A Little Help from My Friends

My head is full of thoughts and ideas. This is pretty much a normal state for a writer, except right now very little of it makes any sense: there are a lot of competing ideas, a lot of unfinished random thoughts, a fair number of WTF exclamations, some stuff that’s just plain wrong, and there are a few usable ideas, but most of it is scary–it’s kind of like Facebook in my head right now. And nobody needs that, least of all me. I do think there is a coherent thread forming about how I want to move forward, and I wish I meant, should I write more blogs about bad dating or funny work stories?  Oh, the good old days.

But no matter what state the world is in, I can count on my annual girls’ weekend. We all went to high school together, and two of us have been friends since 4th grade. We gathered in Boston this weekend and enjoyed the weather and walked in the city, talked, laughed, ate, drank, ate more, drank more, and laughed again. Luckily, we are all on the same side as far as being horrified by what’s going on–that is not the case with our larger circles. It also came in handy for when we started playing the card game setback. None of us could bear to say trump, which comes up a lot in that game. I’m pretty sure it’s in the rules that you have to frequently ask, “What’s trump?” during the game, and it’s definitely not because of wine consumption. So, we took a stand and refused to say it, and instead said obama. In addition to asking what was obama, every time someone laid down a you-know-what point card, one of us shouted, “obama!”

We agreed to not dwell on politics and try to stay positive, that is until the third glass of wine; then it’s open season for dragging out old, embarrassing stories. But that’s where the healing laughter comes in, and we are very fair in making sure everyone gets laughed at. We’re good that way. And I want to be clear that even though we are all of a similar political persuasion, we did not discriminate and were inclusive: we had wine, beer, cocktails, and we even had an educational, in-depth lively discussion about the origins and making of scotch, whiskey, and bourbon. So stick that in your obama.

I always feel lucky for knowing these women, but this year I feel it even more. Here’s to you Colleen, Gloria, and Sue. No one makes better fun of me than you guys or plays a better obama card game.