I'm trying to write an entry this morning. An important entry. And, as I so often do with the things that are the most important to me, I'm fucking it up. I'm putting too much pressure on myself to do this just right and make it perfect. A fitting tribute to my friend, who I found four years ago today.

My phone is magic, see. I think about all of the times that I've sat outside at night, either on my swing or, more recently, in my garage, feeling alone and misunderstood. At times like that, I've been able to type all of my problems into my phone, and then either right away or a few hours later, I get a reply.

Sadness and loneliness go in, and understanding comes out.

My phone is magic.

Sometimes it's not that dramatic. Sometimes I just want to talk about my day. Say that I've arrived at work, or that I'm bored, or that I'm having a cheeseburger for lunch. Stupid mundane stuff like that. So I type those things into my phone, and it makes me feel like I'm sharing my life with someone. Because, in a way, I am.

Magic. My friend is magic.

What follows is the entry that I wrote on this date last year. I think I did a pretty good job. It still wasn't good enough to express everything I feel when I think about her, but it came pretty close.

It usually hits me at night, like most things. I'll be downstairs shooting pool and it'll hit me, and I'll nearly drop my cue. I'll be out on my swing and it'll hit me, and my swing will coast to a stop. Or I'll be reading a book and it'll hit me, and I'll read the same paragraph a dozen times.

I am so incredibly blessed. That realization hits me, and I can think of nothing else.

It might seem like an odd thing, to have a best friend that you've never even met. I suppose it seemed odd to me, back when I first found her. She has become such an integral part of my life, but if I saw her walking down the street I might not even know her. If I spoke to her on the phone it might take me a few seconds to recognize her voice.

It might seem like an odd thing, but it doesn't. Not to me. To me it's as natural as breathing. And just as involuntary.

Three years ago today, that's when I found her.

---

Just got an email from her.

Told her that I'm trying to write this entry, for our anniversary, but that I'm experiencing writer's block.

I think the problem is that nothing I could ever possibly write would be enough. Not enough to even come close to describing how important she is to me. I don't have the words, and even if I did, I don't think I have the strength to put those words together.

I know that whatever I write will fall short of the mark. Trivialize the emotions. Marginalize the gratitude that I feel when I think about her being in my life.

I needed something, three years ago. I needed it so badly that I was dying from the lack of it. And she gave it to me.

Understanding.

Not pity, or doubt, or advice. She didn't try to rationalize what I was going through, and she didn't try to make it all better, and she didn't judge, and she didn't mock.

She understood.

And I went from feeling completely alone in this world, to having an ally. A kindred spirit I called her. And that knowledge, that wonderful knowledge that I wasn't alone, that I wasn't a freak, that I wasn't any of the things I'd been labeled as...

Wonderful.

I began to heal, three years ago on this day. I stopped waiting to die, and began struggling to live, three years ago on this day.

---

Sometimes I think that we take each other for granted.

I relish those thoughts, because they're absolutely true. We take each other for granted because that's exactly what we are.

We will always be friends. We will always be there for each other.

We are granted to each other.

---

Happy anniversary, my dearest friend Teri.

She is a part of me now.

The most important part.

I dreamed that we were at Rich O's. It was just like old times, except that we were both really tired. I fell asleep on the couch, and you fell asleep leaning against me.

It was nice.

Then Rich O's closed, and my arms were full of cigarettes and your purse and stuff, so I put you on my head and wore you like a hat as I walked to Jack's.

Now don't get mad. There was nothing sexual or otherwise inappropriate at all. It was more about comfort and trust.

It was nice.

Then, I went into Jack's with you as a hat, and my friend Mike from Omaha was there watching a pool game. I hadn't seen him in five years, nor him me, but all he could do was stare at my strange choice of headgear.

It was a nice dream.

I'm leaving in 20 minutes. I hope to get my hairs cut today. I also hope to beat the rain that's looming. This all got me to thinking (uh-oh) about timing. It really is everything, like I keep saying.

A couple of years ago, the car carrying my nephew and his friends, and another vehicle, had the worst timing possible. If the speed of either vehicle had been different by even one mile-per-hour, what was a tragedy would have only been a close call. If either vehicle's speed had been ten miles-per-hour different, it would have been a non-event.

Unbelievably bad timing,is what that was.

In February, StupidGirl asked me to move to Las Vegas. It was a very sweet and kind offer. But I didn't go. I didn't go, because I had a relationship here in Indiana that was very important to me, and also because I had a job here. Now, I know, I also had friends and family and a house and blah blah blah, but the reasons I stayed were because of LaptopGirl and, to a much lesser extent, my job.

Two months later, my job was gone, and so was my relationship. Both had gone the way of the dodo. And StupidGirl had gone and got herself a shiny new boyfriend.

So that was certainly crappy timing. Nowhere near as crappy as the timing that my nephew and his friends experienced, but crappy nonetheless.

I could list a billion examples. Like how I met MixedSignalGirl because a deer ran in front of her car just when I happened to be driving behind her. Or how I found RockGirl because the "random journal" button at journalspace.com took me to her journal. Or how StupidGirl just happened to be on the rag and be my waitress on the same night.

Anyway, speaking of timing, I've got to go now. Maybe I'll finish this entry later.

Yesterday, I updated my facebook status thingy to say:

Sometimes, it takes a man's touch. Right, OddlyFamiliarGirl?

I was sitting in a staff meeting - that fact the my life is ruled by meetings is a different story - and my phone rang. The caller was OddlyFamiliarGirl. I couldn't answer the call, of course, because I was in a meeting, but I was able to send her a text that I'd call her back at my earliest opportunity. Right after that my phone chimed again, this time to indicate a new voicemail message.

So, after my meeting, I listened to the voicemail. It said, in part, that OddlyFamiliarGirl couldn't get the door on her Jeep to close, and she wanted to know if I'd take a look at it.

Not many people know that, as a child, I often dreamed that someday I might be able to look at, and maybe even fix, peoples' car doors.

Anyway, once I finally got off work, I drove to the place where OddlyFamiliarGirl was waiting. She told me her door woes, and I went out to take a look.

Not to get too technical, but the latch thingy was extended when it should have been retracted. This was preventing the door from closing.

I pressed my thumb against the door button, watched the thingy retract, and then I closed the door. Then, because I'm nothing if not thorough, I opened and closed the door again.

Then I went back inside and made fun of OddlyFamiliarGirl for a while. That was instead of giving her my bill.

Then I updated my facebook status.

One of my friends, or "chicks" as OddlyFamiliarGirl calls them, read my status and emailed me to ask, "I'm intrigued. What did you do to OddlyFamiliarGirl? Should I be jealous now?"

I replied, "Don't be jealous. I just thumbed her button and made her happy."

(This is a repost from 2006. I'm too tired to come up with anything new this morning.)

---

I hate it when my most recent entry sucks, so I'm writing this one which hopefully sucks less.

Somebody last night - I think it was one of the PBDs in a moment of alcohol-induced pseudo-wisdom, made the following observation:

You should just follow your heart, and do the right thing.

Head started to nod up and down in unison like commuters on a bumpy bus ride - imagery which looks much better in my head than it does on my screen.

Such a sage suggestion! Such worldly wisdom! Such axiomatic advice!

Such babbling bullshit!

I had to put a stop to it before people started getting whiplash.

"But what if following your heart and doing what's right are mutually exclusive?" I offered. "Remember that hearts are stupid and selfish. It's very rare for them to be right about anything. What if you're always finding yourself being forced to choose between following your heart and doing what's right?"

That stopped the bobbing.

"Well then that's pretty fucked-up," someone responded.

Indeed.

I can sense the eyes upon me sometimes. Looking for what, I don't know. Hoping for what, I don't know. Dreading what, I don't know. I really don't know much, it seems, but I do know that I can sense the eyes upon me sometimes, and I relish those times because (a) it's contact of a sort, and (b) it's all I have.

Anyway, I'm in a good mood again. Two nights in a row. Weird.

I take part of that back.

There are, actually, two people who I desperately want to understand me.

One of those people already does. And the fact that she lives over 700 miles away, and the fact that I've never met her - those truths change nothing.

There's another person who I wish would understand me. She doesn't. She probably never will. There's too much distrust, for some stupid reason that's out of my control. I plan to continue to live despite this. So there.

I think what I want to say right now is that it's okay that people don't get me. Fuck, half the time I don't even get myself.

If I try to be totally objective about things, then I decide that I'm a dumbass. That's one reason that I try to stay subjective.

I'd rather be a loser than a dumbass.

None of this is for me, and it never has been for me. If people would understand that, then they would understand 99.99999% of me.

I'm not holding my breath though. Partly because I can't hold my breath that long, but mostly because I don't care if people understand me or not.

It is what it is. It has been what it has been. It will be what it will be.

If you can take those last three sentences and not infer any meaning beyond what was written, then (a) I applaud you, and (b) Stick close to me - I may need someone to back me up at some point.

Tonight, I'm in an almost perfect mood. In love with being in love, and neither dashed hopes nor destroyed expectations can change that.

At least, not tonight.

I will feel what I feel.

So there.

I like it when I can just let my fingers fly and then I look at the screen and it's actual words and sentences and paragraphs. And sometimes those things even manage to dance well together, forming a sort of stage-show portraying my current thoughts and/or feelings and/or whatever.

This is not one of those times. This time, my words and sentences and paragraphs and all have palsy really bad, and they're just sort of twitching.

What's going to piss me off, I think, is when everything that everyone warned me about turns out to be true. My life will become a cacophony of I-told-you-so and You-should-have-listened and You-fucking-dumbass. I don't expect it to be very much fun. It's already started, and it already sucks.

Just because something turns out to be true, that doesn't mean that it was true all along. I think I've written about this before. Like, if I were to announce that I will win the lottery, and then I do win the lottery, that doesn't mean I was right with my prediction. It only means that I got lucky. This is kinda the same deal.

I don't care what people have said to me about this. I didn't want to hear about it then, and I don't want to hear about it now, and I definitely won't want to hear about it in the future.