On Sunday, my friend Bryn came to visit.
Bryn's a kink friend of mine, someone I know from going to Camp Crucible. And in recent months, for whatever reason, we've gone from acquaintances to really good friends.
We both love awful puns, which we frequently share with one another online. We're both kinky people, and we move in many of the same kink circles.
She's a nerdy techie, like myself, a pagan, a cat person, a sci-fi/fantasy novel reader, a philosophy nut, all that good stuff.
She recently got a new car (and woah, is that thing sexy), which I helped her to name, punnishly, "The Cargonzo Bean", and for which we both decided she needed a plushie chicken as a car co-pilot. During our day together, we also realized the chicken would be named Carmilla.
Feel free to wince.
Anyhow, the whole morning was super nice. We hung out at my house, chitchatted, went out for a lovely breakfast, then went plushie shopping. As we did, we just talked about ourselves and one another, and our friendship, and it was super.
I remember when I was a little kid, like actually physically a little kid, and used to go on "play dates" to a friend's house. It felt a whole lot like that.
One of the nicest parts of the day was when we were bopping around the mall. I had talked to her at some length about how I'm dissociative, and my little, mako-kun, both is and is not quite me. He's my brain-room-mate. I love him, and protect him, as he's a big part of me.
He doesn't come forward in public very often, because that's not a safe thing for him. We, he and I, really don't want any negative attention from anyone about being this way we are. It's one of the few big, easy weak spots we have. We aren't crazy, and don't want to be labeled as such. (To be honest, as open as I am in this blog, I had to take a minute to decide I was going to write about it here.)
So, we're in the Disney store, looking for a plushie chicken, like you do, when Bryn leans in and whispers to mako-kun, and asks him if he'd like one or two of these cute plushie little things called tsum-tsum. They're a bit like Disney's answer to beanie-babies.
He popped right out, delighted, and said yes.
They walked around the store together, and he found two he very much wanted. Heimlich, the caterpillar from A Bug's Life, and Eva, the robot from Wall-E.
When we got up to the cash register he very sagely swapped places with me, and let me hand the tsum-tsums to Bryn, who got them for us.
Afterwards, as we walked around the mall, she asked me if that was okay, her having called him to come out like that. It was more than okay, it was delightful. Mako-kun likes her a lot. I like her a lot.
I'm so glad she's our friend.