Do you remember that friend you had? That friend who did you a favor that time�a really big favor. Not, like, lent you money for a latt� when you needed your caffeine fix, but more like got up in the middle of the night out of a dead sleep to drive clear across town to pick you up because you were stranded, because you got in a fight with your boyfriend or something, or your friends ditched you at this house party in a really bad part of town, or maybe you ran away from home and got all the way to the bus station and only then realized the magnitude of what you�d done, and you REALLY needed your friend Chris to come and get you, and some homeless woman stole your glasses, and you picked up a kitten that turned out to be a rat, and you were hungry and you didn�t have money and the guy with the hot dog stand wouldn�t accept your offer to endorse over the check that Chris endorsed over to you that her MOM endorsed to HER, and you were totally beside yourself? But then your friend DID show up, and totally bailed you out, and you were so, so, so grateful!
Do you remember that friend? And do you remember how that friend never asked for anything in return? And then do you remember how that friend kind of never stopped talking about that big favor, and every day you had to hear some reference to it, and every time you ran into another acquaintance who hadn�t heard about it yet, your friend would launch into the tale like it was fucking Braveheart or something, and you started to wish that maybe you�d just accepted fate and allowed yourself to be murdered at the bus station after all? Just because you wouldn�t have to get up every day to your friend pushing the karmic ledger in your face?
Yeah, well, that�s about where we are with the neighbor. I am happy�oh, so happy�to report that she finally, finally broke up with her boyfriend. Three cheers! Pip pip, and all that! I mean, this was a breakup a LONG time in coming, and with the escalating fights and the constant theatrical sobbing going on RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR BEDROOM WINDOW, Ulrich and I were about to go over there and Dr. Phil their asses, but good. Well, she broke it off. Know how I know she was the one who pulled the plug? That�s right: SHE WON�T SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT.
We thought the fighting was bad, but at least it was amusing, you know? Her happiness, on the other hand, is insufferable. All this loud, loud music, and the friends she has over until 3am, and the rapid-fire talking, and the recounting�oh, the recounting! William Wallace would have been quite proud, let me just tell you. I gather she even slapped him, (the boyfriend, I mean, not William Wallace) although the way she tells it you�d think she ran him through with an enchanted dagger and sent him BACK TO HELL. Maybe the depression from her suffocating relationship made her too tired to yak a lot before, or maybe she was usually at his house when she wasn�t wailing out her bedroom window about the not caring and pain-laughing, but she seemed a relatively subdued person. NOW she�s like a cartoon of that phone call song from Bye Bye, Birdie, only the volume control is jammed.
And, okay. When I broke up with He Who Shall Not Be Named Because I�m Trying To Pretend Like That Part Of My Life Was Just A Really Bad Night Terror, I couldn�t stop talking about it either, for days. I understand the rush of freedom that comes with the end of a poisonous relationship, believe me, but shut it up! Shut UP! Shut! The FUCK! Up! Stop telling the story, because your friends have already heard it, and they know the ending already, because that�s the part of the story you always lead with, and they�re just waiting for you to run out of air so that they can change the subject, because they want you to SHUT UP ALREADY, FOR THE LOVE OF CHRISTMAS AND BABIES AND EVERYTHING WORTH LIVING ON FOR, and I advise you to LISTEN, because your window is TWO FEET from mine, and I will crawl over there on the outside of the building like Spider-Man and SMOTHER your ass with a PILLOW in your SLEEP if you don�t SHUT! UP!
Oh, and also on the same topic of friends doing you huge, huge favors (and there the similarities end, I promise), Gwen saved me this week from a fate worse than death�namely, a future of never knowing what happened in the final episodes of Veronica Mars. So thank you, thank you, thank you again, because you rock, and I�m making you cookies!
Today�s Trivia Factoid: My neighbor slapped her boyfriend. I�m Watching: Veronica Mars. Damn. I�m Reading: King Lear, by William Shakespeare. It�s quite interesting, but is Goneril the most unattractive name you�ve ever heard before in your life, or what?