My husband and I have been married nearly 11 years. Met in ’93, out of wedlock babe in non-apocalyptic Y2K born, house in ’01, I Do in 2000, bam! you’re all caught up. Please note that in the event of divorce, all music — CDs, 45s, 12-inch VINYL RECORDS HOLY SHIT THERE’S IRENE CARA — are mine*. I love him more than fried fish on Fridays with smashed up Wonder Bread sweating in a baggie. He saves me daily with his ability to make me laugh, think, consider, reflect. He is the first person I call with news and the last person I talk to at night. He is the person with whom I want to be when we aren’t together. The love I have for him, the utter commitment and You And Me Must Never Part is sometimes frightening (because sometimes there’s equal amounts of I Could Kill You In Your Sleep.) He is my everything.

And yet. The kids eke on in there and take up some of the space encompassing my everything. And yet still, there is even more space being awarded to my friends because I love them too. It’s just…different.

Oh, boy, my friends. I have a sister-in-law who is more like a sister who is more than a friend. I have one who I talk to more on IM than I see, early in the morning and late at night, and one thousands of miles away in NC who wouldn’t ask one question were I to show up at her door tomorrow. And then there are The Jets (you should see us snap.) There are seven of us and together we will get put out of the trendiest or seediest restaurants — we don’t discriminate (there are more of us but that’s a post for another time because there is no way to describe — to explain — to begin to…never mind.) We laugh when we’re together, loudly. We love each other hard. And your skin had better be thick because we also crack on everything imaginable; nothing is sacred, your feelings aren’t spared: funerals, new jobs, Christian clodhopper smoooooove shoes. If you can’t laugh at your own life, let alone at those around you, you’re doing it wrong (it hurts not to say incorrectly.)

There are times when just an email has made a particularly bad day or situation inexplicably better. There are times when a memory or a text or a phone call does the same. With vodka. There’s also usually vodka. There are times when I seriously wonder if they know just how much a part of me, a part of my existence, my family, they are. The question of what would I do without them is utterly unanswerable. Much like I can’t imagine life without my husband or my children or my family or Starburst, I can’t imagine life without the people who can say things like All Furred Up or The Randy Hand or I’m Not Going or Hapu and have me doubled over laughing on the floor instantly. I can’t imagine life without people to whom I will bare my stretch marked stomach in a public restroom, people who lift me up, encourage me, tell me to get up off my ass and do something with myself because they’re tired of me complaining.

Bat, X, Anch, Snow, RR, Fifi. I love y’all more than the smell of carbon copies in fourth grade.

I wish this was clearer; it’s easily one of my favorites

*The Husband does not know this so please be quiet about it. He is a sometimey reader of the blog so maybe he won’t see this until after I’ve already absconded with the clearly worth something Chuck Brown 45s.

Zoe and Zaid attend the same elementary school. Pictures this year had the option for individual and sibling photos. Zoe opted for pictures with her brother only. Sweet.

Picture day morning she said she couldn’t find the shirt she’d wanted to wear. She’d asked me the night before and though I did look for it briefly, I wasn’t wading through the clean, folded clothes on the chairs in her bedroom. I’d asked her to put those away. If she’d put them away she’d know where the shirt was. Oh well, wear a different shirt. A few minutes later, as I rushed, late as usual, to leave for work, she ran by with a shirt. My mind calculated: long sleeved, black. There’s something written across the front, but…what? Never mind. Remember to smile, have a good day, and I left.

Oh, that shirt. It is long sleeved. It is black. And there is definitely something written across the front.

It reads “babe.”

To my perfect parenting credit, this was not a shirt I purchased. It was a cousin hand me down and worn only in the house. That morning, I remembered it had something across the front but I mistook it for another shirt that has The Greatest across the chest.

So. Let’s think about this a minute. I have allowed my fourth grader to seal this memory in time with a photo with her younger brother in which she is wearing a shirt declaring her babeness. I immediately ran to the dictionary. There has to be another word that starts with “bab” that I can TELL MY FATHER THE SHIRT SAYS. I tried to pretend the second b read “la” or “lc” or “lo” but really, I’m kind of limited: balance? Balcony? Baloney? No. Besides, it’s clearly “bab.”

Baba? No. Babar – Can I Photoshop a picture of an elephant on her shirt? No. Baboon? Babushka? Babysitter?

I give up. I’m going with Babbler.