the very meaning of one's soul

1. Adam Duritz (writer and lead singer of Counting Crows) mentions previous girlfriends in songs. In Mrs. Potter's Lullaby he sings “There a little piece of Maria in every song I sing.” Is there a piece of an ex that will always be a part of you?
   It's actually "There's a piece of Maria in every song that I sing", and the next line is just as important - "And the price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings." This might make it clear that, yeah, I've thought about this quite a lot. The easy answer is that of course I'm still pulling along pieces of those who've gone before, whether exes or friends or family. Life isn't lived in a vacuum. The more complicated answer is that my 'Maria' is two-fold. First, my friend Heidi, who's lived hundreds of miles away for longer than we lived close by, is always with me in some sense, helping me hold it together. Second, the man I think of (for ease of explanation) as my soulmate left an imprint that won't go away - not that I've tried very hard to make it so. Right or wrong, they're in every song that I sing.
2. Who was your very first significant friend?
   her name is Jennifer, and, as she recently put it, "I believe we spied each other across a hot and crowded room, synchronized our Snoopy watches and never looked back."
3. What are four (4) things you hope to do this weekend?
   
   1. take my birthday present to the craft store for [custom] framing
   2. water the plants
   3. watch the Steelers game (possibly while wearing my obnoxious Steelers hat)
   4. post the pending book & movie reviews that have been piling up for the [work] review blog
4. What do you consider to be the main purpose of your blog?
   this one? God knows. It seems to be pretty aimless lately. Much like its author. An overhaul is in order, in all ways.
5. Tell us something that you've never before written about in your blog because it's too personal.
   tempting, but I don't think so
6. If you could choose your doctor, do you prefer someone of the same or opposite sex?
   I'm incredibly picky about my health care, and I'm completely unconcerned about unimportant issues like gender and ethnicity. I care much more about personality and the ability to make complex information relatively understandable. Sticking to a schedule is good, too.
7. If you could dream about anything tonight, what would the subject matter be?
   no dreams, please
8. How do you react to practical jokes when they're played on you?
   not a fan
9. What's on your agenda after this weekend for the upcoming week?
   work M-F, shopping with Shoe probably Wed. evening, returning the soup pot to Penny, seeing the dentist on Thur. (regular 6-mo. appointment), and otherwise lots of reading and sleeping

[from The Cat, who got it here; the title quotation is by Edith Wharton, and reads in its entirety: "There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self, the very meaning of one's soul."]