You old Bitch

Today's blog entry is dedicated to my friend Barrie, since it is her birthday.

Hence the title of today's entry. Now please take that with a grain of salt. I know Barrie will.

Barrie and I met 6 years ago, when we were the only two female writers in our class at the Portfolio Center. We'd both come there for different reasons. Me, I'd been in the "real world" doing a job that I hated, and couldn't stand to do for one more mintute. And Barrie came because she thought she'd postpone working for a while longer.

The first time we hung out, we went to a famous bar in Atlanta, the Cleremont Lounge. It was a female strip bar, but neither one of us knew this ahead of time, we'd been sent there for school and told to write about our experience. Welcome to Portfolio Center. It became clear very early in the friendship by all rights and means, we shouldn't be friends. We had nothing in common. We didn't like the same music, clothes, I grew up in the midwest, she was a Floridia native.

I liked Harry Connick Jr and Johnny Cash. She was more Cat Stevens and Simon and Garfunkel.

You see? Not the same. And maybe that's why we've stayed friends. I don't know anyone else like her in my life. She's very much her own person. Maybe we have that in common.

Barrie will wear wrist warmers that she'd learned to knit herself, and I'd wear socks with dogs doing a limbo on them, just cause they're fun.

Happy Birthday Barrie. I hope your doing something very fun today.

Wishing you happiness today, tomorrow and always.