Sarah.

On the day you were born I was threeish years old and I like to think that somehow I was rambling around in my toddler state and all of a sudden my little baby hands went like this towards Ohio.

\m/  \m/

Because I would find it very strange that I didn't have some kind of telepathy where you were concerned even then.

I think sometimes when you get older you think that you won't find friends like you found when you were younger. This is not to say that you will not find friends, because surely most of us will at all places along the path. But what is unusual is finding a friend who you feel like, if there were ever a place where you had met that person that they would have fit right into your life right into that spot, wherever it was or what was going on.

Like say you were drinking in a parking lot before a really dumb show, if you were ever inclined to do that kind of thing? Like that person would have been the person you'd most want there to do that stupid shit with you. Like that person would have been there anyway and if she had it would have been better. 

And maybe even for some of the smart things too. 

Exactly. 

 

Ha! 

The day I met you for real in person I sliced my finger almost in half in a door and then we ate prime rib sandwiches that we should go have again because they were very good. And I think you felt more sorry for me than you were inclined to laugh at me because I didn't feel stupid and that was very nice. I also recall feeling like I'd talked to you before although I hadn't and that pretty much sums the whole thing up.

So I could really stop this there. But why, when I don't have to? 

Oh, and I took this a couple of weeks later. This is the first one I have of you besides the giantess/Melissa/Devra picture. I totally forgot about it. Nice one. You see this?

And it turns out it can feel a little weird for some reason, when you're reasonably used to being cool and collected and stuff and just down with the enjoying of the people in general when all of a sudden you're thinking wow, who the hell are you? Because you're kind of teh awesome in tiny letters? 

It can feel a little weird while it also doesn't feel weird at all. 

Bloggers are weird.

Admit it - it was disorienting at first, like we'd been in some of the very same places although there was obviously no way that could have been true, and at the very least had come to some of the very same conclusions, wherever it was we'd been. Mirrors. Parallels. Echoes. Poetic crap like that.

I recall a lull in the BlogHer madness between the Shutter Sisters party and whatever drunk lobbyfest came after it (not that BlogHer is a drunk lobbyfest, if anyone else is actually reading this. I mean, there is wine and there are generally lobbies and sometimes the twain do meet, but BlogHer has changed my life in a very profound way that has nothing to do with alcohol. Case in point: I would not be writing this very thing I'm writing without it. I'd be writing about something entirely different and it would probably not be half as good. So the wine is just a big, fat bonus that I consider my prize for the rest of the year where I stare at the little white square of death and die of writer's block and feel inadequate as a blogger all by myself with my own wine and without a thousand of my closest friends. You think this is easy? Try it.)

ANYWAY we had gone back to your room so you could change your shoes, maybe, I don't know. And I said something and you said something like "No one thinks that usually except for me. Is that weird that we think the same thing about that?" And I said something like "Well, welcome to the new world order, bitches."

I'm curious to know what it was we were talking about, because it seemed like a profound thing in my memory, which maybe it wasn't. 

And I really didn't say that thing about the new world order. I really didn't. He would though. Jerk. : 

 

(Sorry to steal this from you. It's habit-forming, goodNESS.)

I probably just said "Yeah I usually think that too." And you said something like "Are you noticing that we think the same things a lot of the time. Are you sent here to toy with my brain?" (Not really. I made that last part up.) And then I really do recall saying "We'd probably just better get used to it."

And I think that's when we came to terms.

You understand this: 

 And this:

And this:
 

And other things also, too many to list. I think sometimes that we are the same person but then I really think that you're just the person I know who is most like me who isn't related to me, and in that I find a very real sense of comfort and relief that I never have to pretend to be interested in your stories. I am so happy that you were born and that I had a blog and that you finally had the good sense to locate it even if you didn't come to the community keynote and FIGURE IT OUT A YEAR EARLIER HELLO.

But then again I wasn't so sure what a goon squad was either until I really had a reason to find out. 

That's all water under bridges now and the important thing to focus on now is that if I had a friend fantasy team you'd be my first round pick for countless reasons both silly and profound that somehow make perfect sense to me, even the giblet parts. 

You are so much better than you know, even though I know you know you're fine. 

I love you to pieces. A Hot Metal Street of badass pieces. 

And I don't think any of it is weird anymore - just nice. 

Happy birthday.  

Comments

[Stimey]

It's amazing to find someone that fits you like that, huh? What a nice post for Sarah.

And happy birthday, Sarah!!

[Laurie]

She is nice and very deserving. But her pr contract will run out soon and then I can start talking some trash. ;)

You should come out and play with us sometime - or maybe even just me, since you live right up the street and not over the river! Never had that Dunkin date.

[Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah]

This is the nicest thing (nicest things) anyone has ever said about me.

I actually laughed AND cried.

I love you too.

And if it helps Gabe kind of thinks we are the same person too, so that makes three of us.

[Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah]

And JOHN TAYLOR IS MINE, BITCHES!

[Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah]

Also, the Mattin roll kind of makes the post 1000 times sweeter.