2002 08:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueOkay, part two. This gives a quick summary of the important people in my life. I've tried to stay fairly contemporary with this, and also to hold to people who are in close physical proximity, (with exceptions for people who are far away but phone me once a week or write me reams of personal e-mail). I have also neccessarily excluded online friends, which is not an attempt to diminish their importance so much as the recognition that most of them already know each other.
For Mom, Dad, Arielle, and Pippin, see part one -- geneaology.
The Rasors
Uncle Rex -- my uncle, my mother's younger brother. First Dan in Judo, master hypnotist, stand-up comedian, photographer, banjo-player, wire-sculptor, storyteller, and an incredibly literate bookseller with a particular interest in Jungian psychology. Jack of all trades. He's the one who taught me how to build bookshelves and repair seams in walls -- and also how to walk into them convincingly. When I was a kid, he was a stay at home dad, and I spent almost as much time at his house as my own. He's depressive, and often comes off as cruel unless you're a member of his family; he carries a chip on his shoulder because he never finished college, but tends to be better educated than the people who did. His motto is "we are gypsies," and while he has a fairly Zen moral compass, he doesn't particularly trust the government or do the law more than lip-service (if that). I lived with him my senior year of high school and my junior year of college. I have dinner at his house most Sundays. I'm something of a therapist for the family.
Stretch -- my uncle's wife. They've only been married for a few months, but they lived together for five years before that. She's younger than he is. Her actual name is Lori, but we think "Stretch" is more accurate -- she's tall and skinny and tends to spread herself thin. For a more complete description of Stretch, see this entry. (Seriously. It's a great description.) There's a certain amount of tension between Stretch and the rest of the Rasors, because she feels like an outsider a lot of the time. This is not neccessarily a misperception on her part -- it is very hard to be accepted as a Rasor unless you always have been, and so she's often the butt of jokes. We do like her a lot, though.
Scarlett -- my cousin, two years younger than me. As kids, we often celebrated birthdays together -- Scarlett, Arielle, and me. She's a lot like Uncle Rex. Very beautiful, a dead-on character actress, a skilled artist, and a consumate entertainer, she is the brightest flame at any gathering. If you've seen Million Dollar Hotel, she's a lot like Milla Jojovich's character, except more lewd and outspoken. Throughout high school, she was a punk. Drinks, smokes, parties hard. She used to work at a toy store and a pet store, but now she's going to beauty school.
Max -- my other cousin. He just turned 14, but he's very small for his age. (Rasors tend to be small.) His nickname is Buster, as in Keaton. He's a slacker, class-clown screwup who lies a lot, but he's incredibly charming. Amateur magician, juggler, unicyclist, physical comedian, artist. He's a wire sculptor like Uncle Rex, but he's equally fascinated by origami, cork, and found objects -- he's like the guy in Blade Runner. For a long time, whenever I moved a piece of furniture I'd find a paper crane smaller than my pinky nail. He's very good at math, and studies science as it suits him -- which mostly has to do with pyrotechnics and robotics. He's known for doing things like taking apart his father's electric razor, but nobody can get angry with him because he builds some brilliant contraption with the cannibalized parts. He's my favorite person in the entire world -- and the feeling is mutual. He calls me "Rome."
It would be safe to say that we are the Marx Brothers. Uncle Rex is Groucho, Max is Harpo, Scarlett's Chico, I'm Zeppo, and Stretch is Margaret Dumont. That's the dynamic.
Aunt Caroline -- Uncle Rex's ex-wife. They got divorced when I was in middle school, because she decided she couldn't deal with him anymore and wanted somebody more normal. She kept the house, so the kids blamed Uncle Rex -- he was the one who left, you see, even with joint custody. Despite this, she and I still get along prety well. Other than her need to hold to social norms, (and kind of because of it,) she's a pretty awesome aunt. Throws tea parties and barbecues and things. She's a hairstylist, and owns her own salon. She's currently battling breast cancer.
Friends
Valancy -- Somewhere between wife, sister, caretaker, and, well, biographer: she looks after me. I've known her since birth, I am told, but I don't actually remember her before 6th grade, when her father bullied her into befriending me. (He and I are kind of buddies.) We know each other through the church, through Sunday School and sitting in the back pew passing notes. We weren't actually very close until senior year of high school, when I could drive, (because we lived about 20 minutes apart and she wasn't involved in youth or choir or anything). From what I understand, Val worked out a rather complicated plot to befriend my then-best-friend Thomas and use him to get to me. (They went to the same high school, and were both in marching band.) Never let it be said that she can't be devious when she wants to. We live together now.
Patrick -- My erstwhile squire. He's my best friend, which is not something I say lightly. (Val transcended that a long time ago.) There's actually a whole entry trying to describe him here. He lives about 40 minutes away from me -- he goes to the same college Val does. He's a year younger than I am, and two grades behind (I think), but he generally comes off as much younger or much older. We've only known each other for two years at this point. He's kind of hard to get a fix on, because tries too hard to make people like him -- I don't know how much he likes himself. I like him, obviously, because although he can be oblivious he can also be dead-on in his analyses when he isn't being bitter, and he's mind-bogglingly intelligent. He's beautiful when he thinks nobody is watching, and he does sweet things. I say it again: he is my best friend.
Kristina -- Kristina is probably my oldest friend -- or rather, the friend I've been friends with the longest. She's your basic diva femme. Bisexual, outspoken, masculine mindset and Marilyn-Monroe-feminine fashion sense. She's an opera singer and neuroscientist who goes to Brown University. We tend to go through the same things in our lives at around the same time. She's obsessed with flower fairies, astrology, exploitation films, gay culture, categorizing people, and being in control. I'm kind of her psychologist, or a cross between her psychologist and her Grand Vizir -- I get phone calls whenever there's drama she needs to cleverly resolve. Her family is kind of like nobility, but in the worst sense -- image and power and winning as everything. She and I spent much of our childhood either hiding out in the conservatory and inventing our own soap operas, or playing duets on her baby grand. (She was always primo, of course. ::laughs:: I do harmony.) She knows me damn well, maybe even as well as Val in some senses. A lot of people find her scarily intense.
Jamie -- My best friend in DC, and one of the few people that actually bothered to keep up with me. He's a writer and a comedian, and we met through theater -- he was Brutus in Romeo & Julius and I was kind of Juliet. (It's complicated.) Later, we were in the same improv troupe, and we often worked side-by-side as playwrites. We also co-directed a couple of things. Jamie is constantly on the prowl -- we coined the term "chase whore" to describe it -- and this tends to put people off. If you can get past that, he's very dependable, very intelligent, and very cultured -- he knows everything from art to bicycle maintenance. I tend to become lewder around him because, well, he's my guy friend. (To be fair, we also dress up in formal wear to get hamburgers and champagne, and I would not bat an eyelash before asking him to the opera, or the National Gallery.) He's also one of the people who's seen me cry; I crashed on his sofa a lot when things were really bad with Raine. He's also the one I tended to celebrate Jewish holidays with -- Purim, Passover, Roshashana, etc.. He's probably about to move to England, to study Creative Writing at one of the graduate schools there.
Tommx -- Tom, or![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tommx, is another good friend from DC. He's in his thirties, I guess, and works as a consultant with Oracle database systems. Before that, he was an opera singer; he still plays guitar supposedly (I've never heard him). He's a green belt (?) in Karate, knows everything you could ask about obscure art films, and takes great pleasure in gourmet food. I know him basically through extreme good luck -- Raine used to keep an online journal (still does, although I'm afraid I'm forbidden from linking to it,) and he happened to stumble upon it (it was hand-coded instead of on a blog-site, and he didn't really read journals that much, although obviously he does now,) and happened to strike up a friendship with her while the two of us were dating. Moreover, we all happened to live in the same city. He and I wound up closer than he and Raine -- jokes abound that we share a brain, and when I can't attribute an emotion or a physical ache to something that's happened to me, I tend to assume it's an echo of something that's going on with him. He is incredibly compassionate.
DeliaMavis-- Delia and Mavis have something like the link Val and I have, to the extent that they share a journal. Delia is a mother archetype, and the sort of person I can go cry to; Mavis is . . . kind of like a small, hyperactive tiger. They're obsessed with boy bands, which I have decided is charming. They're very Christian, and intend to be teachers, but they also enjoy dressing in shocking clothing, dying their hair unnatural colors, and writing real person slash. If I was picking roommates, it would be them.
The Richardson Boys
The Richardson Boys – As a group, they largely came together in elementary school, although some of them did not join until middle school or early high school. Initially, their link was somewhat founded on a love for RPGs and video games, and they still play together fairly frequently. At the same time, they regularly transcend those limits. I've already written several entries about them.
Patrick – see above. Sort of the patriarch of the group.
Merlin – The fact that I briefly tried to date Merlin should tell you something about how highly I esteem him. He is amazing – one of the kindest, most intelligent, most laid-back people I have ever met. He's the youngest of the Richardson Boys, one of those genius types who skipped ahead several grades, but I always forget that because there's something very old about him. It's as though he comes from another time entirely, as though he was meant to be a scientist/tinker in the 1940s and 50s. Although he tends to be quiet, he is a remarkable conversationalist and the first person I would invite to a dinner party. Whenever the Boys make home movies, they cast him as the evil villain – the kind in the tradition of Ming the Merciless. As I have said before, the best description I have found is to call him a cross between Jim Henson and Colonel Sanders, with a thorough background in early sci-fi. (Note to hpsrpg-ers: he's kind of like a male version of Smeg. Similar vibe.)
Chad – Over the course of about a month, Chad has managed to become one of my closest friends. As a result, I find it very difficult to describe him. He is highly poetic, and clearly in love with both the world and the English language. Despite this, he manages not to be pretentious. Perhaps this is because he is endlessly self-deprecating – and he means it; it's not just a device. (Partly as a result, he tends to be the butt of many of the Richardson Boys' jokes; Chad : Richardson Boys :: Stretch: Rasors.) By choice, he lives largely in a world of fantasy – reading, writing, movies, and computer games. He says that his definitive trait is apathy, which serves to make him very Zen. He's an author of speculative fiction, currently working on a novel, and he believes enough in The Dream that he dropped out of college so that he could write. He currently works at a convenience store to cover rent.
Will – Will is easily the most tempestuous of the Richardson Boys, rivaled in that respect only by Patrick. He's a greaser – works on old cars, slicks back his hair, wears rolled-up jeans, and plays bass in a punk band. He carries an edge of psychosis, fueled by extreme insecurity, which has supposedly gotten better now that he's taken up Tae Kwan Do. He carries grudges like nobody's business. He rants. Constantly. At the same time, he deeply loves the people he chooses to care about, and he is charismatic enough to light up a room. If he were a superhero, he would be The Batman. In short, he is Trouble with a capital T.
John – John sort of exists on a different plane than the rest of us. He is Patrick's best friend – practically Patrick's brother. He's very calm, very caring, and very self-assured. Girls are constantly trying to pick him up. I can't think of anything he's ever done that I've found objectionable; I can't imagine anyone not liking him. Even Will, who can complain about anything, has nothing bad to say about him, instead heaping on praise. He knows everything about comic books because his father is one of the premier collectors in the world; he's actually on speaking terms with people like Stan Lee and Neil Gaimon. He is a good enough soccer player that he tends to be on full scholarships. He has a pronounced affection for independent films.
Ciro – Ciro's status as a Richardson Boy is somewhat vague; he's been an outcast for about two years, but Chad has recently taken it upon himself to reintegrate him. (The two are best friends.) Ciro wants to study film, and talks about it constantly. He is very proud of his Italian heritage, which causes us to make a number of Mafia jokes. He's a bit of a bleeding heart, although I couldn't tell you what I mean by that. Although he tends to go on grand adventures, I always get the impression of fragility. I would bet money that he and Valancy will get along like a house on fire once they meet.
Ben – Ben used to be Patrick's roommate; he is currently dating Mavis. He frustrates me. A lot. At the same time, I like him. He has lead one of the most sheltered existences I have ever encountered, and he revels in this. He is your stereotypical white-bread suburbanite boy; his view of the world has not changed much since middle school. Although this is precisely the sort of thing I spend most of my life railing against, he is undeniably charming in his complete naievity. I generally want to hang out with him, but I generally want to beat him over the head. Cluelessness, thy name is Ben.
Dan – I don't know Dan well at all. It's my understanding that he's a stoner geek. I've met him once, maybe twice, and have not formed much of an impression.
Brian – I don't know Brian either. He is Merlin's best friend. He is smart, soft spoken, loving, and very Catholic – albeit with a sense of humor. I suspect that we would get along, based on our few interactions, but he lives far away and we would likely remain friendly acquaintances regardless of proximity.
Exes
Thomas -- Arguably my True Love and inarguably the bane of my fucking existence. We met through choir and became best friends in the way you think of Greek legends as best friends. We can go three years without talking, and people will still stop me on the street to ask me how he is -- and vice versa, I suspect. We were each very separate from the rest of the other's life, but also undeniably a unit. It's a difficult dynamic to describe. The other strange thing is that we never actually dated; although everyone thought of us as a couple, and we acted like a couple, he usually had a girlfriend, who I usually hated. (This sounds like jealousy but it actually has more to do with his being lousy at picking cool girlfriends. Val can verify this.) At the same time, we can't be just friends. His family still asks me to marry him. I have to pretend he's dead, even though I'm still friends with his sister, because otherwise it messes with my head too much. As for his personality . . . he was Aragorn, the wandering king. It makes watching or reading Lord of the Rings very bittersweet. He and I built pillow forts, invented live action rpgs, re-enacted Singing in the Rain, did Godzilla puppet shows, and ruled an imaginary empire together. In the years since we stopped talking, (which was actually his doing more than mine,) he became heavily involved in drugs, and is now the official "bad influence" of his town (where Val and Patrick go to college). You hear a lot of horror stories about him. I last saw him a year ago, and he was only himself in short flashes; otherwise, he's a bitter, steriotypical, angry-white-male misogynist drug-dealer who doesn't even remember me -- or he remembers Val as being me; I can't tell.
Raine -- Raine was the first person I met when I went to college. Immediately, she decided that she wanted to sleep with me, and pursued me with the dedication of a hellhound. I, of course, completely misinterpreted at least half of what she said until she finally just knocked me over the head and dragged me away. We lived together for two years, and were lovers for the first. She turned out to be a co-dependent sociopath with bizarre control issues, and she never told most of her friends that we were dating. Nevertheless, I did love her very much, and we had some good times. She was a writer – a journalist – and she knew everything about the music scene. She was very beautiful. She could never decide whether she wanted to strive for normalcy or eccentricity. She hated the outdoors. She was pursued by a lot of demons. Although this entire paragraph sounds fairly negative, I did get a lot out of dating her, and I do still carry a strong affection for her even if she has decided we hate each other. I would have married her, even though she cheated on me constantly; it's probably a good thing I didn't. The breakup was extremely messy.
Chris Blacker – Chris was one of my best friends from high school up until sophomore year of college. I met him when I was auditioning for the Arts Magnet, my high school. When I saw him, I thought "God, he looks cool. Hope he gets accepted. Wonder if he has a girlfriend" – one of only two times I've ever done this, the other being Will. Then I heard him play Debussy and I thought, "God, I hope I get in." He is the best pianist I've ever heard. Ever. For the first two years of high school, we were constant companions; we had the same absurdist sense of humor, and I have never found a better springboard for writing ideas. Junior year, he moved to Venezuela, but we kept up, writing e-mails every day, talking on ICQ, and telephoning when we could get away with it. Senior year, he had a nervous breakdown and decided he was in love with me when actually he wanted someone to fix his life. At that time, I was embroiled in the whole Thomas fiasco, and it put a strain on our friendship. Once he went to college and was away from his parents, things got better and we went back to being friends. The summer between freshman and sophomore year, I lived with him in New York, and it was the best summer of my life. This was immediately after the end of Raine, which he helped me through quite a bit. I fell in love with him, which was probably a bad idea. (That's beginning to become a bit of a refrain, don't you think?) He was still in love with me, but we decided that a long distance relationship was not what either of us needed, so we stayed friends, albeit friends who loved each other very much. Then he transferred to Oberlin, dropped a lot of acid, became exceptionally paranoid, and flipped out when I started seeing Rory despite the fact that I'd checked with him first. He called me a lot of horrible things, because of course he knew exactly how to hurt me – he basically did everything he'd heard Raine had upset me with. I stopped talking to him, because he wasn't the same person I'd been friends with. The drugs had changed him.; we couldn't even connect on a conversational level. A year later, he reformed and we had a reconciliation, but we haven't truly been close since. At the same time, I am glad to know that there is a Chris Blacker somewhere in the world.
Rory – Rory was the best director I've ever worked with, even though he was still a student at the time. He was tall and skinny, with a beard and long dark hair, and he would frequently lapse into an English or Irish accent. He was a rogue mage who knew an absurd amount about the history of beer and other similarly obscure subjects. Although he was rather wild and a little crazy, he was unfailingly gentle – so much so that wild animals would sometimes approach him. I approached him and said "hey, you have a girlfriend in England and I'm in love with a guy two time zones over. They're both open relationships. Wanna fuck?" His reply was "That's probably a bad idea." "Okay," I said. "You've talked me into it," he answered. It would not be inaccurate for me to say that ours was the most healthy relationship I've ever had. He's the only guy I've ever slept with, much as Raine is the only girl – in a weird way, I knew that I could trust both of them not to make it mean too much or too little.
Supporting Cast
Kim Faith -- The sunshine of my love. Kim is Val's ex-roommate, and she's astounding. To begin with, she's the most optimistic chirpy person I've ever met -- but not in an annoying way. She's happy, and friendly, and gorgeous -- she's a blond bikini model. She's a potter and a sculptor, and an amazing athlete. She reupholstered her sofa in leopard print for the hell of it. About six months ago, she had a baby -- Jackson. She is very Christian, but also very liberal. She has cancer; she has a lot of medical problems, actually, most of which have to do with her reproductive system and the fact that she's been in several car accidents. You can't tell from meeting her, though -- I tend to forget unless Val reminds me. She and I have applied to be in The Amazing Race.
Turtle -- A friend of mine who now lives in Bath. Her actual name is Mary, but she's obsessed with turtles -- she even has one tattooed on her leg. She's the one who introduced me to Patrick, who she refers to as her younger brother, (and regales us with stories of how he and her sister were going to get married in pre-school until he cheated at four square). I know her through Val, as they went to the same college. (Turtle graduated last year. She's 23, Val's 22, I'm 21. Her birthday is September 8th, Val's is the 7th, and mine is the 6th. Patrick tries to be a part of this, at age 20, but he was born the 1st instead of the 5th. Silly Patrick.) In fact, Val used to have a thing for her. She's psychic, and makes pleasant herbal teas. She is forever introducing everybody to everybody and saying "you need to be friends!" even if they live a continent away and have very little in common. She wants to be a child psychologist.
The Buffy Gang -- Me, Val, Kim Faith, Patrick, and Turtle, along with Kim Jordan, Kim Rees, Sadie, and Bekkah (also called Mussolini). Traditionally, we used to get together once a week to watch Buffy and Angel and just generally have a once-a-week sleepover, but now we've mostly gone our seperate ways. I mean, Turtle's in England, Bekkah's in Japan, Sadie and Rees are in grad school in Arlington, Kim Jordan is super-involved in her sorority (which she hates), and Patrick's feuding with the aforementioned Kim Jordan. We do still discuss Joss Whedon a lot though, and periodically get together for random parties. Grrr. Argh.
Krista – Krista is Patrick's girlfriend, and an old friend of Val's. She is dead cool. She's wacky and eccentric and perpetually happy, and one of those relatively perfect people. Adventurous and enthusiastic, she's the sort of person who will drop by with oatmeal cookies and wind-up toys just because she thinks you're stressed. I look forward to knowing her better.
Our Lady of Langley -- Someone I know largely through DeliaMavis, she seems unprepossessing. Then you start her talking about biology, and wheow! Incredible! I try to think up new questions every time I see her, like "why are there more red flowers than blue ones" or "what is the best way to avoid a shark attack". It's like having my own private Mr. Science.
For Mom, Dad, Arielle, and Pippin, see part one -- geneaology.
The Rasors
Uncle Rex -- my uncle, my mother's younger brother. First Dan in Judo, master hypnotist, stand-up comedian, photographer, banjo-player, wire-sculptor, storyteller, and an incredibly literate bookseller with a particular interest in Jungian psychology. Jack of all trades. He's the one who taught me how to build bookshelves and repair seams in walls -- and also how to walk into them convincingly. When I was a kid, he was a stay at home dad, and I spent almost as much time at his house as my own. He's depressive, and often comes off as cruel unless you're a member of his family; he carries a chip on his shoulder because he never finished college, but tends to be better educated than the people who did. His motto is "we are gypsies," and while he has a fairly Zen moral compass, he doesn't particularly trust the government or do the law more than lip-service (if that). I lived with him my senior year of high school and my junior year of college. I have dinner at his house most Sundays. I'm something of a therapist for the family.
Stretch -- my uncle's wife. They've only been married for a few months, but they lived together for five years before that. She's younger than he is. Her actual name is Lori, but we think "Stretch" is more accurate -- she's tall and skinny and tends to spread herself thin. For a more complete description of Stretch, see this entry. (Seriously. It's a great description.) There's a certain amount of tension between Stretch and the rest of the Rasors, because she feels like an outsider a lot of the time. This is not neccessarily a misperception on her part -- it is very hard to be accepted as a Rasor unless you always have been, and so she's often the butt of jokes. We do like her a lot, though.
Scarlett -- my cousin, two years younger than me. As kids, we often celebrated birthdays together -- Scarlett, Arielle, and me. She's a lot like Uncle Rex. Very beautiful, a dead-on character actress, a skilled artist, and a consumate entertainer, she is the brightest flame at any gathering. If you've seen Million Dollar Hotel, she's a lot like Milla Jojovich's character, except more lewd and outspoken. Throughout high school, she was a punk. Drinks, smokes, parties hard. She used to work at a toy store and a pet store, but now she's going to beauty school.
Max -- my other cousin. He just turned 14, but he's very small for his age. (Rasors tend to be small.) His nickname is Buster, as in Keaton. He's a slacker, class-clown screwup who lies a lot, but he's incredibly charming. Amateur magician, juggler, unicyclist, physical comedian, artist. He's a wire sculptor like Uncle Rex, but he's equally fascinated by origami, cork, and found objects -- he's like the guy in Blade Runner. For a long time, whenever I moved a piece of furniture I'd find a paper crane smaller than my pinky nail. He's very good at math, and studies science as it suits him -- which mostly has to do with pyrotechnics and robotics. He's known for doing things like taking apart his father's electric razor, but nobody can get angry with him because he builds some brilliant contraption with the cannibalized parts. He's my favorite person in the entire world -- and the feeling is mutual. He calls me "Rome."
It would be safe to say that we are the Marx Brothers. Uncle Rex is Groucho, Max is Harpo, Scarlett's Chico, I'm Zeppo, and Stretch is Margaret Dumont. That's the dynamic.
Aunt Caroline -- Uncle Rex's ex-wife. They got divorced when I was in middle school, because she decided she couldn't deal with him anymore and wanted somebody more normal. She kept the house, so the kids blamed Uncle Rex -- he was the one who left, you see, even with joint custody. Despite this, she and I still get along prety well. Other than her need to hold to social norms, (and kind of because of it,) she's a pretty awesome aunt. Throws tea parties and barbecues and things. She's a hairstylist, and owns her own salon. She's currently battling breast cancer.
Friends
Valancy -- Somewhere between wife, sister, caretaker, and, well, biographer: she looks after me. I've known her since birth, I am told, but I don't actually remember her before 6th grade, when her father bullied her into befriending me. (He and I are kind of buddies.) We know each other through the church, through Sunday School and sitting in the back pew passing notes. We weren't actually very close until senior year of high school, when I could drive, (because we lived about 20 minutes apart and she wasn't involved in youth or choir or anything). From what I understand, Val worked out a rather complicated plot to befriend my then-best-friend Thomas and use him to get to me. (They went to the same high school, and were both in marching band.) Never let it be said that she can't be devious when she wants to. We live together now.
Patrick -- My erstwhile squire. He's my best friend, which is not something I say lightly. (Val transcended that a long time ago.) There's actually a whole entry trying to describe him here. He lives about 40 minutes away from me -- he goes to the same college Val does. He's a year younger than I am, and two grades behind (I think), but he generally comes off as much younger or much older. We've only known each other for two years at this point. He's kind of hard to get a fix on, because tries too hard to make people like him -- I don't know how much he likes himself. I like him, obviously, because although he can be oblivious he can also be dead-on in his analyses when he isn't being bitter, and he's mind-bogglingly intelligent. He's beautiful when he thinks nobody is watching, and he does sweet things. I say it again: he is my best friend.
Kristina -- Kristina is probably my oldest friend -- or rather, the friend I've been friends with the longest. She's your basic diva femme. Bisexual, outspoken, masculine mindset and Marilyn-Monroe-feminine fashion sense. She's an opera singer and neuroscientist who goes to Brown University. We tend to go through the same things in our lives at around the same time. She's obsessed with flower fairies, astrology, exploitation films, gay culture, categorizing people, and being in control. I'm kind of her psychologist, or a cross between her psychologist and her Grand Vizir -- I get phone calls whenever there's drama she needs to cleverly resolve. Her family is kind of like nobility, but in the worst sense -- image and power and winning as everything. She and I spent much of our childhood either hiding out in the conservatory and inventing our own soap operas, or playing duets on her baby grand. (She was always primo, of course. ::laughs:: I do harmony.) She knows me damn well, maybe even as well as Val in some senses. A lot of people find her scarily intense.
Jamie -- My best friend in DC, and one of the few people that actually bothered to keep up with me. He's a writer and a comedian, and we met through theater -- he was Brutus in Romeo & Julius and I was kind of Juliet. (It's complicated.) Later, we were in the same improv troupe, and we often worked side-by-side as playwrites. We also co-directed a couple of things. Jamie is constantly on the prowl -- we coined the term "chase whore" to describe it -- and this tends to put people off. If you can get past that, he's very dependable, very intelligent, and very cultured -- he knows everything from art to bicycle maintenance. I tend to become lewder around him because, well, he's my guy friend. (To be fair, we also dress up in formal wear to get hamburgers and champagne, and I would not bat an eyelash before asking him to the opera, or the National Gallery.) He's also one of the people who's seen me cry; I crashed on his sofa a lot when things were really bad with Raine. He's also the one I tended to celebrate Jewish holidays with -- Purim, Passover, Roshashana, etc.. He's probably about to move to England, to study Creative Writing at one of the graduate schools there.
Tommx -- Tom, or
tommx, is another good friend from DC. He's in his thirties, I guess, and works as a consultant with Oracle database systems. Before that, he was an opera singer; he still plays guitar supposedly (I've never heard him). He's a green belt (?) in Karate, knows everything you could ask about obscure art films, and takes great pleasure in gourmet food. I know him basically through extreme good luck -- Raine used to keep an online journal (still does, although I'm afraid I'm forbidden from linking to it,) and he happened to stumble upon it (it was hand-coded instead of on a blog-site, and he didn't really read journals that much, although obviously he does now,) and happened to strike up a friendship with her while the two of us were dating. Moreover, we all happened to live in the same city. He and I wound up closer than he and Raine -- jokes abound that we share a brain, and when I can't attribute an emotion or a physical ache to something that's happened to me, I tend to assume it's an echo of something that's going on with him. He is incredibly compassionate.DeliaMavis-- Delia and Mavis have something like the link Val and I have, to the extent that they share a journal. Delia is a mother archetype, and the sort of person I can go cry to; Mavis is . . . kind of like a small, hyperactive tiger. They're obsessed with boy bands, which I have decided is charming. They're very Christian, and intend to be teachers, but they also enjoy dressing in shocking clothing, dying their hair unnatural colors, and writing real person slash. If I was picking roommates, it would be them.
The Richardson Boys
The Richardson Boys – As a group, they largely came together in elementary school, although some of them did not join until middle school or early high school. Initially, their link was somewhat founded on a love for RPGs and video games, and they still play together fairly frequently. At the same time, they regularly transcend those limits. I've already written several entries about them.
Patrick – see above. Sort of the patriarch of the group.
Merlin – The fact that I briefly tried to date Merlin should tell you something about how highly I esteem him. He is amazing – one of the kindest, most intelligent, most laid-back people I have ever met. He's the youngest of the Richardson Boys, one of those genius types who skipped ahead several grades, but I always forget that because there's something very old about him. It's as though he comes from another time entirely, as though he was meant to be a scientist/tinker in the 1940s and 50s. Although he tends to be quiet, he is a remarkable conversationalist and the first person I would invite to a dinner party. Whenever the Boys make home movies, they cast him as the evil villain – the kind in the tradition of Ming the Merciless. As I have said before, the best description I have found is to call him a cross between Jim Henson and Colonel Sanders, with a thorough background in early sci-fi. (Note to hpsrpg-ers: he's kind of like a male version of Smeg. Similar vibe.)
Chad – Over the course of about a month, Chad has managed to become one of my closest friends. As a result, I find it very difficult to describe him. He is highly poetic, and clearly in love with both the world and the English language. Despite this, he manages not to be pretentious. Perhaps this is because he is endlessly self-deprecating – and he means it; it's not just a device. (Partly as a result, he tends to be the butt of many of the Richardson Boys' jokes; Chad : Richardson Boys :: Stretch: Rasors.) By choice, he lives largely in a world of fantasy – reading, writing, movies, and computer games. He says that his definitive trait is apathy, which serves to make him very Zen. He's an author of speculative fiction, currently working on a novel, and he believes enough in The Dream that he dropped out of college so that he could write. He currently works at a convenience store to cover rent.
Will – Will is easily the most tempestuous of the Richardson Boys, rivaled in that respect only by Patrick. He's a greaser – works on old cars, slicks back his hair, wears rolled-up jeans, and plays bass in a punk band. He carries an edge of psychosis, fueled by extreme insecurity, which has supposedly gotten better now that he's taken up Tae Kwan Do. He carries grudges like nobody's business. He rants. Constantly. At the same time, he deeply loves the people he chooses to care about, and he is charismatic enough to light up a room. If he were a superhero, he would be The Batman. In short, he is Trouble with a capital T.
John – John sort of exists on a different plane than the rest of us. He is Patrick's best friend – practically Patrick's brother. He's very calm, very caring, and very self-assured. Girls are constantly trying to pick him up. I can't think of anything he's ever done that I've found objectionable; I can't imagine anyone not liking him. Even Will, who can complain about anything, has nothing bad to say about him, instead heaping on praise. He knows everything about comic books because his father is one of the premier collectors in the world; he's actually on speaking terms with people like Stan Lee and Neil Gaimon. He is a good enough soccer player that he tends to be on full scholarships. He has a pronounced affection for independent films.
Ciro – Ciro's status as a Richardson Boy is somewhat vague; he's been an outcast for about two years, but Chad has recently taken it upon himself to reintegrate him. (The two are best friends.) Ciro wants to study film, and talks about it constantly. He is very proud of his Italian heritage, which causes us to make a number of Mafia jokes. He's a bit of a bleeding heart, although I couldn't tell you what I mean by that. Although he tends to go on grand adventures, I always get the impression of fragility. I would bet money that he and Valancy will get along like a house on fire once they meet.
Ben – Ben used to be Patrick's roommate; he is currently dating Mavis. He frustrates me. A lot. At the same time, I like him. He has lead one of the most sheltered existences I have ever encountered, and he revels in this. He is your stereotypical white-bread suburbanite boy; his view of the world has not changed much since middle school. Although this is precisely the sort of thing I spend most of my life railing against, he is undeniably charming in his complete naievity. I generally want to hang out with him, but I generally want to beat him over the head. Cluelessness, thy name is Ben.
Dan – I don't know Dan well at all. It's my understanding that he's a stoner geek. I've met him once, maybe twice, and have not formed much of an impression.
Brian – I don't know Brian either. He is Merlin's best friend. He is smart, soft spoken, loving, and very Catholic – albeit with a sense of humor. I suspect that we would get along, based on our few interactions, but he lives far away and we would likely remain friendly acquaintances regardless of proximity.
Exes
Thomas -- Arguably my True Love and inarguably the bane of my fucking existence. We met through choir and became best friends in the way you think of Greek legends as best friends. We can go three years without talking, and people will still stop me on the street to ask me how he is -- and vice versa, I suspect. We were each very separate from the rest of the other's life, but also undeniably a unit. It's a difficult dynamic to describe. The other strange thing is that we never actually dated; although everyone thought of us as a couple, and we acted like a couple, he usually had a girlfriend, who I usually hated. (This sounds like jealousy but it actually has more to do with his being lousy at picking cool girlfriends. Val can verify this.) At the same time, we can't be just friends. His family still asks me to marry him. I have to pretend he's dead, even though I'm still friends with his sister, because otherwise it messes with my head too much. As for his personality . . . he was Aragorn, the wandering king. It makes watching or reading Lord of the Rings very bittersweet. He and I built pillow forts, invented live action rpgs, re-enacted Singing in the Rain, did Godzilla puppet shows, and ruled an imaginary empire together. In the years since we stopped talking, (which was actually his doing more than mine,) he became heavily involved in drugs, and is now the official "bad influence" of his town (where Val and Patrick go to college). You hear a lot of horror stories about him. I last saw him a year ago, and he was only himself in short flashes; otherwise, he's a bitter, steriotypical, angry-white-male misogynist drug-dealer who doesn't even remember me -- or he remembers Val as being me; I can't tell.
Raine -- Raine was the first person I met when I went to college. Immediately, she decided that she wanted to sleep with me, and pursued me with the dedication of a hellhound. I, of course, completely misinterpreted at least half of what she said until she finally just knocked me over the head and dragged me away. We lived together for two years, and were lovers for the first. She turned out to be a co-dependent sociopath with bizarre control issues, and she never told most of her friends that we were dating. Nevertheless, I did love her very much, and we had some good times. She was a writer – a journalist – and she knew everything about the music scene. She was very beautiful. She could never decide whether she wanted to strive for normalcy or eccentricity. She hated the outdoors. She was pursued by a lot of demons. Although this entire paragraph sounds fairly negative, I did get a lot out of dating her, and I do still carry a strong affection for her even if she has decided we hate each other. I would have married her, even though she cheated on me constantly; it's probably a good thing I didn't. The breakup was extremely messy.
Chris Blacker – Chris was one of my best friends from high school up until sophomore year of college. I met him when I was auditioning for the Arts Magnet, my high school. When I saw him, I thought "God, he looks cool. Hope he gets accepted. Wonder if he has a girlfriend" – one of only two times I've ever done this, the other being Will. Then I heard him play Debussy and I thought, "God, I hope I get in." He is the best pianist I've ever heard. Ever. For the first two years of high school, we were constant companions; we had the same absurdist sense of humor, and I have never found a better springboard for writing ideas. Junior year, he moved to Venezuela, but we kept up, writing e-mails every day, talking on ICQ, and telephoning when we could get away with it. Senior year, he had a nervous breakdown and decided he was in love with me when actually he wanted someone to fix his life. At that time, I was embroiled in the whole Thomas fiasco, and it put a strain on our friendship. Once he went to college and was away from his parents, things got better and we went back to being friends. The summer between freshman and sophomore year, I lived with him in New York, and it was the best summer of my life. This was immediately after the end of Raine, which he helped me through quite a bit. I fell in love with him, which was probably a bad idea. (That's beginning to become a bit of a refrain, don't you think?) He was still in love with me, but we decided that a long distance relationship was not what either of us needed, so we stayed friends, albeit friends who loved each other very much. Then he transferred to Oberlin, dropped a lot of acid, became exceptionally paranoid, and flipped out when I started seeing Rory despite the fact that I'd checked with him first. He called me a lot of horrible things, because of course he knew exactly how to hurt me – he basically did everything he'd heard Raine had upset me with. I stopped talking to him, because he wasn't the same person I'd been friends with. The drugs had changed him.; we couldn't even connect on a conversational level. A year later, he reformed and we had a reconciliation, but we haven't truly been close since. At the same time, I am glad to know that there is a Chris Blacker somewhere in the world.
Rory – Rory was the best director I've ever worked with, even though he was still a student at the time. He was tall and skinny, with a beard and long dark hair, and he would frequently lapse into an English or Irish accent. He was a rogue mage who knew an absurd amount about the history of beer and other similarly obscure subjects. Although he was rather wild and a little crazy, he was unfailingly gentle – so much so that wild animals would sometimes approach him. I approached him and said "hey, you have a girlfriend in England and I'm in love with a guy two time zones over. They're both open relationships. Wanna fuck?" His reply was "That's probably a bad idea." "Okay," I said. "You've talked me into it," he answered. It would not be inaccurate for me to say that ours was the most healthy relationship I've ever had. He's the only guy I've ever slept with, much as Raine is the only girl – in a weird way, I knew that I could trust both of them not to make it mean too much or too little.
Supporting Cast
Kim Faith -- The sunshine of my love. Kim is Val's ex-roommate, and she's astounding. To begin with, she's the most optimistic chirpy person I've ever met -- but not in an annoying way. She's happy, and friendly, and gorgeous -- she's a blond bikini model. She's a potter and a sculptor, and an amazing athlete. She reupholstered her sofa in leopard print for the hell of it. About six months ago, she had a baby -- Jackson. She is very Christian, but also very liberal. She has cancer; she has a lot of medical problems, actually, most of which have to do with her reproductive system and the fact that she's been in several car accidents. You can't tell from meeting her, though -- I tend to forget unless Val reminds me. She and I have applied to be in The Amazing Race.
Turtle -- A friend of mine who now lives in Bath. Her actual name is Mary, but she's obsessed with turtles -- she even has one tattooed on her leg. She's the one who introduced me to Patrick, who she refers to as her younger brother, (and regales us with stories of how he and her sister were going to get married in pre-school until he cheated at four square). I know her through Val, as they went to the same college. (Turtle graduated last year. She's 23, Val's 22, I'm 21. Her birthday is September 8th, Val's is the 7th, and mine is the 6th. Patrick tries to be a part of this, at age 20, but he was born the 1st instead of the 5th. Silly Patrick.) In fact, Val used to have a thing for her. She's psychic, and makes pleasant herbal teas. She is forever introducing everybody to everybody and saying "you need to be friends!" even if they live a continent away and have very little in common. She wants to be a child psychologist.
The Buffy Gang -- Me, Val, Kim Faith, Patrick, and Turtle, along with Kim Jordan, Kim Rees, Sadie, and Bekkah (also called Mussolini). Traditionally, we used to get together once a week to watch Buffy and Angel and just generally have a once-a-week sleepover, but now we've mostly gone our seperate ways. I mean, Turtle's in England, Bekkah's in Japan, Sadie and Rees are in grad school in Arlington, Kim Jordan is super-involved in her sorority (which she hates), and Patrick's feuding with the aforementioned Kim Jordan. We do still discuss Joss Whedon a lot though, and periodically get together for random parties. Grrr. Argh.
Krista – Krista is Patrick's girlfriend, and an old friend of Val's. She is dead cool. She's wacky and eccentric and perpetually happy, and one of those relatively perfect people. Adventurous and enthusiastic, she's the sort of person who will drop by with oatmeal cookies and wind-up toys just because she thinks you're stressed. I look forward to knowing her better.
Our Lady of Langley -- Someone I know largely through DeliaMavis, she seems unprepossessing. Then you start her talking about biology, and wheow! Incredible! I try to think up new questions every time I see her, like "why are there more red flowers than blue ones" or "what is the best way to avoid a shark attack". It's like having my own private Mr. Science.
