Eleventy thousand years ago, when yours truly was younger,
chubblier and a little less angry, I got it into my empty little head that I
needed to go to school far, far away, perhaps to escape the hustle and bustle
of a big city like Bloomington, California and all of its hectic SIX SQUARE
MILES. I resisted comments such as, “But Chapman is so much closer...and nicer
than Stanislaus!” and “Why do you want go so far away? Do you really want to
escape your family so badly?” and in
Fall of 2002, my parents packed up my crap and drove me the six hours to CSU
Stanislaus, in California’s lovely (ha) Central Valley. I knew no one except
some relatives who lived about 30 minutes South of Turlock, but I was
determined to not run to Merced every weekend and be all grown-up and wash my
own chonies and shit. This actually worked quite well, because I had no car and
managed to get a 20-hour per week job on top of my full class schedule.
The friends front, however, was not going quite so smoothly.
My natural expression is a scowl, and the fact that I usually walked around
with headphones in my ears made it hard for people to approach me. I signed up
for Newman Club and Swing Club on Move-In Day, Newman because my parents wanted
me to, and Swing because I had seen Swing Kids and totally wanted to learn to
dance like Robert Sean Leonard and wear Victory Rolls. Also, SWING HEIL.
Both decisions turned out to be AWESOME. Newman allowed me
to continue going to church and I met a girl from Riverside (who turned out to
be my neighbor in the dorms, oddly enough) who seemed nice enough to hang out
with, even though she was a full foot taller than me and liked pink. Her
proximity me both in the dorms and back home proved convenient; her roommate
had a car and I was able to hitch a ride home for Thanksgiving and Christmas
holidays.
My roommates were friendly enough, but come Winter, there
was strife because my roommate hated our other roommate (over some dude who was
bowlegged anyway and kind of a douchecopter. Plus his friends found me less
than entertaining because they couldn’t figure out how to get into my
pantalones), and the third was having sort of personal crisis because she wanted to have sexytimes with her teammates on the girls' basketball team. Anyway, my roommate Tala moved
out, leaving me with the other two. Winter semester was, in a word, quiet. The
two roommates I had left hung out with each other, and I didn’t feel the need
to force myself upon them. Plus, they didn’t know who Coldplay was. Whatever.
In the meantime, Anne (formerly known as Tall Pink Girl,
even though I just made that name up and no one that I know of has ever called
her that) and I were hanging out quite often, owing to the fact that my
roommates were assholes and her roommate was riding the rails of the crazy
train. Since I now had a double room to myself, I told her that anytime she
needed to escape the asylum she was free to crash on my spare bed.
A few days later, I was at work when Anne showed up at my
office, nearly in tears because she had had it with her roommate. I don’t
remember what exactly happened; I think Kerry tried to remove her eyeballs with
an ice cream scoop and feed it to her cat. Or something. I may be lying,
though. Call it artistic license.
Anyway, I asked Anne if she wanted to stay with me, she
hesitated and asked if she could just move right in. The appeal of having
someone around who didn’t simply see me as “that girl who cleans and whose
shampoo we can use” led me to say yes right away. She went back to the dorms
and began moving her stuff, while I called my roommates to let them know. One
roommate scolded me for letting her move in and not asking her first. I
reminded her that neither she nor Jackie ever fucking speak to me, and Anne is
moving into my damn room so no, I didn’t feel the need to ask her because she
didn’t feel the need to ask when using my shit. Anne told me that later, this
roommate came over, all smiles, welcoming her to our dorm and asking if she
needed any help. The other, Jackie, was only slightly perturbed that I had
taken the liberty to bring in another roommate, but in the end didn’t care.
The close proximity of a shared dorm brought Anne and I
closer together. Which is weird, because we were as opposite as two people
could possibly get. Anne was girly, vivacious, and loved romantic comedies. I
was surly, loud and still watched Gargoyles on the internet when I thought no one was looking, because college girls don't watch cartoons anymore, duh. After my
mom met Anne for the first time, she commented to me, “Anne is such a nice girl...why does she hang out
with you?”
(Note: I still don’t know the answer to that question)
Throughout college, we lived together in the dorms with a
parade of other roommates, most of them psycho slobs who got drunk and barfed
on the living room carpet (sophomore year), or ate all our food and then
bitched me out because I was hanging out with Anne when I should be hanging out
with her because she was Raza (junior
year) and therefore we’d be better bffs. Orale, homes.
Senior year was easily the best, because we moved into a
2-bedroom apartment that can’t really be called “off-campus” because it was on
the same block as the school. Even
better, no batshit roommates, and insanely cheap rent. For reals. I think we
paid like eleven dollars and a rusty quarter per month. We’d drive to San
Francisco on a whim for ice cream sodas at Ghirardelli Square, make 1 a.m.
Slurpee runs, and, once we turned 21, engaged in the thriving nightlife that
Modesto had to offer. Her then-boyfriend (now husband) Josh still likes to tell
the story of when we went to Denny’s after a night of, um, checkers, only to
have Anne and I disappear into the bathroom for half an hour. In fact, the next
morning I woke up and was all, “WTF, weren’t we supposed to go to Denny’s?” and
Josh was all, “We did go to Denny’s,
dumbass,” and I had to sit and think about it until I remembered that I had
ordered seasoned fries without bacon because it was Lent.
We decorated for Christmas, I made Anne real Mexican food and she’d pick me up from late shifts at
Starbucks. In 2009, she asked me to be her maid of honor (with Felica) when she
and Josh got married. It is a testament to how well she knows me when she
called to break the news about the dresses.
Anne: So, I picked out the color for the bridesmaids’
dresses.
Me: I know it’s going to be pink dude. I have made my peace
with it.
Anne: Well, yeah. But I need to tell you what shade of pink.
Me: (silence)
Anne: I’ve decided on fuchsia.
Me: (picturing myself as a bottle of Pepto Bismol with a
head) Oh. Ooookaay.
At this point I reminded myself that this was Anne’s wedding
and to just wear the dress and shut the hell up. I did put up a fight, however,
when I was told that we had to buy shoes to match. When I brought up the idea
of black shoes, Anne’s mom brought up the fact that we would look like a gaggle
of Good n’ Plentys, which was a fair point. I still resisted the idea until
Josh had to call me and tell me to just shut up and buy the damn shoes. At
which point I was all, “Wow I’m being an asshole”, and bought the shoes without
further argument. I gave them away after the wedding though. To a new owner who
will appreciate their...pinkness.
I survived the pink dress (and the acrylic nails. WITH PINK
JEWELS ON THEM. The nail lady was all, “you have-a preety nail!” and stuck them
on before I could stop her. Oh, and the pedicure. I believe Anne still has
photos of me with a little Korean lady hunched over my feet, and I look like I’m
being interrogated using North Korean torture techniques), I had a KICKASS hairdo (held up with approximately ninety thousand bobby pins) and I even gave a
pretty decent speech, despite having written it on hotel stationary the night
before, REALLY FAST because Anne was in the shower and I didn’t want her to
know I hadn’t done it yet.
(Note: For Lucy’s wedding, I wrote one sentence on a scrap
of paper the day of. With Lucy in the
room. I rule.)
There is no shortage of celebratory stuff. Just a few days
ago, Anne and Josh entered the next phase of their lives, bringing their
firstborn son into the world. Today is Anne’s birthday. She and I have
officially been friends for 10 years. And I consider myself so, so lucky that I
get to be here for all of it.
Happy birthday, dude. Here’s to another 10 years of
friendship.
