We attended a friend's wedding yesterday... the first of the weddings-to-come among our "poker friends".

(The other three couples in the poker group got engaged just within the last two months. Amazingly, without conspiring, they all managed to do so within weeks of each other. Up until now, I've been saying "I just don't want to be the last one [to get married]." Now that I've been suddenly thrust into one of the last positions, I'm not sure I'm as relucatant to be in it. I'm still not sure if I'm ready to be engaged and married, but I'm also not sure why not if not.)

It was great celebrating with our friends who were at the wedding. I feel so lucky to have the friends that I have. They are my friends, even though I'm old and boring and don't feel as if I have much to contribute in the way of interesting conversation, advice or assistance. My friends seem to have a higher tolerance for my quirks than I have for theirs. Even though I complain about their idiosyncracies and limitations, and about the group dynamics, I really do like spending time and sharing moments with them. I do value our friendships.

Sometimes I tell Babe that we should find new friends and start hanging out regularly with a different set of friends, since so many of the people within the group with whom we hang out the most often are already engaged or married. But I'm just joking.

I do wish I could have closer and deeper friendships with a few more friends. As it is, I feel close to only two or three people. I feel as if I have deep friendships with even fewer people, and the deepness within my friendships is not constant. Often, it is there at the beginning of the relationship, and then goes away due to happenstance and poor maintenance.

I need be more interesting, engaging and likeable. I need to improve my communication with my friends and acquaintances. I need to ask more questions. I don't ask enough, fearful of prying, preferring to guess the answers. (It is fun to infer things. And imagined things are often more amusing.) But not asking questions makes me seem uncaring and uninterested in people's lives. I am interested, and I would like to be more involved.

I've decided to try this for a week: I will actually ask any questions that are in my mind that I'd need to ask a friend to know the answer.

I had an accidental semi- Janet Jackson moment this past weekend at a pool party.

The tradition at this annual event is to throw any and all dry persons into the pool, clothing included, especially against their will, and even as they are leaving the party... which is what I was doing right before I was tossed in. When a couple of guys ran over to hustle me into the pool, I put up a little bit of a struggle, instinctively. Apparently sometime during that struggle, completely unbeknownst to me, the right-side triangle of my bikini top moved to the right... past the nipple...

It wasn't until after I was carried to the pool and thrown in and was emerging from the pool that I realized it. It had to be brought to my attention. I was waist-high out of the pool when I heard a frantic "fix your swimsuit!" and saw two of my guy friends making quick cover-up motions on the right side of their chests. There were several other people looking in my direction.

When I fixed my swimsuit, I didn't even look down to see how much, exactly, was hanging out. For all I know, it could've been the entirety. One of the guys came over soon after I got out of the pool to try to alleviate some of the embarrassment. I asked him, "Did I look big?" ...the chagrin of having possibly revealed a whole tiny booby being worse than the embarrassment of having been exposed to friends. My friend sweetly assured me that I looked "huge" and that guys were wiping drool off their mouths.

OK. It wasn't such a big deal (literally, since I'm no where near well-endowed). What really made the circumstance humiliating was the fact that earlier on in the day, a girl friend and I noticed another girl's nipple peeking out of her swimsuit. We snickered and didn't tell her. My girl friend turned around and mentioned the nipple to her boyfriend, who later on was one of the two guys that pointed out my own exposure.

I won't say that "karma is a bitch" because I hear that the retribution part of karma happens after one is dead. But you could say that I got what I deserved...

... which makes me wonder, do things usually work out that way for me? Do I usually get what I deserve? And do I deserve what I have?

Do I deserve my job? Do I deserve my pay? Do I deserve my status? Do I deserve my health? Do I deserve my boyfriend? Do I deserve my friends? Do I deserve my reputation? Do I deserve my luck?

Or do I deserve worse and less? Or better and more?

If I deserve better and more, than I am currently at a loss. I'd be seemingly in a better position if I deserve worse and less, and am instead getting better and more. But which position is more advantagous? In which position would I rather be?

Of course, I would rather deserve better and more. I would feel ashamed if I was getting better and more than I deserve.

I am still trying to inspire myself to make positive changes, be more productive, and break out of living so haphazardly.