Old friends

A few years back the Onion had a nice set of euphemisms for menstruation. My personal favorite: It's 'that time of the month' where 'I'm not at my best' because my 'vagina is bleeding'. Of course, my vagina is not actually bleeding and I resent the implication that I'm not at my best, but then, I'm the enemy of humor everywhere. In any event, I had BETTER be at my best, because two of my dear friends are coming to stay tomorrow.

I've mentioned before that I'm a girl of few friends, but you might be thinking fifteen...ten... I've got five. (This is perhaps part of the reason why I think Facebook is pointless...) So this weekend the majority of my friends in the world will be in one place. I'm going to tell you about them, not because I think you care, but because I want to. So there.

First, there's J. Here's a suitably ancient, grainy photo of us on a backpacking trip (me drinking, as usual). I met J my junior year of high school, when I arrived at a brand new school in a brand new city (Berkeley). I didn't know a soul, but noticed J immediately, due to his enormous mohawk. He's a truly remarkable person: his parents were insane and abusive, his dyslexia was diagnosed so late that his academic record was severely tarnished, but by scratching and clawing his way through life, he's now an engineer. Also the most gentlemanly man I've ever met. And he makes fighting robots for fun. Anyway, he's bringing a girlfriend I haven't met yet. She better be up to snuff. Or else I'll...keep my mouth shut and pretend I like her.

My Other Best Friend is also coming. We've known each other since we were twelve, and she's also an extraordinary person. Her family is horrible and nuts, but she turned out really well. She's like an ethical, kind, compassionate version of me. We haven't lived in the same place since we were fifteen, but have written letters to each other ever since then. When she visits me, she brings the letters I've sent and we collate them with the ones I've gotten from her. Here's the collection--over twenty years of correspondence, packed neatly in white linen bags...except for the ones waiting to be collated.

Both of these people are awesome beyond description, but particularly awesome is the fact that they are childless, and there's little danger of a surprise pregnancy announcement. Both OBR and J have long maintained that they aren't fit to be parents because of the horrors of their childhoods.

The funny thing is, I really want both of them to have kids. I think they'd do a great job, in part because their own parents were so awful. I love to imagine little versions of them, and it saddens me that they'd feel too defective to raise a child. And probably it worries me, given my own unhappy childhood... I'm certainly not going to argue with them, as I am capable of understanding that some people genuinely don't want to spawn, but...I am secretly hoping they'll change their minds. Ideally not until after I've had a few dozen fat babies.

Anyway, I expect to be drunk for the next four days, so best wishes to those of you going through difficult times.