Yesterday, I spent the better part
of my email-time convincing Hannah that she shouldn’t be wary about posting
pictures of herself, along with ones of her friends, on her website. My point
was this:
The site is your online *journal*. There should be no illusions that the site
is all about you - but not in a self-centered way. A journal should be about
you, your dreams, fears, and interests. A journal is something that you write
to reflect on yourself, to discover new aspects of yourself. So why should
you be wary about having a scrapbook that displays pictures that include you?
I’m pretty deep, yo. And yeah, it’s safe to ignore all that deep
stuff because today, this entry is all about me! Not Hannah, but T, Hannah’s
best friend since the fourth grade.
This guest entry could be an opportunity for me to spill my guts about Hannah.
But seeing as she’s editing this and will ultimately be posting it on
the page, though, I’ll refrain. Instead, I’ll talk about me. And
about Hannah, a little. This is, after all, her gig.
So, yeah, we met in the fourth grade when my family moved to Houston from
New Orleans. With six children ages nine and under, we were a sight, I’m
sure. Honestly, I don’t remember how Hannah and I became friends. We
were pretty different.
If you read this, you should know what she was like. If you want to know what
I was like, well, I was awkward. I went from a teensy Catholic school in Louisiana
with like 25 kids per grade to a big, antiseptic, public elementary school
in Texas.[I disagree with 'antiseptic', but what do I know, it’s the
only elementary school I ever attended. – H] There were four classrooms
for each grade and they had this whacked modular classroom thing going on.
We wore uniforms at the Catholic school, so had never really dressed myself
before, and boy howdy, when I look at pictures from those days, you could
tell. [No comment.]
There I was, surrounded by kids who were obsessed with Guess? jeans and whatever
else the trends were in 1985, and these kids were "going together"
(I couldn’t figure out where exactly they were going), and I was really,
extra miserable. Soon, though, I became friends with Hannah (that was sort
of a coup for me as she was pretty popular).
Maybe this sounds pretentious, but I think that my house was Hannah’s
second home. We spent the night at my house a ton more than we did at her
house, that’s for sure. My dad fixed us up with a pretty kick-ass backyard,
so we spent a lot of time out there with the hot tub and the deck and the
porch swing and the two swing sets and the balance beam, and yes, the trampoline.
Oh, the trampoline. How my family was never slapped with a lawsuit because
of that thing is beyond me.
We would revel in its black-and-blue beauty. There would be about six of us
at a time on that thing. It was the centerpiece of every birthday party. Have
you ever seen that Simpson’s episode where Homer finds the free
trampoline and there are like two dozen kids in their backyard all the time?
And there’s that really funny scene where it is the middle of the night
and Homer can see that kids are out there jumping because they keep hurtling
past his second-floor bedroom window? Well, yeah, that’s sort of what
my backyard was like.
And yeah, it’s safe to say that Hannah and I ruled the roost back there.
Hannah has always been the bossier one – I’m more a "choose
my battles" type – and she could do flips on the trampoline –
which I can’t – so she was the real Queen of the Backyard. [And
up until the infamous Day of Dismantling (June 2000) I still could, thankyouverymuch.]
We did stuff inside, too. We played Bad Man pretty frequently. The essence
of Bad Man was that there was a family and the Bad Man’s goal was to
disrupt the tranquil domesticity by snatching one of the family’s children.
Because Hannah was the, er, more assertive one, she would always get to be
the mom and I would always be the Bad Man. [I’m challenging this one.
It’s just because her sisters liked me more and I was more motherly.
Yeah, that's it.] The family would stay in the nursery, and I would snatch
one of my sisters and drag them down the hall to my bedroom. Then Hannah and
the rest of my sisters would have to think of a way to liberate the child
from the Bad Man’s grasp. [And why were you always snatching Susan?]
Wagon Train was a great game, too. It was my favorite of all the games I made
up, mainly due to my borderline unhealthy obsession with Little House on
the Prairie. For Wagon Train, me, Hannah, my four sisters and some of
their friends would pile onto Maria’s bed and bounce up and down to demonstrate
our trip down the perilous Oregon Trail. Often, someone would be bitten by
a snake. Horrors! Mainly, though, we just broke Maria’s bed.
To understand the hilarity of breaking Maria’s bed, you need to know
a little about Maria, bless her illegal heart. Maria was my family’s
live-in housekeeper. No, we weren’t rich or anything like that. It’s
just that living in an unfamiliar city with six children (two in diapers)
and a new house was a lot for my mom to handle. Having Maria around eased
the burden. Anyway. Maria was from El Salvador, she was illegal, and now I
can never run for office.
Maria hated Hannah. I have no idea why. So for some reason, it was really,
extra funny when we played Wagon Train and Maria’s bed would break. Hannah
and I would sort of fix it with duct tape. Then, Maria would go to sleep and
the bed would break. Mayhem ensued. Or something.
Actually, when I think about that now it is sort of sad. [No, it’s
funny.]
Anyway.
Long story short, Hannah went to college in Ohio, I went to college in Atlanta,
and we are still very close. We’ve supported each other through a lot
of garbage and a lot of boys.
I’m suppressing the urge to talk about my boy right now. This is, after
all, my entry. Oh, he’s so cute! He just called. I’m all gushy.
I just showed his little picture to a co-worker. See, he’s an attorney
and most law firms have attorney profiles on their web sites. So whenever
a co-worker asks me what he looks like, I show them his little lawyer picture.
He’s extra cute. Hannah can vouch. I’d provide a link, but then
someone might start stalking him, and if anyone did that, I’d have to
kick his or her ass. Yeah.
See, I'm all full of talk about my love. At the end of the day, though, this
is Hannah's journal.
Y'all know that Hannah is searching for true, unconditional, romantic love.
Back in the day, we used to call ourselves the "Turquoise Girls"
because we would sing Indigo Girls songs all the time. Once, we actually drove
from New Orleans back to Houston and sang the entire Indigo Girls discography
in chronological order. [And we were listening to "Southland in the
Springtime" just as we crossed back into Texas. Cool moment.] Anyway.
There's this Indigo Girls song called, "Love
Will Come To You." That's what Hannah needs to remember.
Like the wise Kenny Rogers once said, you can't go looking for love. It has
to come to you, and it will come when you least expect it. And the best kind
of true, deep, romantic love will only find you once you have completely embraced
yourself. I think that's what Hannah's doing through this journal - she's
learning to embrace herself. So between us, I don't think it will be too long
before love comes to Hannah. [See how nice she is? Thanks, yo. Here's hoping.]