Yesterday was an interesting day, not so much for me, but for some of the people in my life. It started out like a normal work day, but at about 4 o'clock, my friend Ken called from California. We got to chatting, and he informed me of some good news. His wife is halfway through her first pregnancy, and he knows that it's his. They are due to have a baby boy on January 1st. Of course, that screws up 18 years of NCAA football bowl games, but that was his choice.

Later that evening, I went to a friend's house warming party. Mike and Anna served as gracious hosts, even though they must have had 30 to 40 people in attendance. While I was mingling, Anna came up to me and delivered her good news. She is 2 months pregnant, and just starting to show.

Their house warming party was a lot of fun, but it actually served a dual purpose. It helped serve as a ruse for my friend Dwayne to pop the big question to Jenn with two 'n's. They have been dating and shacking up for about 6 years now, so it really is about time they make it legal. I'm still not sure why Dwayne wanted to propose to his girlfriend in front of an audience, but it was still pretty touching. He gave her flowers, said a little speech, spoke some French and got down on one knee. All of the women were crying.

Only about half of the people there were in the know, with most of the women left out of the loop. It's not that women cannot be trusted with a secret, but mostly because Dwayne wanted to keep a lid on it, while still making sure that people showed up. My wishy-washy attitude toward attending the party put me into the need to know category, so I was told what was going to happen, and that I should definitely be there.

I think it is quite strange how changes seem to come in threes. Sometimes they creep up on you, and sometimes they come all at once. Other times they are spread out. For me, I found out about two sets of friends starting a family, and I witnessed two other friends planning to spend the rest of their lives together in the span of about 4 hours.

Part of what makes all of this so interesting, is that while all of this change was happening around me, my life has remained relatively empty and unchanged. Sure, I've lived in a lot of different places over the years, bought and sold a house, and even experienced a few months of uncertain unemployment. Still, my day to day life is pretty much the same. I wake up, I go to work, and I come home; day in, and day out. Every now and then I do something exciting: I take a trip, visit with family and friends, pick up a girlfriend for a month or two. In the end, however, I wind up in the same position in life that I started from.

My friends seem to come and go, especially as their children get older, and their lives become more self-involved and less centered around friendship. Old friends disappear and are never heard from again, while new friends enter my life. Me, I am but an observer, watching the people in my life grow older, get married, start families, and move on. Meanwhile, my life is still pretty much the same. It hasn't grown much at all. It almost feels like my friends are all graduating and going on to bigger and better things, while I'm stuck waiting for the damned school bus to show up.

Actually in the simplest of terms, I am pretty much just sitting around waiting to die. Perhaps one of these days, I'll go out and get a dog or something, just to keep from dying alone.