We've lived a combined total of 68 years.

There are few areas of the modern American female experience into which one us hasn't dipped her inquisitive little beak.

Our lives lend themselves to a Dr. Seussian level of grand abstraction.

We've gone here and there. Tried this and that (and that, and that, and definitely that). Felt this, that, the other, stop it right now, please don't let it end. We've loved, lost, obsessed, written bales of love letters, shrieked into telephones, hurled breakables, walked down the aisle with sweetly misguided intentions. We've indulged in questionable acts of both the legal and moral flavors.

We have gone away from one another. Crawled into fetid little burrows of alone. Did clumsy acrobatics on cliff-edges.

We are grateful - to life, ourselves and one another - that we've always returned. Sometimes voluntarily, sometimes cursing and kicking, fighting our extradition. Resisting our return to a biological and emotional inevitability, the only place we've ever consistently belonged - together.

Although our musical tastes tend to be infinitely more raucous, we abide by the Rickie Lee Jones Principle : if you fall, I'll pick you up (or, as J.Q. would put it, "Peekyu UP!").

I love you guys.

Labels: The Compleat Thumbscrew