The Letter B

“Friends are relatives you make for yourself.”  ~Eustache Deschamps

I know you didn’t ask but my weekend was wonderful. Alana turned Amazing Years Old and to celebrate her husband, Matthew, threw her a fete fit for her lovely self. Now I, being the misanthrope that we all know and try like hell to love, had misgivings about attending this party. Though Bill and his wife would be there for me to lean on along with Alana’s sister whose face lit up when she saw me and went in for that full body hug; I was still nervous. I can’t help it and I’ve finally succumbed to an overwhelming, heart racing, palm sweating, reaction to social situations. Especially situations where I’m surrounded, like sardines in a can, by people I’ve only recently met. It’s like, “Hello, I’m Heather. I know we just met but I’m going to stick my elbow into your slice of birthday cake.That cool?”

But God. Those people down there. And I knew – KNEW – this would happen, but they were all so nice and wonderful. We talked kids and jobs and the difference between Upstate and Downstate. They were the type of people that you wanted to spend Saturday nights with drinking prosecco, talking politics, art, pop culture. Anything. I couldn’t help but think today even that I want a dinner party with everything in miniature and hugging a friend of a friend. That was how the night ended. The hostess, Emily, wrapped her arms around my waist and told me how glad she was that I came and that she finally got to meet me and I hugged Alana’s dad and high-fived her Uncle Dan (Dan who is married to Jill) and that night, it really was one of those nights that keep you buoy you when you think that things are so so bad.

Now may I be narcissistic for a second? For Alana’s birthday her husband had her friends and family and Katie Couric leave blog entries of sentimental things about The Birthday Girl. I taped mine right before I left for the party so I didn’t say everything I wanted to say. The truth is that I love that lady. So perhaps I throw the word ‘love’ around a lot. Perhaps you just don’t notice. But I do love her. She is one of those people that make the Internet good and a happier place to share and be. It’s something I don’t say enough to so many people who prove what the Internet really is: not some scary bad place full of evil people who want to kidnap you but maybe, just maybe, the Internet has some gems. And when you find these gems who get you in a way that so many never did and never will…well… it makes life that much sweeter.