There have been a lot of imaginary friends in our house lately. It was most evidenced by Matilda after attending the Miami Dade College Bookfair and she decided to have a story reading. For participating in the story, prizes were award to her friends: Hello Kitty, Daddy, and Hello Kitty’s Blanket. Apparently Lane and I score lower than Hello Kitty’s Blanket.

Lane, 2, is also now enamored with his friends. Some nights I can’t find him in his own bed, buried underneath Froggy, Snowman (not Frosty), Frosty, Mickey, and Woof Woof. His 3 a..m. nocturnal visits used to only include himself and a blanket, but now it also includes the phrase “Mommy, go get my friends!”

So this got me thinking – do we all still have imaginary, or non-living, friends? I’m going to argue YES.

Music. Music is definitely my friend. Old songs are like visiting with high school buddies, and new songs can be as exciting as a first date. They pick me up when I’m sad and calm me down when I’m upset. And really, don’t fuck with them. In the early 2000s Bon Jovi decided to…um…reinvision their classics as Adult Alternative pop hits. A slow acoustic, breathy version of Livin’ on a Prayer?? NO. In fact, they got booed. I don’t blame the audience, you just gave their best high school friend a sex change without warning. Ick. And nothing, nothing, is a cool as introducing your real friends to your music and now having mutual friends.

Books. Yep, I’m a dork. I have every Harry Potter novel, most Anne Rice – a few of them signed, and all 5 volumes to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It’s embarrassing to admit how many times I have moved them. Am I going to re-read any of them? Probably not. Are they ever going to leave my library? Hell no.

Clothes. Ok, mainly t-shirts. It’s a well known fact that in addition to being an admitted dork in possessing all of the aforementioned books, I’m also a quilter. So this year I decided to work on new type of quilt — a t-shirt quilt. I gathered up more than a decades worth of Hash House Harriers t-shirts from all the assorted runs and laid them out to cut up…..it was harder than you can imagine. Quite honestly, I felt like I was breaking up with these t-shirts. Even though I hadn’t warn many of them in years, it was painful. In fact, the very first shirt I ever owned that listed my hash name on it (Hurricane Hashes of 1999) it took me several days before I could slice it. And in the quilt, I’m saving the part with the logo and my name! But I can no longer slip that puppy on and take it out for a spin. Goodbye, old friend.

Cigarettes. Ok, if you are a current or past smoker you understand that sometimes a cigarette is your only friend. If you are not a smoker, you never will. Stop judging and move on.

TV Shows. I gotta admit, there are some shows that produce a visceral reaction in me when something I don’t like happens to one of MY friends. I don’t like it when someone shoots at Michael Weston, or Dr. Bailey won’t talk to Meredith Grey. Hell, I know that I spent 2 full days angry because I really didn’t know that the Hell happened to Tony Soprano. Last week I watched a documentary called Trek Nation (yes, about Star Trek — wow, I’m a bigger dork than even I ever thought I would confess in one single blog post) and I realized that the Star Trek universe is my friend. This is probably why I loved and hated the latest Star Trek movie — it rewrote the plot lines of several species and screwed with my friends. [I figured that this wasn’t really a spoiler because if you cared about the franchise, you probably already have an opinion on this.]

I’m sure there are others — pets, cars, running shoes, jewelry — that fall under the category of imaginary friends. Feel free to leave me some more ideas.