And Ten Years Ago...

...I met my best friend.  On the internet.

(This is us analyzing some minute detail of a movie.)

And, actually, I owe my friendship with her to Combat! too.  Remember how I started taking German class, where I fell for Cowboy, because of C!?  I first found DKoren's blog because of it.  On the night of June 14, running into the wee hours of June 15, 2005, I was off work, but Cowboy was working.  (We worked third shift back then, and I had Tuesday and Wednesday off every week, and he had either one or the other, so I always had one night off with Cowboy, and one night off by myself.)  We had no kids yet, and I seem to have run out of things to do, but wasn't ready to start my weekly movie marathon.  I remember I was bopping around LiveJournal, searching for bloggers who listed things I'm interested in as their interests too.  I searched for Combat! and found a few vaguely interesting blogs.  Then I searched for Vic Morrow.  And I found a blog by a person who loved not just C! and Vic, but so so so so many of the same movies and actors and TV shows as I did.  I left a comment on one post, then another and another and another... and she started replying to them.  And over the course of two hours, we exchanged comments, first on her blog and then on mine, and then on both simultaneously as we went back through each others' archives and found more and more posts about things we were both interested in.

That continued for probably a week, until one night one of us suggested that instead of conversing by trading blog comments, maybe we should exchange email addresses.  We did.  We've been exchanging email messages ever since -- generally at least one a day, though sometimes we get busy or tired or whatever.  If I don't get at least one message from her sometime during the day, the day feels wrong.  Some days it's just a tiny message of a couple sentences.  Sometimes it's page after page.

(This is us whenever we meet up at the airport for a visit.)
(Except we're not actually muscly, handsome guys.  But aside
from that tiny detail, it's us.)

At some point, we started instant messaging too.  Until Sam was born, we IMed just about every evening, from 8 to 9pm, when I had to get ready for work.  On my nights off, we'd watch movies or old TV shows together -- start them simultaneously on our individual TV sets, thousands of miles apart, and then IM during it and share thoughts and reactions, etc.  We still do this, and in fact, we watched the Russell Crowe version of Robin Hood together last night.

As we started to go from blogging buddies to email pals to internet friends, I developed "mentionitis."  I couldn't stop throwing her into conversations.  "My blog friend Deborah says this.  My blog friend Deborah likes that.  My blog friend Deborah got a story published."  I'm an ISFJ, and we make friends very, very slowly.  Achingly slowly.  It can take me years to go from saying "I hang out with that person sometimes" to "that person is my friend."  Generally, I pop a qualifying adjective onto the word "friend" for a very long time -- these girls are my 4-H friends.  That guy is my work friend.  This is my blogging friend.  For about a year, I referred to DKoren as either my blog friend or my writing mentor -- and she's still both!  But eventually, I dropped the adjective, and called her my friend.  And then one of my best friends.  And now, my absolute best friend.  (Okay, yes, I've just been switching out the adjectives, I guess.)

But about a year after we met online, we did something audacious.  We met in person.

(This is us, having each others' backs as usual.)

In fact, DKoren flew out to Wisconsin and spent three or four days with us.  We'd both participated in NaNoWriMo the previous November -- my first time through, her... I dunno, fourth?  I mentioned that I called her my writing mentor -- I still do.  I've learned more about writing from her than any class or book I've ever taken or read.  She encouraged me to finish off my first novel and then use Nano to start my next, and so I did.  When she came to visit, we exchanged our Nano novels and read them over the course of one long night.  And we watched a bunch of movies together too -- I remember The Sheik, but I know we watched others too.  And likely some Combat!  And we realized that... we needed more.  So we met up again a few months later, at a C! fan get-together.  And the next year, I flew out to visit her, 7 1/2 months pregnant and all.  All told, we've gotten together 7 times, and will continue to do so whenever we're able.

So happy friendaversary a few days late, my absolute best friend!  Here's to the next ten years of sharing silly adventures, movies, writing discussions, revelations, flashes of insight, story collaborations, and tiny details of our lives that we can't get through the day without sharing.  You're the Tonto to my John Reid, the Doc to my Wyatt.  I don't know where I'd be without you.  I love you!

(This is what happens when we get together in person,
which is why we have to limit ourselves to once a year or so.
The world can't handle that much awesome us on a regular basis.
Also, replacing chandeliers you shoot down gets expensive.)