bestest friends

so i'm starting to look for a new apartment.

Roomie and i have decided, in the interest of maturity and future growth (and the fact that we might want to develop healthier relationships with boys), to break up the panda pen.

in all honesty, though, i'm hoping to find an apartment down the street. (yes, we might have some attachment issues.)

but what else is friendship other than deep attachment?

the other night, we were talking about the day Roomie and i met; we even toasted the moment. we had just started at Big 4 Consulting Firm. during my orientation, she caught me rolling my eyes at the inanity of a HR girl and she said she knew then that we should have lunch and be friends.

i still remember that lunch. we went for chinese food, she told me a story about minnesota that made me snort out my pepsi and i wrote to friends in LA, 'i think i just met a girl who tells better stories than i do. she's funnier than i am, dammit!' thus began 9 years of our particular brand of cross-cultural exchange. like the night i got really loud in a bar arguing about the impact colonialism had on Africa and she said, 'I only wanted to know why Martin Lawrence is funny! i don't get it!'

Roomie flew out to LA when my mom died, suffering sunburn and church ladies. and when her mother died, i flew out with the rest of the Chicago 7 (as our group was later dubbed) to be her buffer and 2nd family. she was there giving my LA family updates during the removal of Agatha the Fibroid and i was there while we whipped down the hairpin roads of Italy. (to experience Roomie's driving is to experience an uncomfortable closeness with your Maker.)

as best friends, sisters underneath different colored skins, we are slightly demented parts of a unit. when we looked up our astrological signs, our pairing was called 'Sensible Elegance,' as represented by Blake Edwards and Julie Andrews.

the other night, in preparation for a dinner party with her boss, Roomie said: And what's off-limits?
Ding: (sigh) Rich people; yuppies; why Whole Foods and the people who shop there annoy the shit out of me; strap ons; politics; housewives; Republicans; why kids suck; sex.
Roomie: And what else?
Ding: (sigh) I can't have tequila or whiskey. Only beer or wine.
Roomie: Thank you.
Ding: Only for you, dude.

and it's true. there are things that i would only do for Roomie and no one else.

perhaps it's a cliche but LTFs go away while BFFs stay put, you know? it's a high school way of expressing it but i think the burdens of adulthood tend to smooth over the folie a deux quality that youthful friendships had back then.

anyway, to Roomie - Happy 9 years of friendship, lady.