Sweet and Sour Pineapples

Once upon a time, there was a beer-loving wench who, despite being buried almost uvula-deep in work, decided to just sit back and chill out by watching a movie. The film she chose was something called Pineapple Express, a comedy that promised inane, mindless fun. It was OK, she thought, as most comedies go - but the line about the Pineapple Express marijuana strain smelling like God's nether regions made her really laugh out loud.

Not that she's an expert when it comes to weed, though a few hits one time had her unconsciously walking a few steps into the ocean. Maybe she just wanted to feel the warm seawater swirling about her ankles as she scrunched her toes in the fine sand beneath; the beat of now-forgotten music pulsing in the background, overshadowed by the seductive light of her birthday full moon shining on the peaceful ocean.

Or maybe not. Maybe she really was just strunk.

The movie wasn't perhaps as mindless as she thought it would be. Because it made her think about friendship.

About how friendship can have its mind-altering heady highs and its depressing lows.

About how addictive and binding it can be, but through heart- and soul-strings...not through cannabinoid receptor thingies.

About how bloody and violent it can figuratively be sometimes. Then about how the sweetness and healing that come after everything is aired out can make one feel cleansed, and that the relationship is better - stronger - despite the earlier virtual evisceration.

Tears, anger, resentment, frustration, laughter, love. All these and more come with true friendship. [One of beer-loving wench's friends once asked her about the three kinds of love. She was able to come up with Eros and Agape, but the third one escaped her. She bluffed, stating it was called Phallic Love. He wasn't fooled, but he did laugh. But she wasn't that far off the mark it turned out, since Philia is the third kind of love.]

Laughter and humor, essentials to any lasting friendship, beer-loving wench thinks. Sympathizing and empathizing with a friend through the banal or tough times, and then later finding humor in the situation - that's priceless.

Love, humor, companionship, understanding...one doesn't need Academy Award-quality lines to express these. Even a text/IM quickie that's as bland as, "Hey, how are you, bitch girl?" can make you feel all warm, buttery, and high - if it comes from someone whose heart, mind, and soul are linked to yours.