Friends

I hesitate to even make this list because I don’t want people to read it and not find themselves on it and get butt hurt.  That’s not what this is about.  This is my blog, and my blog is what it always has been, a place for me to put my thoughts and memories so years from now I can look back and smile or cry or whatever.  If someone isn’t specifically mentioned in this blog, it doesn’t mean you haven’t touched my life in some significant way.  If I made THAT list, I’d be writing for DAYS!

While I don’t use the term best friend loosely, I have had several “best” friends in my life.  Whether I had actually referred to them as a best friend at the time or not, I have many friends that I consider my best friends.  Over the years, you tend to meet and connect with new people.  Some friends drift away, and that is okay.  These are some the people I’ve known over the years that I considered my very best friends at various times in my life.

Mags:

Mags and I circa 1996 or 7

I met Margaret in the 9th grade, and she sort of took me under her wing and introduced me into her group of friends.  High school being what it was, we didn’t always get along but she was always there ready to kick someone’s ass for me if I needed her to.  It wasn’t until we were in our early 20’s that we became true besties.
She and I were pretty much inseparable when I started dating her boyfriends best friend and later after both relationships failed we were even closer.  I was always at her house, and we spent every single weekend together getting into all kinds of trouble.  Time marched on; I moved away and we grew apart.  Sadly we don’t talk much but I treasure those days of carefree fun.

 Kimmy:

Kimmy and I 2008(wish I could find some pics of us in our prime)

Kimmy was part of my high school crew, but much like Mags and me, we didn’t get really close until after high school.  In our early 20’s Kim and I tore up the local bar scene and were known as the terrible twosome.  We led very different lives, but we fit together very well.  After she got pregnant and had her son Cody I babysat a lot when she had to work.  He was the apple of my eye, and I loved those days.
Our friendship has spanned many years, and we had a lot of good times and a couple bad ones.  Most friendships do.  We may not talk often, but when we do it’s like a day hasn’t gone by.

Jenn:

Jenn after she had moved to Florida and we lost touch.

Jennifer and I were in the same Jr High class, but we did not run in the same social circles.  She hung with a more popular crowd and I hid in the shadows, a shy wallflower girl.  We didn’t hit it off until I moved next door to her during our Jr year of high school.  She was attending high school at a different location than I but still lived in town.  We became fast friends because we didn’t really have anyone else at the time.  We were always together that year and into our Sr year after she came back to our high school.
Jenn was loud and outspoken, and I was quiet and shy.  It made for quite a complicated pair, but we worked.  She made a very strong impression in my life that wasn’t always good, but I always cared for her deeply.
Sadly, she is no longer with us, and I regret that we lost touch many years ago.  I doubt there was anything I could do to help her situation, but I will always wish I had kept in contact just to hear her crazy laugh and find out what her daughters were up to.  I miss you Jenn.

Tanya:

I met Tanya in a very round about way through Jennifer.  Jenn had dated Tanya’s brother Chuck very briefly before I had met her and introduced us one night at the Augusta fair.  At the time, Chuck was dating Tanya’s best friend Kandy, who he would later marry and have two children with.  All of this was unknown to me when I told Jenn that I thought Chuck was cute.  Apparently he had just had a fight with Kandy and thought this was a great opportunity to make her jealous.  We met at the fair three nights in a row and then he invited me to his house.  The details are fuzzy now but basically I met Tanya at the house, and she decided to see if I was the skanky whore she had thought I was when she first saw me or not.
The verdict thank goodness was that I was a good person and a friendship started strong.  Tanya and I would hang out for a couple months if I remember right, pretty much every day until we just didn’t.  I can’t remember what happened, but time grew us apart.
A phone call reunited us a short while later, and it was like no time passed.  After that, I would spend weeks at a time at Tanya’s apartment where she lived with her brother, his wife Kandy and their new baby.  We didn’t do much but watch movies and walk around downtown, but Tan and I were always together.
The friendship spanned many years, long after she moved back in with her mom and sister.  I just remember I was always over at Tanya’s house.  I “adopted” her little sister Naomi (for reals, there was a certificate on a paper plate and everything), and we were always hanging around together getting up to some sort of mischief.
Eventually, we would grow up and apart a bit and then I moved away.  We still keep in contact every so often and of course on Facebook.  She was  always a very good and loyal friend to me.  <3

MaryAnn:

I met Maryann when I was working at Fleet Bank.  I switched locations to the Civic Center branch, and she was the head teller there.  Eventually, the branch would dwindle down to just her and I as the only employees (with the occasional floater to fill in on heavy days).
She was loud and boisterous, and we hit it off like gangbusters.  She was older than me and was much wiser in many ways, so I looked up to her for advice.
We pretty much got paid to hang out together on weekdays and then chose to hang out some more on the weekends.  We lost touch when I moved to Arizona, and I miss her like crazy.  I recently found her on Facebook, but it doesn’t look like she ever uses it.  🙁

Brian:

When I first moved to Arizona, I knew no one other than Rob.  When I first started working I was put in the billing department of a call center and the first person they sat me with to train me was this scary looking dude with a mostly shaved head.  What hair he did have was only on top and it was sectioned into these tiny blue braids that went ever which way.
He went on to become my cubicle-mate and my best friend.  We had a lot of fun in the 8 hours we were stuck in that cube together.  We even created Brian and Kelly land where you had to wait behind a paperclip rope to be invited in.
He was my “maid” of honor at my wedding in 2000 but as usual when moving, we lost touch when I moved to California.

Renee:

Renee and I in our Elvis glasses in our hotel room in Vegas for my birthday 2008

Renee was one of my first friends in Arizona after Brian in the call center we all worked in.  I can’t remember why, but I thought she didn’t like me very much when we first met.  It turned out she would be one of my most treasured friends in this life.
She has the greatest heart and is one of the funniest people I know.
I don’t travel well with a lot of people, but she and I are perfect travel companions.  We’ve done Vegas more than once, and Reno and I have stayed with her while visiting Arizona as well.
Since moving we don’t speak as often as we’d like, and I know that happens.  But if you do get us on the phone, don’t plan on having us hang up anytime in the near future.  I have had marathon phone calls with this girl.  I wish we lived closer; she is always up for an adventure.  🙂

Denise AKA DD

DD and I in 2011 when I last visited AZ and stayed with her and her sister.

DD and I had the rare opportunity to work together twice.  We worked together in the Billing Dept of Arch Wireless in Arizona until the call center closed, and then were able to transition to a new call center for IKON office solutions right after in different departments.  It was very comforting to know someone in a sea of new faces.
DD is  easily one of the best people I know.  She would give you the shirt off her back and not think twice.  She is also one of the goofiest people I have ever met and will go to great lengths to make you smile when she knows you are down.  She is the level headed person you need to bounce something off of at one moment and the childlike jokester the next when things get too heavy.  I never wonder where I stand with her because there is no need to.  She is always open and giving and loving, but she will let you know when you piss her off.  : -)  She is a friend in the truest sense of the word.
We rarely talk since I’ve moved, but I know that I could call her up right now and say: “I’ll be there tomorrow.” And she would reply: “Come on over.” And it would be like a day hadn’t passed.

Shandee

Shandee and I backstage at “The Birdcage after she did my make up for fun.

I met Shandee when I got involved in a local theater company out here in California.  She was the make up artist at the time for the show we were putting up.  She was  easily the loudest and most obnoxious person I had ever met.  I was instantly intimidated.  Backstage she cracked a mean whip but would follow it with a loud cackle of a laugh that was hard not to fall in love with.
Over the next couple of productions we did together we got quite close, but it was when the theater put on a tribute to the movie The Birdcage, and I was tasked as helping her with makeup that we really bonded.  She is still loud and obnoxious but now so am I.
We fit very well together, and I love her dearly.  She recently moved to Boise so we don’t keep in touch like we used to, but she will always be a good friend to me.

Koly:

Koly and I after closing night of our latest production together in 2014

Koly is the owner of the theater company I just mentioned; that is how we met.   I tagged along to my husbands interview with Koly and her partner and boyfriend Lloyd for a guitarist in one of their productions in 2010.  As Rob excused himself to go to the bathroom at the end of the “interview” he mentioned to Koly that I liked to sing.  I swear I felt I could see the wheels turning in her head: “Great, so if I take the guitarist I have to take the wife?” but she told me to come in that following Tuesday to “audition”.  The audition consisted of running me through some vocal scales and then she asked if I wanted to be part of the ensemble.  I had no idea what that meant, but said yes.
I have since been involved in 9 going on 10 plays with this theater company, so I have to say it wasn’t a bad experience.  🙂
Koly and I bonded during the production of my 2nd play there where she was unexpectedly having me understudy the lead female role.  She took me shopping for costuming and then we had dinner and it started the first of many great conversations.  Koly has a way of asking you about yourself that doesn’t feel invasive, and before you know it you have poured out your whole life story, warts and all.  I never got to play the part I understudied for in that production, but a friendship was forged.
The first thing she told me when we started to get close was that she was a horrible friend.  She was self-centered, and she didn’t “do” needy.  While there is some truth to that statement, she has proven to me over and over that she CAN be a great friend and once she holds you in her heart she is fiercely loyal to you.
She of all things, is a great teacher.  And she has taught me so much about theater and myself in the four short years we have known each other.  She took a shy little wallflower of a girl and turned her into an obnoxious and brazen girl that people wish would now shut the f*ck up.  🙂  I blossomed under her tutelage and no one can ever take that away from me.
Our friendship ebbs and flows depending on if we are in production together and how busy we are, but there is  never a doubt in my mind that I could pick up the phone any day and pour out my heart to her, and she would be there to receive it.

Paula:

Paula and I in 2011 when she came out to cheer me on for my 2nd 1/2 marathon.

So if you have read this far you know that I am blessed to have had a lot of friends in my life that I love and have loved me back.  When I called them my best friends, I truly mean/meant it.  But there is one true BFF in my life.  There is no other way to explain why other than the fact that she and I share a brain.
I met Paula in 2005 after moving out to California and getting a new job here.  My first memory of her was at the first job interview that I went on.  It was in this tiny little office, in August that had no air conditioning, so they had all the windows open.  As I sat in a chair by the front door waiting for my interview, a noticed a yellow-jacket buzzing around my head.  Trying with all my might not to look like a spaz, I just kind of moved slightly to one side and hoped it would go away.
“Is that bee bothering you hon?”  A voice from across the room asked me.  I looked up to see a thin and pretty blonde looking at me.  I immediately judged her as bitchy and shallow based on her looks, but after I nodded she said: “Come on over here and sit by us.”   As I made my way over she introduced herself as Paula and also introduced a couple other employees.
After the interview was over, I didn’t think much about it other than the fact that I really wanted the job.  A few weeks later I got the call that they wanted me, and I started work there.  I had little interaction with Paula until we moved into a new building a couple months later, and we were to be office-mates.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when we realized we shared a brain, but there are just too many stories to share when we finish each others sentences, or bring up something that the other person was thinking but didn’t voice.  We have similar backgrounds, and we think the same way.  I’ve never met anyone I’ve felt so close to as a sister.  I honestly think that I could have had a twin sister growing up and spend my whole life with and I wouldn’t feel as connected with her as I do Paula.
We have known each other almost 9 years now and like every friendship we have our ups and downs, but I know for a fact that she and I are soul sisters and will be friends until the day we die.    I call her Irene and she calls me Alice based on this video that just went viral:

That’s going to be us at that age.  I can’t imagine my life without her in it.