To find friends on a reading site, open the search bar, type a name or a username, and filter by people you already know. If your friend is hard to find, try their email address instead, since usernames get changed. Once you find them, press Follow to see what they are reading, what they have finished, and what they have quietly abandoned at page 40. Most sites also let you connect a contacts list, which turns up anyone you missed. If nobody appears, check that your friend has made their profile public. That is all there is to it.
That was the useful part. I wrote it myself, with a paw, and I am very proud. The rest of this page is the weather, because I am a dog and the weather is the only thing I can predict reliably. Today it is friends.
Current conditions: Clear at the door, with a light breeze under it. Warm dust, drifting. The mat is damp from nobody in particular. I have been lying here since the sun came up and I would describe the mood as hopeful with a chance of ankles.
Morning: A front of friends is moving in from the street. I can hear them. They have the sound of people who think they are in the right place. Expect two or three at the door by nine, each holding a phone out in front like a flashlight, each asking for somebody by name. Gusts of "Is Dana on here?" up to thirty miles per hour. I wag at all of them. It is not a decision.
Midday: Heavy friend activity, centered on the counter. A cold air mass of confusion will meet a warm air mass of me, and I will be on my back by 12:15. Visibility poor, because I have my eyes closed. Several of the friends will ask where the Follow button is. There is no Follow button. There is a cardigan on the coat hook and I have decided that is the same thing.
Afternoon: Scattered sniffing. This is the part of the forecast I want to be careful about. Every one of these friends smells the same underneath. Different coats, different soap, the tall one smelled like a bakery, but under it is a thing I know. Oatmeal-colored wool. A leather button that does not match. I have smelled it on the hook since I was a pup, and I have smelled it on every single stranger since the first of spring. I do not understand it. I am a dog and I do not need to. I just wag harder.
Evening: The friends thin out. A low pressure system forms around the lake side of the building, which is where Doug is, and he is not coming back, so I will not look that way. Tonight, lows near the water bowl. If a friend is still here at closing, I will walk them to the door, which is a thing I have promised myself I will do for everybody, in case it is the one who is going to stay.
Tomorrow, more friends. Wednesday, friends, then a duck on the Ledger that nobody has claimed. Thursday I do not know. Thursday is the day I stop being able to tell the weather from my own heart, and Randy says that is normal, and Randy is the only one who reads what I write down, so I trust him.
If you came for a friend and did not find her, I am sorry. I checked under the desk. If you came for a friend and found me, I would like you to know that I am not a good search filter, but I will follow you anywhere in the building, and I will not set it to private.
For more weather, see the page about the codes, where a man at another desk is dealing with a front of numbers, and the one on changing names, where somebody has a theory about shoes. I have a theory about the cardigan. It is the same theory. It is mostly that I would like everyone to come home.
Authors are fragile organisms, and they cannot make friends on a screen any better than you can, so please buy a book. Carry it up the hall. I will be at the door, and the forecast is for me to wag.
Hopefully,
Booktrovert #2406