Day 9: Can We Talk

In that summer of misspent youth one night my friend, Debbie I went to the annual Crawford County fair.  We thought we were being very sneaky by walking around with Tupperware sippy cups filled with Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill.  About a sippy cup and a half into the evening we ran into Natalie and some of her friends from high school.  We stood under a tree for awhile just doing the usual loud, ruckus, teenage stuff.  I remember laughing, swearing, and finishing my cheap wine.  As the conversation rolled through the usual pop cultures references of the time we started in on Joan Rivers.
 
I hate admitting that once upon a time I thought Joan Rivers was funny.  Before all the plastic surgery and designating herself as the fashion police she was just wickedly funny.  Once Joan came up in conversation Natalie and I both said at exactly the same time, "Can we talk?"  We looked at each other, pointed at each other, and then laughed like loons.  That was the moment we connected and spoke each others language for the first time.   Every friendship has to start somewhere, and ours started in that moment. Blame it on the wacky 80s, but I have to thank Joan Rivers for Natalie.

So thank you Joan for giving Natalie and I the opening line to our relationship.  Who knew from this beginning we would be together 30 years later and celebrating the fact that 16 states have approved of same-sex marriage.  Welcome to the family of equality Hawaii.