happy birthday, best friend!

okay, this post is going to be a bit difficult to write seeing as how i am actually talking with her at the moment. so...if disjointed... yeah.

as you can see from the picture above (high school sophomore year!), i have known debra for many many years. we met in 7th grade in journalism class. although, i must admit, i have no recollection of this. it's not that i'm a bad friend, it's just that i have a very bad memory. i do remember that our magazine's name was capricious. i think. didn't we look in a dictionary and decide that that word sounded nice and had a nice meaning? yeah...i dunno. ANYWAY. sadly, that journalism class and freshman year english were the ONLY classes that i ever had with debra. god is cruel like that. but we still managed to be best friends since then. even during my few weird boy problems in college, i would call debra and she would be there to calm me down. like that one time i locked myself in my room freshman year and called debra on my cell phone and cried, "what do i dooooo?!?" and even though she said, "i don't know, cherry, but you should probably leave your room," it was still comforting. debra is just awesome like that.

so...to honor the start of her 23rd year on this planet (old woman!!), i will make a list of 23 random (and i mean random) traits/attributes/memories/moments/thingies/whatever pertaining to debra. yeah yeah, it's old, but i don't care. i like lists. lists are cool. this is going to be long because i will babble, but it doesn't matter because it's her birthday!


1. debra also likes lists. like, a lot. every time i go to her room and look at her desk, there's like ten post-its filled with different kinds of lists.

2. she taught me how to boil water. i don't want to talk about it.

3. she is my shopaholic partner in crime. we shop like no one's business. i am the shopping devil that sits on her shoulder and stabs the shopping angel with my pitchfork. there is no guilt and judgment when it comes to shopping and debra.

4. debra is the master planner. she is the best and no one would be going on any vacations, dinners, parties, whatever if it wasn't for this woman. so bow down to her and show her your undying gratitude, you ungrateful bastard.

5. "i don't want to be a princess!!"

6. we have an extremely similar fashion sense. we are the fashion queens.

7. oh yeah, we both like pink but kinda wish we didn't like it as much as we do cuz everyone likes pink but we just can't help it.

8. but she still got the silver ipod so that i could get the pink one. see what a good friend she is?

9. her musical talent will astound you. double platinum on karaoke revolution, baby! (wait, is there such a thing as double platinum?)

10. she kneed david in the nuts. but then again, he did ask for it.

11. when we were in high school, she always let me have some of her tampons because my mother is a crazy catholic woman who thinks tampons will steal my virginity. (sorry, was that too much information?)

12. unlike the picture above, we have real tattoos now. we got both of our tattoos together. and she's gone first both times.

13. we were bad in track. like, REALLY bad. but hey, it was fun.

14. GOSSIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! just...can't..get...enough of it!! and she knows everything. ;D

15. her house is a zoo. dogs, cats, hamsters, snakes, salamanders galore!! animal lover. (but, you know, not in the bad way)

16. in high school (and, okay, in college), debra was my chauffer. well, i mean, we did go to a lot of the same places and we do live only four houses away, but still. i will always be grateful for the many rides she gave me. (hmm...sounds dirty)

17. AND she was my mother. and joanna was my father. we're a family, you see. she raised me up good.

18. for a while, she was also my bank. i ran up a good tab with her, borrowing so much money. but she never minded. or at least, she never let on that she minded.

19. she's going to be my maid of honor. and i will be her bridesmaid. neither of us is engaged at the moment. but that's how it will be.

20. in high school, we wrote collective stupid stories. there was the star wars one (i was princess cherry. she was debra skywalker. yes, so original) and then there was the soap opera one. paradise shores? i don't remember. but it was funny.

21. she wears hard contact lenses and whenever they bother her, she takes them out and puts them in her mouth and then puts them back on her eyes. i'm used to it, but everyone always thinks it's gross (because, you know, it kind of is). i say, "hey, that's just debra." haha, just kidding!

22. i never missed anything in norcal very much when i went back down to socal every fall for school, but one of the few things i always missed was debra.

23. debra is friends with everyone. and everyone loves her. you know why? because she's an amazing person and is the best friend anyone could ever have.