I am very excited because I’m going to North Carolina in a couple of weeks to visit my friend Stacey.  She is one of my favorite people and I hate that we can’t see more of each other, but we always have a great time when we do.  We met at work a long time ago when we were cubicle neighbors.  She had recently been transferred from Michigan to California, and even though we barely knew each other, she decided that we were going to be friends.  She immediately took over my life, and really, I was fine with that.  We had a ridiculous amount of fun while she lived here and since then she has moved about 4 times, just picked up and made a life for herself somewhere else.  She is braver than I could ever be, a natural extrovert that you cannot help but love.

On her first day in our office she showed up with a travel coffee mug from a coffee shop in Michigan called “Beaners”.  I had a lot of explaining to do that day.  Even though she is very successful professionally, she has ADHD (undiagnosed) and has no patience to read or study issues, and often sends me text messages that say things like “I have a date tonight with a guy I told I like baseball, give me some phrases to throw out there” or “tell me why I hate Mitt Romney, thanks”.

At work, she was jokingly in love with our Corporate Counsel, an overgrown frat boy who probably did not actually know her name.  When he would walk down the hall to see our boss, he would barely acknowledge us, but this did not stop us from commenting on it.

Stacey – “oh my god, did you see that?  He was totally staring at me, how embarrassing for him.  Come on dude, I know you love me but this is work, please try to stay professional” or “Things are just moving too fast for me, I mean, how do I tell him to refund the deposit he put down on our wedding reception?  I’m so stressed.”

Me – “Seriously, it is so obvious he is just trying to see you – I mean, does he really think that we would believe that the Corporate Counsel would need to talk to the VP of HR?  Duh, we’re not idiots.”

This continued for a very long time until he actually overheard us.  He turned beet red and after that we noticed our boss going to his office a lot.  He actually had a very good sense of humor about it, but no one was ever as amused at us as we were at ourselves.

Last year she came with me to Disney World on our family vacation.  By day two she was my parent’s new favorite child.  My father, whom I love, but talk to only rarely and always about business or politics, sat with her and chatted like they were lifelong buddies.  He said to me more than once “she is great!  How does she not have a boyfriend?”  I don’t know Dad, but I’ve never heard you say that about me!  My sisters both tried to steal her but I wouldn’t allow that.  On the last day of vacation my niece Trinity said “I want you to be my new step-mother!” We can’t quite figure out what needs to happen to my sister in order to accomplish that, so we just let it go.

We both hate to talk on the phone – she is actually the person who coined my phone voice as “secret agent trying not to be overheard” – so we communicate now mostly via email and text.  We can go months without seeing each other but it never matters.  I can’t wait to go there, even if it’s only for a weekend, and lay around in her living room drinking wine and reading trashy magazines and laughing our asses off.