my friends are cooler than yours.

Sometimes it’s hard to level with somebody; to sit them down and tell it like it is-or like you think it should be-takes a great deal of courage. So, I thought I’d get all my hard work out of the way in the title today.

It’s true. As much as I hate to have to say it, I have come to the realization that my friends are cooler than yours. I’m sorry I couldn’t break it to you more gently, but we are friends, right? So I figured I could shoot straight and save myself some time.

I realize that saying I have the best, coolest, hippest, most dashing, most faithful, most talented, most intelligent friends in the Known Universe may sound like boasting. But that’s only if I say so it without the evidentiary proof necessary to back it up:

I have the type of friends who can turn a single phrase from an inside joke, to an art project, to a concept for a side project and vinyl single, in the span of only a few hours.

there are no words for this. other than "incredible".

I have the type of friends who volunteer to cook for you, clean for you, and drive you all over G*d’s Green Earth. [Which reminds me, if I ever hit the lottery, I am paying the car note of every person who has ever given me a ride anywhere.]

I have the type of friends who will carve and varnish a magic wand for you to take to the final Harry Potter midnight movie showing.

I have the type of friends who will sit around the dinner table and laugh till they cry about their humiliating middle school fashion choices.

I have the type of friends who will invite you over for beer, ice cream, and evening prayers.

I have the type of friends that will take you for coffee when they know you’ve had a bad day. And the type of friends who will never let you pay for a latte.

I have the type of friends who would put me on a mat, carry me by the sweat of their brows, and lower me through a hole in the roof, if it meant getting me close enough to touch the feet of G*d.

And I have the type of friends who constantly encourage me to write, even when it’s not paying; who read everything I post, comment on it, encourage me to write more, and hound me about making more of an effort to publish it.

Without this kind of support-without the kind of faith you have to have in me to make this example of friendship [and all the others] true- I would not be who I am, where I am, or what I am. I would not have the hope, the assurance, or the twisted sense of humor that I do, without each and every one of you right there at my side, and in my corner.

And for that I thank you.

See there? You’re cooler than you thought. . .