PREFACE

My history of friendships with girls is perhaps more torrid and inconsistent than my romanitic history with boys. My friendships with girls, up until perhaps senior year of highschool, usually involved being friends for awhile and then one of us turning on the other in a firestorm of two-faced behavior, whispering bad things about that girl to new friends, and of course the old friends finding out. . . . I finally did get dependable friends late in highschool, but as soon as I got my first boyfriend I left them for the joys of making out.

When the honeymoon ended for me and Chris, I found myself single, but I also found myself being friends with the lovely Emily Fox. We supported eachother through our respective crushes and the subsequent dissapointments of crushing on anyone. We spent many speech-practice nights giggling about Dave K and watching her track-running guy scurry past the highschool at practice. We shared scenes and lip-synched backstage during the musical "Pippin." We designated eachother as twins.

And then I graduated, and started dating Dave K., and I really haven't seen Emily since.

For the majority of college, I didn't really have any close girl friends. I was friends with Eva before we broke off to date Sam and Dave. There was Vanessa, a fellow biology major, who I started out hating and ended up wishing I had spent more time with (my other bad habit: hating girls because they are too close to who I am, and then wanting to be their friends). It wasn't until Dave D. and I broke up in the spring of 2002 that I found myself depending on girl friends, specifically my dear Alice, who's weblog is linked here.

Alice, along with Sprite and Adam and James and of course, Sam, saved my life when everything seemed so crappy. She listened to my kiss-and-tell stories, and we got eachother on an emotional level.

And then I started dating Dave D. again, and we didn't see eachother so much.


Inaugural Meeting of the Prince Charming Fanclub and Anarchist Society
This Valentine's day was perhaps the most fun, emotionally comforting, and actually romantic Valentine's day that I've ever had, single or not. Sharon hosted myself, Sarah S., and Amalia for a single ladies' night. It was very important that we do this, since Sharon and I both are recently back to single-dom. Amalia made salad, Sarah made pasta, I made pina colodas and brought champagne and strawberries, and Sharon made TRUFFLES and cups of chocolate custard. We spent forever laughing and eating dinner. We watched "Chocolat" and laughed some more. Got online and I shared Homestarrunner and Sharon shared "Cows with Guns" and we googled everyone we could think of. We looked at orchestra trip pictures and college yearbooks.

By this point, it was 3 in the morning, and it was time to go home. SO we slowly packed up all the remaining goodies that we hadn't played or eaten. Sharon opened the door to let us out, and stopped. There in the door was a heart-shaped "Happy Valentine's Day" Balloon, a bag of hershey's dark chocolate kisses, and a note, which among other things had inscribed:

"To my favorite underground society"
--Prince Charming


From the handwriting, we could tell who it was. It took another hour maybe to stop giggling and take pictures of the Prince Charming Fanclub and Anarchist Society with our gifts. We all agreed it was perhaps the nicest V-day we'd ever had. And that really took me aback. I've been single, not single, broken up, and given gifts on V-day. And this was the best one, the one that made my heart especially warm and made me laugh all evening.

It makes me nervous. Because I fluxuate between really wanting to date someone, but I don't want to be all coupled again. I want to be free to have girl friends. I want to do both, and it should be possible. I need to work on it. It looks like I'll have time, because there is no prince charming for me yet. I'm not healthy enough in the heart, though somedays I feel perfectly fine. I want to be, for myself and for others. And I will be. I just wish I knew when!

So here's a toast to the lovely ladies who made my night so worthwhile, and to prince charming for making us feel special.