Too Many Friends?

I have too many friends. I have too many people to keep up with that I have no choice but to let some people go and make them less important. They move down a few notches on my hierarchy of contacts. It is not a desirable thing to do, but I just cannot keep up with so many people and remember their details without confusing one female friend for another. It constantly happens and it becomes a turnoff because no friend would want to be compared to another friend, even worse, be mistaken for another person who is completely different from him or her. I try my best to separate my friends, but when I do not write about events and anecdotes in my journal then I tend to forget a lot of details and associate them with the wrong person, especially if one or more individuals dislike mayo or tomato or have an allergic reaction to apple. I hold my homeboy and my homegirl as dearest because they are for keeps. Even in the darkest of times I remember the most precious option for my friends is to be there to listen to them. If I can do nothing else, I can still listen to them and let them vent to me their problems, their nerve-wracking ordeals or personal afflictions. I want to make it a point to hang out with a few friends weekly and to maintain friendships. The moment I met Patricia I thought that we would chill for an entirety of the summer and get to build a friendship that I thought should have been fostered throughout the semester because she fondly remembered me from a class we had. But this turned out to be a sour expectation and we did not really get to hang out as much. I also expected to chill with Linda more and revisit what we did together last summer. I just ran through pictures on my C drive and I saw pictures of my homegirl preparing for a DJ spot at a friend's house in Queens. There was a party and she DJ-ed for a majority of the night. Her friend came over and drove her equipment to the house. That was the first time I was let into Linda's world/her house and her room. I realized what kind of an artist she was and what trinkets she had on her desk was real as her Facebook images foretold. She had a small window to the outside world and a room slightly too narrow for her to record any song on her dusty microphone sitting alone in the corner of her room near the door jamb. Not only do I remember her Apple PC monitor sticker Redu, but I also remember her mixing board, her banana cables, and her Dad's twin cabinet speakers he bought from a yard sale. I did not see Linda's birds for they were in her cellar which I am sure is vast and dark. For that summer Linda and I went everywhere and explored Queens and Manhattan, taking these two boroughs by storm. I can safely say that my homegirl is an indisposable aspect of my life and a cornerstone of trust and admiration when all passions are extinguished, I look towards her as a lighthouse to ignite my fire and set the coal on the coughing fire.
On the other hand I wish my relationship with my homeboy was more clearsighted and more natural than forced. Lately I have been feeling indifferent towards my homeboy. I have always wondered why his English skills and his grammar skills have remained the same. I cannot understand why he hasn't picked up some of my english speaking skills. I fear that he won't be hired by professional employers if they think that his language skills are impaired. I am worried about him, but sadly I am not worried about him so much that I want to teach him proper grammar or direct him in the right way and instruct him. I do not seem to have this imperative; I don't feel I have time to instruct him. In fact when he told me he was leaving to upstate to work at a restaurant I felt like it was a much-needed reprieve from the constant phone calls and dependency on me that I felt was a turn-off. I became allergic to his dependency on me to call eBay or to check with customer service. I felt like I wanted time away from these deeds and favors because I wanted to focus on my life. For a while I felt guilty that I could not be his business partner in starting E-Electronics virtual store or a bookstore/food store, but I began to take foothold of my own staggering position in life: I was at a crossroads where I have no clue what I want to do; I don't want to jump into anything that I do not have the slightest passion in. My father suggested that I go to a trade school like TCI which is only one block away from me. I told him that there was no financial aid and he implored me to go ask them in person (I will not because I am not interested in learning computer maintenance or refrigeration.). I told him that I wanted to return to graduate school for two reasons: I would make him happy and satisfy his request for me to continue my education and further it the same way he did (my Dad schooled for nearly ten years in BMCC and in Baruch). I also told him this because I didn't want to hear his complaints that I should study something useful and apply myself before I lose time and become too old to acquire any skills. Mom and Dad fully believe that I should devote my life to a specialty, a skill, a singular field. I told them that I wanted to continue urban sociology and Dad surely encouraged me with "you're going to starve" in Chinese (he usually speaks English) but he condemns me in Chinese because he knows how to condemn me well in Chinese as he's done it for many years since I was a baby).

Returning to my friends situation, I want to maintain friendships with my newfound songstress and adventuresome person Jessica, a junior in Dewey. She has the body of a sixteen year old but the mind of a forty year old who breathes an aura of wisdom and knowing. She can read my body language well the day we ate ice cream at Sky Ice in Park Slope. She told me that she sensed my depression and my lethargic state. She told me she can read body language well and that she "knows these things." I want to further my friendship with her. Speaking of furthering friendships, one friend has always piqued my interest in terms of her personality and stifled aura. Her name is Lucinda. I don't remember how I met Lucinda, but I do remember it had something to do with her friend Robert who heads The Yippie Cafe/Museum in SoHo area. Lucinda is my muse because she provides me with a carefree atmosphere in which I can enjoy the splendid carnal existence of her being and the sparse conversations we have. I would tell her things that happened to me and she would laugh in reply and offer wry smiles and sometimes coy gestures I find appealing and comfortable. My politics buff/songstress/hunnie Hien called me earlier tonight around midnight and filled me in on her blissful relationship with Crystal. I assuaged her doubts and helped her to take some wrinkles away from her mind. I do wonder if I help her at all, because most times she sounds like she wants affirmation of her events, and I am more than happy to be her ear. But I do wonder if she is benefitting from my advice, because whatever advice I have for her, I fear it is not quite as good or polished because on some levels I revere Hien because of her intellectual level and her ability to intuit things that I don't think I can. But I suppose that it is very good to be remembered and to be cued via text by her, because it isn't everyday you meet someone on the steps of Union Square and they see you for keeps.