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In a message dated 10/23/03 7:53:30 AM, tktraas@... writes:

<< I know some people like this and others who

never run into situations like this.


<<Don't you think it says alot about how open we are to others? >>

YES.
Some people are too still and don't make eye contact (figuratively or
literally) and are paranoid of others, and so they can't get much excitement-business.

I have a friend just because we have the same birthday (to the year).
Wolfgang Marquardt. He sent me an IM on AOL. I could have ignored it, but I
thought 'what the heck.' He was in northern Germany and just loved American
cultural trivia like how much does a Christmas tree cost? What do we pay for
natural gas and electricity? He's living in Washington now, about to marry an
American. He's been to visit me twice, and I need to send him a wedding gift! He
has sent me birthday cards in German (which is cool) and we've had LONG long
chats by instant message about his impressions of the U.S. once he came here,
after all those years of distant interest. He's lived in Texas and Washington.

<< I think it has alot to do with our desire to know things and discover
things. Also, whether we are open to others.>>

I am unquestionably a nosy curious kind of "how come?" person and always have
been. There's a kind of hyperactivity in the social area of my mind. <g>

This Friday night (yikes! Tomorrow!) I'm going to a potluck to visit friends
I've known since second grade (three of them) but one I hadn't seen since
high school. I don't know who else will be there, but I'm really excited. I
just need to cook.

<<Or maybe some of us just attract weirdness?? >>

This is true of me too.
You might have noticed it even onlinory. I poke them back and say "WHY are
you being this way? What's the deal?" Most people clam up, squint their eyes,
turn the other way.

I have another couple of very swirly-lifed friends, and our conversations can
go on for HOURS when we catch up with each other.

I have come back up to warn that no one with seizure disorders or heart
conditions or a life should read the following paragraph.

Holly thinks it's funny that my stories of childhood friends and later
relationship and marriages is so interconnected and confused. Yet lots of them are
still in contact with one another. A girl she really likes would have been
my neice if I hadn't divorced my ex-husband and on the other side, she's the
daughter of someone I knew since he was born, whose sister married somone I had
(have?) a pact with since we were 15 that as soon a both of us were
unattached, we'd get together. I'm still in contact with him (though she's divorced)
and I talked to him Monday, and I'll see her (the ex-wife still-aunt of Holly's
friend Naomi) on Friday night with the others. We saw Naomi and her mom
Ruth (the younger sister of my ex-husband, who was one of the three kids I was
"raising" when I was 21 to 23 years old--she was 12-15 then) at my sister's
housewarming last the 12th. Turned out my sister's new house is three miles from
Keith's best friend Bob who was our best man. Up the same road, between
Brazos and Chama. One of Bob's ex-girlfriends once kinda stalked my friend Jeff
and she got crazy for a while, but she's fine. I WAS going to go with her to
Denver this last weekend for an SCA ceremony involving our former housemate
Wendy... I'll just stop because the story doesn't ever stop.

I tried to make a chart of all those stories for my friend Barbara once, and
it would have had to be a three-dimensional thing with some kind of overlays
on some of the characters. Could not figure out how to chart it.

Sandra