Guest Post: Tessy

I'm still on "leave" from blogging. Right now it feels like I'm speaking to you from beyond the grave. WoooooOOOOOH. Guess what? When I die, I won't speak to you from beyond the grave, even if you're sure it's me. I promise, it's not me. Unless it is. In which case, WooooooOOOOOOH.

I asked Tessy to post something in my stead. Do you know Tessy? Tessy doesn't have a blog, but I wish she did. I would post the funniest comments on it. Here's what Tessy had to say. It's all funny and all true:

Renee and I have been friends for what seems like forever. Good forever. Not burning in hell for eternity forever. We never had the typical 80's montage of best friend moments. No shared BFF necklaces, or braiding of hair, or makeover-giving or talking on the phone for hours. We were never those kind of friends. And I would not have it any other way.

I met Renee in junior high and don't remember too much about it. I vaguely recall we both wore glasses and loved Beck and all things British. Then in high school we were always together. Shine or shine. ( Bad attempt at emulating Renee's brand of humor. Get it- Arizona? It never rains?) Here is a short list of my favorite memories of Renee:


Chex Mix- I cannot walk by chex mix in a store without thinking about Renee. Senior year she had a pepsi and a small bag of chex mix every single day as a snack. We would go to a student store on campus that I have no idea who ran or who made a profit or whatever. For all I know we were funding Iraqis in weapons acquisition. The students who " worked" there might have even gotten credit.  Not sure. The whole thing is confusing. Definitely the most frustrating part of her light snack of hundreds of calories is that she did not gain any weight. Ever!

The Nile- Way too many stories about our favorite hangout spot. The Nile was a place in downtown Mesa where for 8 dollars there would be a guarantee of hours of entertainment. Renee and I liked to say that we went for the music. But honestly it was mostly for the boys. Boys that we would stare at and see twice a week for months and never even get the courage to say "hi" to or maybe "cool band tonight." My favorite concert experience there with Renee would have to be sitting together in the basement area, covered in sweat, listening to who knows what band, depressed, at least 95 degrees of heat and BO wafting through the air and a pipe dripping some sort of liquid that neither of us could determine on top of our heads. We just looked at each other in that moment and laughed and laughed and laughed. It was a "How did we get to this point in our lives?" kind of moment. One I will never forget.

Oh and we also dreamed of living in some apartments right next to the Nile. We thought it would be so rock and roll to walk the 5 feet from the apartment to the venue. Later we found out the "apartments" were a half-way house. Sadness. I think a little part of me died that day.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead- We went our separate ways for college and had not seen each other in a while when we got in touch during a Christmas break. We exchanged gifts without expecting anything from the other person. And out of the thousands of books out there and millions of gifts out there, we had each gotten the other person the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead! Seriously, that was some ESP-type stuff right there.

Laughter- I have never met anyone funnier than Renee. Everything she does is funny. I blame my weight gain on not hanging out with Renee for 5 hours a day, excluding weekends. If that makes no sense, what I mean is that laughing burns calories and Renee makes me laugh.

So now its going to get really awkward for me. I love you Renee. I don't say it enough. I value our friendship, the times you got me through and all of our memories. I hope our children marry each other and we can become family.

I love you too Tessy. Let's skip the kid part and let's just you and me get hitched.