I don’t see how it can be so difficult to do this on the internets: [Sigh.] I have someone that I’m trying to stalk, and I can’t seem to find her. I’ve tried Google, phone and e-mail searches, alumni and reunion sites, maiden name search; everything I can get to without coughing up any money. I thought the Net was supposed to make it really easy (and free) to do just about anything of questionable motive and arguable turpitude. I can’t say I’m a happy little cyber denizen.

Well, it’s not stalking per se. It’s just that I used to know this person. We were friends and grew apart, I suppose. I haven’t talked to her in over five years. I don’t know how to reach her, don’t know if she’d appreciate hearing from me. Sometimes people just move on, you know? But it would be nice to have a phone number or something, even if I decided – as I probably would – that it would be best to let sleeping dogs lie.

It’s no good trying to keep up old friendships. It’s painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.

– W. Somerset Maugham

It’s very difficult for a single man and a single woman to be friends and just friends year after year. We were friends for about 10 years. That’s a growing apart best understood by the principles of plate tectonics, but apart we are. And it has troubled me. So every now and then I reach out into the troubled irritation of electrons that preoccupies my solitude, and hope for a still small voice willing to reply. So far, the answer is a chill and starlit wind.

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

– Jessamyn West

I don’t know about this; I’ve got some pretty old and dear friends. I’ve never been willing to trade one for a poem or a story. And I love my family. Which probably explains why I’m a writer of far more talent than accomplishment. So it goes.