Posted by: Eric Ranschau on: May 11, 2009
Posted by: Eric Ranschau on: April 14, 2009
Call me a heartless bastard but this women jumped in of her own volition for reasons only known to her. I would have let the bears eat her.
Posted by: Eric Ranschau on: March 30, 2009
Posted by: Eric Ranschau on: March 7, 2009
Posted by: Eric Ranschau on: February 16, 2009
But I know that isn’t true.

Posted by: Eric Ranschau on: February 11, 2009

Posted by: Eric Ranschau on: February 9, 2009
I’ve had some BFF issues of my own lately. Mrs. Witch (Can I call you Mrs. Witch?), I’ll be your friend. I’ll be your best friend if you can drop houses on people I don’t like.
Posted by: Eric Ranschau on: February 9, 2009

John, good buddy, I know how you feel.
Posted by: Eric Ranschau on: February 1, 2009
Had you asked me several years ago if I was a good judge of character I would have answered in the affirmative and with a large degree of certainty. After all, my college years provided me with some of the best people and greatest friends I’ve ever made. People had often told me that you leave college with two things; a degree and the best friends of your life. At the time I was reluctant to believe them but I now know it to be true. Unfortunately, time has born out the conclusion that I am not the judge of character I thought myself to be.
I must cede the argument that I was never a good judge of character, but that the small town where I went to college and the many small town folk who attended the university with me were simply good people and all worth getting to know as my luck has grown steadily worse with regards to making friends the longer I have been away. Far more often than I’d care to admit, the people I meet turn out to be entirely unconcerned with anyone other than themselves. For a long time I thought my trouble was largely to do with my inability to find a good, datable guy. They seemed all to ready to use me until they grew bored with me and then toss me aside for something newer and shinier. As a result, I’ve grown very jaded toward the prospect of ever finding one and opted instead to make myself a few good friends in this new city I now call home. A best friend will always have your back, right? Wrong.
I had considered myself to be a very lucky person recently as I had found myself one of the best friends I’d ever known; someone for whom I would have done anything and who, I’d thought, would do the same for me. As it turns out, best friends can also turn on your with almost no warning and toss you aside like yesterday’s garbage. If, at this point, you’re thinking “If you were really best friends, as you say, then you would have found a way to work past whatever the problem was.” and I assure you, that was my first thought–or close to my first thought.
I was, at first, shocked that the person I’d considered my best friend was saying the things he was saying; that he could have such a long, meaningful conversation about the nature of our friendship with a stranger and then pass down the judgement on to me like some jury of elders. I was more than shocked. I was mad, but I waited a few days before reacting so that I could sort out truth from emotion; knee-jerk reaction from true desire. Surely we were better friends than this and could easily survive so trivial as the opinions of someone who does not know. I grossly overestimated the faith I could place in another human being.
As time went on, it became quite apparent that I was no longer a part of my friends life and there was nothing to be done about it. The last conversation I had with my now former best friend is one that confounds me still. I felt very much like I was being given the “It’s not you, it’s me.” speech; a speech you give when you want to break up with someone without hurting his or her feelings. Of course anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of a speech like this knows it to be a false argument and entirely inadequate to its task. But best friends aren’t supposed to break up right? How could someone I’d considered a best friend hurt me like someone to whom I’d given my heart?
I suppose I’ll never know exactly what happened. I also imagine it will be a very long time before I can ever again trust anyone to have that kind of a significant presence in my life. Thank you, “friend.”