Degrees

I grew up in Minnesota.

What's the first thing you thought of when I said that? I bet, for 95% of you, it was "Coooooold" (and the other 5% thought something along the lines of "Fargo" "the Cohen Brothers rock" "mmmmm... hotdish" Oh wait, that last one was me.)

Yeah, yeah, it was cold. Reeeeeally cold during the winters. The summers, on the other hand are hot and HUMID. It's the spring and fall that make it more than worth living there. It's beautiful and perfect.

It's -11 degrees there today. My favorite is when it's One Degree. One poor, lonely, sad leettle deegree.

My best friend, Karen/kittywhumpus, still lives in the glorious Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul and she keeps me updated about such things. (She actually lives and works in St. Paul but I think of it as Minneapolis because that's where we both lived for so long. And Minneapolis is hipper. Although, her little house in St. Paul is SO AWESOME that it's actually an embassy; a little piece of Minneapolis hipness transplanted into St. Paul.)

ANYway, Karen and I have known each other since we were 16 years old. We still remember the party where we first met. It was at Dwight's apartment. He was an art student at the local college in the small Minnesota town we lived in. He was SO cool and SO flaming and he looooooved to corrupt us cute little high school punkrockers. (lots of oooooooo's and eeeeeeee's today. I must reeeeeeeally mean what I'm telling you, huh?) We were quite amenable to the corrupting. I remember having my first cigarette in Dwight's living room... man, I really loved smoking for a while there. A long while there.

But I digress. Meeting Karen.

Dwight's parties were IT for us arty, small town high schoolers. This was my first one and I was terrified! Up until this point in my life, I had pretty much been alone. I had one really good friend, (Hi, Aimee!) but when it came to any kind of group/community/family feeling, this was my first taste. And ohmygod, it tasted good. REALLY good and I was so scared they wouldn't like me and all I would have is that one taste, to forever be denied it again. I'd bore them, be stupid, all of the evil things that go through an isolated, insecure 16 year old's brain. And when I get scared, I get really quiet.

Don't want to say anything stupid? Don't say anything at all! Don't want to do anything stupid? Stand against the wall with a drink in your hand and DON'T, for the life of you, look as terrified as you feel!

And this is Karen's first memory of me. Seeing me standing against the wall, drink in hand and, to her eyes, looking older, mature, and so relaxed and confident. Wow, good job, brain! Fooled 'em! My first memory of her was from coming up the stairs when I first got there. She was standing with some of the coolest of the cool kids, with her funky red hair and paint on her clothing that made it obvious she was An Artist. God, she was so cool and there was NO way she'd ever want to talk to ME, right?

It's funny, I don't remember the actual meeting but we were pretty soon inseparable as I was welcomed into The Group. That's what we called ourselves. I always wanted to figure out some better name but nothing else ever stuck.

Karen and I in 1998 - 12 years after we met

I think the reason we've been able to stay close all these years has been the amazing technological breakthrough of instant messaging. We started doing it in what.... 2000? and have been talking almost every day since then. I mean it, people! If a day goes by that I don't IM/talk with Karen, the day's just not right. We somehow get through the weekends but then we have all kinds of stuff to catch up on, on Monday, so it's cool.

Take this little gem from yesterday:

me: You'll never guess what I'm doing right now
karen: umm...
me: I'm shaving my legs
karen: You are right.
karen: I never would have guessed that
me: For some reason, I have my electric razor in my purse and I'm shaving my legs so I can take a picture of the one Tabi sock that I JUST finished!
me: THAT is how cool I am
karen: Yay! You are SO COOL

Karen is very supportive and humors me a lot.


Cuuuuuuuuuuuute!

And we have a whole language we've developed over years of misspellings and "typing how we talk". She's in charge of eventually turning it all into a book, which will be a best seller, of course, because we are SO fascinating. (see sample above)

Anyway, Karen has just gone public with the fact that she's PREGNANT! Whoohooooooo! There was a little scare there in the first trimester but all seems to be well now and they're safely past the 3 month mark. She's started a new blog about it here: babywhumpus

She's even more hysterical than usual, talking about it all, and I can't believe after so many years of friendship, I'm going to be an auntie!

Are we even OLD enough to be having kids of our own? Shouldn't someone be watching us? Whoever it is, is in trouuuuuuuuble! We've been drinking way too much and now one of us is knocked up.