Madam, I'm Adam

Time for a birthday shout-out, friends! Today's birthday girl is Ms. Palindrome. Pal and I met as first-years in college. I don't remember the first time we actually met, but I do remember the exact moment when we became friends. She lived on my floor (or I lived on her floor, or we lived on the same floor), and one day, I was having all sorts of 18-year-old, juicy, angsty drama over the boyfriend that I had left in my hometown, and so for some reason, like a friendship divining rod, I just marched over to her room, knocked on her door, invited myself in (I was a bit pushy back in my youth) and told her the whole sordid story. I have this memory of her sitting in her bed, legs under the covers, reading her homework, and me sitting right on her bed with her, pouring my pathetic story out, like a sad, sorry bedtime story. When I think about it, I can't help but think of how potentially obnoxious this behavior was (as was much of my behavior at that age). I can't recall what made me approach her this way, but I must have known, must have sensed in my short interactions with her, that she was good peoples. From that night forward- insta-presto- we were buds.

Pal was my first friend that I allowed to get all in my business. I mean all of it. She knew everything about me, and I felt like I knew everything about her. I had friends growing up that knew all of my business, but they had to, because they shared in it, their business WAS my business, they were THERE. But Pal was the first person that I purposefully, willingly, decidedly piled my shit onto. Here's all my crap! Let me show you every piece of it, shall I? Lookie, some of our crap matches! It was a beautful thing, truly. The trust that we built up, from strangers to best friends, was so impressive, especially in the midst of the most distrustful period of my life. I'm so proud of us for doing that.

There was a house in our college town that was known as The Castle. It's more of a mansion, I think, but judge for yourself. I don't remember why, but one day, Pal and I were on a walk and we decided to march up the lonely hill to the front door of the Castle and knock on the door. Just because. I think about this and am all agog at the ballsyness of this act. We were eighteen, and didn't know what sort of reception we would get, but hey let's just go aknocking because we are so rockin.

The owner of this house opened the door, and we probably said something along the lines of "cool house!" and he was very gracious to us and introduced us to his wife/fiance/girlfirend or some such, and told us that there was to be a party at the house (which he rented out to organizations for partying purposes) that weekend, and hey, you guys should come.

We said something to the effect of "hells yeah" and skippity hopped back to our dorm. We got ourselves gussied up in our finest, and we went to this party, which forever after we referred to as "The Soiree." It was either a theatre party or an opera-company party or something, I don't quite remember. There was some gathering around the piano for loud showtune-singalong-time, and there was a small fountain of champagne in the living room. A fountain! This blew my young brain. The owners of the house let us look around, and although the guests at the party were not allowed to go upstairs, they took us up. I wish I could remember more details about it, but the gist of it is that we were so excited that we didn't even know enough to feel out of place. We giggled a lot and as we walked up the winding staircase, we held hands.

After The Soiree was over, we went back to our dorm, and although we kind of told people about what we had done, we didn't go into too much detail. It was our Soiree, and we kept it close.

Happy Birthday, Ms. Palindrome. I love you from way back to way forward, the same in both directions.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl