We Don't Impose, We Improve

After a long lunch with my roomie, of whom I haven’t seen in over a week due to some very unfabulous business travels and such, and one of my very favorite boyfriends, he’s not mine or my roommates’ we were just leasing him from another of our best friends, I got to thinking a lot about friendships, both past and present both happy and sad and certainly both toxic and extremely gratifying.

For the most part I can honestly say that I have never really had that group of friends (with 2 or 3 exceptions from highschool, but that is another blog post in the making), that group of friends that makes you want to call one of them before your parents when something good happens, that group of friends that during any get together, the conversation undoubtedly falls back to the classic discussion of whose kids will be friends with whose, and how important it is to find husbands that are all on the same level of ‘Call of Duty’ so they can keep busy when we get together for parties.

With a title like, ‘we don’t impose, we improve’ , you may have been confused about the topic of this post. But bear with me, I can assure you that once you know a little bit more about what we like to dub ourselves as the ‘fab 7’ (don’t worry, we know…we are totally vain), you will know why that title could not make more sense.

Sit back, relax and enjoy your introduction to the girls who let me be me.

ANNEKA

AKA Anakin Skywalker (dubbed by myself before I realized that I didn’t despise her every move), she and I, well I guess it’s sufficient to say that we didn’t exactly mix like peaches and cream when we first met. But who can blame us? With the struggle between her ego and my incessantly on the prowl crazy eye, it is clear in retrospect that the Lord above really wanted us to work hard for the friendship. Who would have known that all it would take was one crazy toga party, an ill timed fire alarm and a year of living in an apartment with minimal furniture a resident keg and a shopping cart in the living room to really understand that we were soul mates? PS- Anneka, I don’t despise you anymore…well, sometimes maybe I do…but just a little bit.

MICHELLE

AKA Meeshy Peeshy (I think peeshy means cat in Persian but who really knows…lol) Meeshy and I met, well, if you knew either of us, you could guess exactly how we met. It was summer advising, and while everyone else was cowering in the corner of the DC wolfing down chicken nuggets and fiber spiked salad, we both embraced our nerdy dispositions and one, ‘Excuse me, can I sit with you’ and a ‘Of course, hi I’m Michelle’ later, we were the best of friends. We quickly became one, I mean this sarcastically, because, to many in our social circle, we literally became one, while Meesh is Persian and I Italian, it never seemed to matter to anyone, her hairy arms were my hairy arms, my sideburns were her sideburns, at any given moment she was Danielle and I was Michelle, and quite honestly I wouldn’t have had it any other way…

ALI

 Ali doesn’t really have a nickname from me, let’s just say Ali is Ali and there are no other names to really describe her…we met one fateful spring quarter of debauchery and tanning. I honestly for the life of me cannot remember how we met, or for that matter very much of that first spring or summer. All I can say is one morning I woke up with a bangin tan, sportin a tiara and some serious blisters on my feet from hauling a$$ through Arlington in stilettos, I’m thinking we were running away from some salacious scandal that one of us, ahem, Ali, had gotten us mixed up in. Ali is a culinary aficionado, so you ever catch me throwing back a rack of ribs smothered in barbecue sauce and washing it down with a nice big glass of kool aid, you will know that I am paying homage to the days gone by with Princess Ali by my side.

MARIE

AKA Rie, this girl has seen and heard it all….and I mean allllll of it, including the time that she was living with me one summer and had to endure hours of disgusting noises from the closed door of my even more disgusting roommate. From her notorious catch phrase that would make you blush like my former roommate in church, to her adorable cat that sometimes poops on you when you hold him, Marie can simultaneously make you wince with an extremely defaming diatribe directed at an overly pushy guy in a bar all while you admire her stunning snow white complexion and fabulous fashion sense.

LINDZY

AKA, Anjou AKA LiLi- I am pretty sure Lindzy floated down from heaven on the wings of an angel and entered my life to bring me joy and the kind of laughter that makes you feel like you are going to cry and barf all at the same time. While I can recount crazy stories of each of my friends, this girl truly and without any competition takes the gluten free cake for high intensity-how the hell did she get out of that situation alive-make up melting down the face action. With a penchant for very tall ethnic men and dance moves that you wouldn’t expect from a bible reading blondie from suburbia, USA, forever graceful, kind and thoughtful, Lindzy is by far the captain of our very own hot mess express.

CLAIRE

AKA roomie de jour- This girl has the lockdown on the best roommate ever title. While she doesn’t have much to live up to, read Marie’s description and you might guess as to why, she doesn’t leave behind giant hairballs in the shower or every corner of the apartment (ahem, Meeshy, another former roomie), she doesn’t pass out partially de-robed during parties or leave shredded cheese all over the floor (ahem ahem, Anneka, another former roomie) and she most definitely does not judge my sometimes foul often inappropriate fast food binges. This svelte fro-yo obsessed, vegetarian modern hippie is most certainly the yin to my carbo loading, vegging out, fox news morning show blaring, sleeping in yang. I love her in all of her morning wardrobe malfunction-body exposing glory.

While in school, I often said that choosing UC Davis was the greatest decision I’ve ever made, for academic opportunities of course, however, in retrospect I look back and am surprised by how little I remember of my classes, and how much I can only remember the relationships that I gained and will eternally hold dear. I am so thankful to have met these girls, and I am proud to be a part of a ‘true’ group of friends, but for now I have to go, I need to go call one of to tell them that this post is finished, I hope that they all think that this post is va bene.

Ciao