Just knowing you exist:

It used to be enough. Danielle is in the Arizona desert developing a complicated relationship with border patrol. We haven't talked in months. There's these other friends, too; I know they go antique-ing in Chicago, teach critical thinking, mix fantastic drinks...

Hold. Michael asks, "does getting to know someone involve... using emotional energy?"
I respond, "Well, it depends on how you conceive of emotional energy. Some people-- they think you have a certain amount of emotional energy allotted each day..."
"That's bullshit."
About 93 seconds later, after an odd but affirming conversation on my opinions of emotional energy, Michael says, "Because I don't think about these things. I'm getting asked these questions and had to go to the reigning expert on this one."
So apparently I'm the authority on thoughts about emotional energy. Duh.
A thought brought forward by another thought from Dan Savage:
"'Emotional vulnerability' is just another word for 'hunger for sex'."

"Okay, Je. I'm going to spell out a word for you and you tell me how to say it:
W.O.R.C.E.S.T.E.R."

... are fabulous cooks and not fabulous cooks, appreciate Christmas tree lights and female pit hair, love Dungeons & Dragons and Settlers of Catan, disc jockey on the radio, and try to not fear the responsibilities of post-graduates to parents and society. To name just a tiny few.
Until this point in my life I have been sloppy about keeping in touch with people who weren't physically present to me. It was sufficient to know that Christina, Lorri, Mike Fish, Danielle, Dylan, Shannon, Bebhinne, Ben, Kyle, Alan, Karina, Eleanor, Amanda and a slew of other people were simply alive and breathing their beauty into the world. Well, I woke up this morning and it suddenly wasn't sufficient. Not at all.