Happy birthday, li'l buddy

Today is my dear friend LB's birthday.
We've been friends since 1991. That is a shit-ton of time.

We met when I was a freshman at Ithaca College and she had just transferred.
She lived across the hall from me and had a tv and a supercool pink flowered bucket hat (seen here).
She also had really nice nails and made me laugh so hard I screamed.
We had a wild birthday weekend for her freshman year. Two friends (well, I think she knew them) from her old school came to visit and we drank, ate pizza and danced to Motown tunes all weekend. Oh yeah, and made fun of the one guy who gave us grief for eating day-old pizza that hadn't been refrigerated. What was his name... Roland? There's a hysterical and probably potentially embarrassing video out there of the goings-on. I know I have it on VHS somewhere at my mom's.

She made me go in the Gamers' Grotto as punishment.

Anyway, my little pal and I started visiting each other about five years ago. We'd kept in touch kinda sporadically since college, but this one day, out of the blue, I really wanted to hang out with her, so I sent her an email and asked if it would be cool if I visited her in CT where she lived. It wasn't until the train was almost to the station that I thought, what was I thinking? We haven't seen each other in over ten years!! But the minute I got off the train and saw her, it was immediately like old times. We've taken turns visiting each other since and gone on two vacations together. The first we rented a little attic apartment in Woodstock, NY. It was the lousiest, rainiest weather the whole week and LB was sick, so we made a lot of visits to the local CVS. We went to a British foods shop and bought nearly $100 worth of crap, mostly candy. Last year we went to Bennington, Vermont for a week and it was sooooo fabulous. It really was one of the best vacations I've ever taken. The vacation condo we rented had a firepit out back and I terrified her one night by building a fire. I found this tarnished old ring out there so I put it on and called it "The Precious- based on the novel Push by Sapphire." I gave it to her before I left for home, but she was afraid it might give her radiation.

She was not happy I made her pose.

When we were in college, we ended each semester with The Great Take-Out Feast, which now that I look at it, was poorly named, as we only ordered food in. We'd eat & laugh until we cried.

LB also used to dictate movies on me, as she was studying film criticism. I heard a lot of, "What do you mean you've never seen The Deer Hunter? We're watching it right now!"

I also remember how she'd stay up with me. It was her senior year and she didn't have to, but I was only a junior and doubling up on credits as well as working so the only time I had to write papers and such was between the hours of 10pm and 7am. (And my roommate was horrible- she was so dumb she thought it was a compliment when a bunch of guys in our building called her a 'tool.' She called our room 'The Toolbox' until I told her to cut it out.) LB would let me hang out in her room and do my work all night while she watched movies or videos or whatnot. It really got me though that insane year.

Before one of my train rides home after visiting her, we were in a bookstore looking for a book for me to read during the 10 hour trip home. I found these cartoon Bigfoot memoir books. Again, risked hernia laughing with her. We've been obsessed with Bigfoot ever since. I got her a Bigfoot action figure (the sucker's at least a foot & a half tall) with special stamps on his feet so you can leave footprints. And though she won't get it until she comes to visit me, I had my friend Gary make a very special gift for her with Bigfoot.

So even though this isn't the most coherent of tributes, happy birthday, my little friend. Hope you enjoyed your day and get your squeaky ass over to NY and visit soon. XOXOXO.