Letter #78 - John

I am simply in love with some of my friends.  Not romantically, but still deeply in love.  John is one of these friends.  Just seeing his name in my contact list on my phone makes me smile.  John also has the honour being my only true college friend.  I have lots of friends from when I was in college, but of those the only ones that have lasted were ones born out of roommates and church connections.  No random "oh we met at a party" or "we used to study in the same lounge" or anything like that... except John.  We had one gloriously lame intro to teaching class together and it was almost instantly love.  He is insane... exactly the brand of insane I admire, support and occasionally mirror.  He is exactly the kind of guy I can call up and say "Bob Barker, this weekend, my house" and he shows up dressed the part (this actually happened).  He shares my love of Bon Jovi, my amusement of the 80s, and my love of life.  Then the bastard moved to New York.  So I sent him a letter to remind him of how much I love him, and to tell him I miss him so he won't forget to visit the next time he's in town.  Because I am simply in love with some of my friends, and John is one of them.

Letter #42 - Danielle

Sometimes we meet people under odd circumstances.  Becoming roommates is one of those odd circumstances to me.  "Hey meet this person you will now share very close living quarters with for the next year, hope you like them!"  When I was a freshman in college, I met Danielle.  We were roommates.  We had spoken once or twice on the phone before we moved into the dorms, and she has this hilarious story about how she was convinced I was blonde.

Danielle and I ended up being an excellent match.  We turned into really good friends, and ended up living together for 3 years.  Danielle recently moved to the Detroit area, which has allowed us to hang out a lot more.  She is one of the few friends I have around here who would much rather do non-standard things (aka not grab dinner and a movie, instead, go to the zoo in the middle of winter).  I love it because it allows me to do stuff I wouldn't ordinarily get the chance to do (like go to the zoo in the middle of winter).  She's also my "culture" friend, she loves to go to plays, musicals, etc, which a lot of my friends in the area don't really get into, so when I want to do stuff like that, she's my first call :o)

Today I sent Danielle a note because she has been having a rough week.  I wanted to send her some encouragement.  Writing to Danielle let's me remember some of the awesome times we've had together, and makes me feel good because I really love spending time with her.  Her conversations almost always make me feel better about life, even if it happens to be sucking at the time.  Everyone should have a Danielle in their life. For real.