Our Anniversary

Oh, oh, oh.

Do you know what the best part of being one of the PensFatales is?

It's simply this: I have friends.

Now, of course I have other friends. Everyone comes through life with friendships that have lasted years, and those friendships are rich and deep, and they satisfy me in a wonderful way. I have work friends and knitting friends and friends inherited from other friends. And I'm lucky enough to have family near me, and they are some of my favorite people in the world.

But it's seldom, as an adult, that we have the opportunity to make new friends. Real friends. Gorgeous, talented, strong, interesting, hysterically funny friends who think I'm pretty okay, too.

I feel as if I got picked up and placed in a new school, a (forgive me) magical school, as if all the students had been pre-picked to work together. Okay, go with me here -- I used to read books as a kid in which the Adults of the World found the special children (the ones with talents, telepathy, telekinesis, etc.) and rounded them all up, putting them together (one book that comes to mind is The Girl with the Silver Eyes). Finally, by the end of the books, the children had always found their tribe, their people.

Now I've found mine. And while we automatically bonded over our drive to WRITE-WRITE-WRITE, what holds us together like glue (besides Sophie, of course) is that there is only one of each of us. We are, in many ways, as dissimilar as people can be. We are married, single, gay, straight, we live in cities as disparate as Danville and deep East Oakland, we have children and pets and pet allergies, we have full-time day jobs and full-time mother jobs. I think I can safely say that we all drink (except Martha, perhaps?) and I know for damn sure we all swear.

And it feels perfect, this eight person circle. I'm supported and loved, and I know with them behind me, believing in me, I can do this. I can really do this. And so can my friends. Watch this space.