stamp of approval

Poptatari.
Let me just say a few things about this guy.

Turns out we went to high school together, but that's not how I know him. I forget exactly what he said at the time to make me laugh, but I think it's safe to say that he did make me laugh and then I basically hunted him down and made him be my friend.

I do that.
A lot...

that's how I met Erin too...15 years ago she said she hated people and didn't want any more friends and a lightbulb totally went off and I was like, "WE HAVE TO BE FRIENDS! Don't worry, I'll wear you down!"...and I did...and I'd do it again...and now she's so embedded as part of my make-up, I can't imagine us not being friends...

It usually goes one of two ways. I either find you amusing on a regular basis and get it in my head that we MUST be friends - or I ignore you until one day I turn around and you're standing in my living room, or I'm married to you, or I find you asking me what movie I want to watch and after a decade or two I finally get around to asking, "how the hell did we get here?"

laughs...that's how J.D. and I became friends...if you go by his account, I ignored him for a few years before noticing he was there...which he's never going to freakin' let me live down...EVEN THOUGH IT WAS UNINTENTIONAL!

Now, I'd give him a lung if he needed it.

Seriously, if he called me tomorrow and said, "Hey, I need some bone marrow"... I'd call him a pain in the ass, ask him what irresponsible thing he did with his own, "What did you do with yours, for cryin' out loud?! Where did you put it? STOP LOSING STUFF!" and then be all, "Fine, get a straw and get it over with - what do you want to do after that?" - and life would go on.

Story of my existence.

Anyway, I got asked to fill out that, "25 things about you" thing that was floating around the net and I tagged Poptatari, much to his dismay.

He's a Capricorn too, so I never had to say another word about it, just sort of dropped the task in his lap and left. Responsibility is his middle name and I knew he'd rather NOT do it, but it was thrown out there and we can't help ourselves. Rise to the occasion - always.

We take everything so seriously it's not even funny...

To my utter enjoyment, he did two versions - one for the public and one for me.
We're golden!
I'll never forget that.

As gregarious and social as we seem, even me in this journal - we're still very, very private about a LOT of stuff. I recognize it for the big deal it is/was.

Then we spent one night on stupid facebook going back and forth and discovered we've been saying the same exact things our entire lives and have had the same events happen to us and the same responses - so much so, that it would be scary to a normal person.

We had a different outlook. Instead of thinking, "Great..." it was more like, "Cool." and a quiet acceptance and that was that from that second forward.

Even when we talk on facebook now, there is no small talk. It takes on the resemblance of the cliff note version of whatever bizarre/ridiculous/tragic bullshit we're going through at the moment. Then the other responds in same - and we don't utter another word for a couple of weeks until we have a whole laundry list of things to say. It's usually a one-shot deal too. The most we exchange outside of that, you can witness right here on this journal.

I did, just the other day, get a picture sent to my cellphone of him holding up two bags of the cheesy poofs I wrote about before with the single word, "Thanks!" under it. Which, should not be confused with him actually thanking me for anything. It should be read like, "yeah, like I really needed this...THANKS, ass!"

It's beautiful!
It's funny.

A bunch of people from our high school decided to meet at a local bar back in February of this year and I was hoping to see him there. Then he told me that he had company coming into town and couldn't make it.

Which sucked.
But understood.
Next time then.

I did get to see Ponti Mython and Grant got to meet two floors of people he had never seen before in his life and my cousin and his girlfriend showed up. It was a good time. I got to be the social butterfly and did what I do and all was good.

I was standing within a small circle talking to old friends and another small circle formed next to me. I looked over and this guy is standing about two feet away from me.

Okay, really, if I get it in my head that I should know you - I'm GOING to know you. It's just as simple as that and NO ONE is safe once I put someone in my crosshairs.

Lock and Load!
It's ON!

So, I turn around, face this guy and say, "Who the hell are you?" out of nowhere.

Which, believe it or not, is a subtle approach for me. I've been known to just find some stranger and then stand next to them and introduce ourselves to some other passing stranger and make up an entire story about knowing the first stranger for the last 10 years.

I do that.
I don't know why, short of for my own sick amusement, but I do.
And I EXPECT people to play along.

Yes, I expect people that have never laid eyes on me in their life to continue to stand there and follow along with whatever story I come up with like they know who the hell I am and what the hell I'm talking about.

Here's the funniest part - no one has EVER let me down and NOT played along.

this is exactly why me being bored is funny for ME, but semi-dangerous for everyone around me, because who knows what I'll ultimately come up with...

We stared at each other for a few seconds in silence.
No one moved.

Then he said, "I'm hurt. Out of all of the people here, you know me the best and you don't even know who I am?..."

fuck

In my head all sorts of wheels started turning and I was zooming through the database of who this could possibly be like lightning. Red alarms were going off one after another.

wtf... this is something *I* would do, not something that gets done to *me*... and admittedly, I was off my game... I stood there staring at him for seconds... can't be Poptatari because he told me he wasn't going to be here... could it be... no... wait...

Then... ::CLICK:: and I yelled out his name and more or less threw myself at him in a hug.

Yeah, I'm subtle like that too... whatever...

Good thing it was the right guess because we were literally in the middle of the entire packed room and none of it was quiet. The consequences of it not being him never crossed my mind. Now that I think about it, if I was wrong, I would have been horrified.

When he recovered from being accosted, he actually took out his license to show me his full name on it...because he's a Cap and we want to be able to verify EVERYTHING...it's a sickness...

Then Grant who was sitting at the bar watching the entire thing walks by and casually says, "Hey, Poptatari" and Poptatari does the signature guy nod back to him and I flip out...

"Sonofa- how do you know him?! And WHY didn't you tell me he was here!"
So they both laughed and I told someone to get me a drink.

Then we slipped right into comfort land. That makes me laugh every single time. It's not excitable when we get together. It really is this quiet acceptance.

It just is.

You know how there are people you see and you're racing to tell each other things and the level and pitch escalate and you can feel it in the air around you? That's not Poptatari and I.
laughs

It turns into something more like, "Of course he's here, where else would he be? And of course we're around each other for the rest of the night. Where the hell else would we be?" - it's equivalent to the guy code nod.

We went outside and poor Grant was freezing to death while the rest of us were all like, "Holy Hell, it's 40 degrees in Feb! It's BEAUTIFUL OUT!" - none of us are wearing jackets or cold and Grant, Mr. Southern Boy, is looking at all of us like we're insane.

Then Poptatari looks at Grant out of nowhere and asks why he moved to NY in the winter and Grant gestures over to me and says, "Look at her!" - and Poptatari doesn't skip a beat and goes, "Yeah, but - it's cold" - and then I wanted to smack him.

It's truly like being siblings.
He couldn't care less what I look like.

The worse part about that is if things were in reverse, I would have said the same exact thing, "Yeah, he's cute, but who cares - it's freakin' cold here, what's wrong with you?!"

So, it was hard to take too much offense at that statement.
Anyone else would have been punched in the arm.

Competition is part of our chemical make-up. One day we were on facebook and I got a poke from him. No big deal, right? So, I poked him back. Then another poke came. This went on for FOUR HOURS.

I could NOT leave the computer until it ended and I was the last one to end it.
again, it's a sickness...

I talked to him about it the following day and gave him credit for being persistent - only because I finally won.

Then he tells me that he has an auto-poke macro and I wanted to kill him. But hey, well played. And that just means I beat the computer. We're good. Of course, I wasted four fucking hours DOING that, but - okay. Well played.

He just laughed.
because he knows he doesn't even have to tease me about it... I've got it... he doesn't have to say a word for the rest of his life... it will always be in my head because it was a hollow win now...

Then some guy creates an account here to make a comment on this blog. That's happened a couple of times and it makes me happy and I didn't think anything more about it. Then I started reading his writing - and then I got it in my head that, "I MUST BE FRIENDS WITH THIS PERSON!"

I've illustrated earlier exactly how that always plays out...

I got a message on facebook from Poptatari telling me that he's going to be up the street doing a martial arts presentation. I tell him I'll stop up on that day and check it out.

My daughter and I walk up, I spot him and there's no fanfare. We actually did the signature guy nod to each other from about six feet away - even though we hadn't seen each other in 6 months.

Hilarious.

The girl and I are dying in the ridiculous amount of heat from that day and he did his thing and we cheered from the sidelines.

Afterward, he hands me a burned CD with the name of a movie that the guy who created an account just to make a comment on this journal wrote about in his own journal.

It took me a second.

That's when I discovered that I knew who Poptatari was all along; even though he never bothered to tell me before... which, again, we're all about validation, so that just validated that I know who I like immediately.

Again though, that's something *I* would do - not something I expect to be done to *me*.

fucking Capricorns... we really are all alike... I should have known... We're a territorial lot though and don't have many other Cap friends. We collect people and don't share them well and everything is separate and stands alone and we like it that way... huge amount of respect, but typically it's more like, "you stay on your side of the room and I'll own this side and everything will be okay. No overlapping!"... so, I clearly never see it coming...

The three of us sat in a sub shop and did nothing but talk, talk, talk.

I said, "This is the girl" which is what I refer to my daughter as and he showed me pictures of his kids, who he refers to as, "4, 7 and 1" - and that always makes me laugh.

Before he left he handed me a big thing of cookies.
Cayenne pepper chocolate chip cookies.
oh my God...
I'm not big on sweets, but Good Lord...
They're the best cookies - EVER.

My recent post about hating surprises and to get down on bended knee if you propose to someone created a fair amount of outside discussion and thought, it seems. In response, Poptatari wrote the following:

Go read this

"Note - this was done on one knee, of course." - he totally gets points for this and knowing him, I would have expected nothing less.

His wife has accepted me as his sister because again, that's what we do, we keep people forever and it's one of the many things you have to put up with if you're going to be with a Capricorn - and it's all good.

We're not needy or clingy. We don't get offended if we don't hear from each other for extended periods of time directly. Doesn't matter. We exist in each others lives and that's been accepted which means you can chisel it in stone and take it to the bank. We'll remain that way until we're all dead.

I'm so inviting them to my next family reunion.

and in typical Cap fashion, he'll be honored and flattered that I wrote this and then immediately horrified for being in the spotlight...laughs...