freaking out on the inside since 1981

have you ever felt like posting a want ad for a best friend?  i’m actually all set in the best friend department, matt is my hero for buying brunch and buying drain-o for the tub, and dancing in a circle of all females to brit pop hits last night.  he’s my hero for many other reasons, including but not limited to:  loving bon scott era ac/dc, having “cool” hair as my second graders say, playing classic arcade games on black cat nights, sticking with me shot for shot, tolerating my weepiness through old john ford movies, loving history and giving appropriate props to ancestry, climbing mountains with lobster rewards and rescusing three-legged cats from a mean life on the streets.

so i’m not lonely, as he fills my days up, whether it’s reading comics as i peruse some travelogue in the washington post (they called this island in north korea the ‘alcatraz of fun’) or laughing to himself as he reads his great uncle’s amazing and modestly collated memoirs.  love you matt.

what i guess i mean is that i miss the best girl friends in life, the thrill of receiving a “be fri” or a “st ends” half of the heart necklace and knowing what exactly what duties it entailed.  i need a girl about town, i need a girl to sit on our couch and drink wine with me as we trade stories or godard anecdotes.  i need somebody kind and fierce and golden-hearted, all at once.  someone who appreciates the spectacle of a flea market but would never treat it as such.  somebody with a penchant for old history and even older natural phenomenon and somebody who thinks it’s all too much to read about the black death or richard dawkins but does it, anyway.

somebody who can remind me how great it is that i don’t have to worry about having children yet, but somebody who commiserates with me over how i don’t have a cat.  somebody whose cat i can borrow, sneakily, past the glare of my no-pets apartment clause.  somebody for picnics and hikes around the finest maryland has to offer and somebody i can lend my whole heart to anytime she hates on boys or speeding tickets or how unfair it is that we weren’t around when bob dylan was so dreamy.  also someone to tell me that it’s probably not a good idea to cut myself some bangs again (this is what i do when i’m waiting to go out, i smush my hair around my head in attempt to tell what it’ll look like should i cut it)  instead of PICTURES i need ADVICE

how do you post a want ad for that?  i think somebody should create an appropriate forum.

i always used to live vicariously through livejournal and envision the sorts of friendships i could have if only my lj friends lived a spitting distance from my area code.  i’m not even particular, two hours’ drive could do.  it would make it an adventure, even.  distance is not as conducive when i have a mean need to collapse on your couch after a tough day on The Streets, but i could work with two hours.

patrice, i always thought i’d be her best friend if i could’ve had the foresight to live in new york city.  but she is far more glamorous and far more good than i’ll ever be, so maybe that wouldn’t have worked.  i’ll never forget her taking a bus to my gritty hometown and then a taxi to the church where i would be married.  i’ll never forget the australian boy falling in love with her and rightfully so.  i’ll never forget what she did for me, and what it meant to us.  i hope i can someday repay the favor.

i guess i really always believed luisa would be my best friend, but the distance and the never-actually-meeting in Real Life sort’ve prevented that.  and then that crippling bout of idiocy where i didn’t e-mail her for more than a good few months.  that sort’ve wrecked any chance of LifeLong BestFriendHood.  i love her, though, and i’ll always think of her fondly.  she would watch films with me and i know i could convince her to drink maker’s out of mason jars.  matt would cook for us and i would slowly get used to her husband’s accent (it always takes me a long time to understand different accents, even as i have the most annoyingly-american one – matt’s dad STILL can’t understand me on the phone).  i always envisioned taking trips out to see her in california, even as i hate flying.  i would just whittle away the hours with peanut snacks and bad air radio as i waited for california’s clutches.  then i could see all the people and places and cats that she so dearly cares about.  going in the ocean in our clothes.  things of that nature.

and so on and so forth.  i always thought marissa and i had a natural affinity, but then she went and had the cutest baby in the universe and sort’ve rightfully dropped out of touch with the internet.  and another marissa, florida-then-dc-bound marissa.  the prettiest girl you ever did see and she was moving to my adopted city!  but a rockstar fell in love with her.  again, rightfully so.  i envision her on tour with him in glamorous places.  i don’t know.

so, want ad.  maybe it’ll be answered but probably it won’t.  i don’t like my chances but i’ll take ‘em if it means finding a girl who loves joseph cornell the way that i do.  to any girl within ten miles of area code 20016, who loves bourbon and neoclassicism and the stories of senior citizens:  please get in touch.  you are a friend already, and i have truly missed you.