You guys rock.

I don't tell you that enough.  My apologies for the lapse.

littleowl and I first 'met' online... oh, god.  In '91?  '92?  At the time, she was dating someone-not-Sabs.  That's how long ago it was!

She's one of the most graceful people I know.  Metaphorically speaking, that is (I'm sure she still cracks her shin on the coffee table from time to time):  she juggles full time work, full time mommying, wrangles a household full of toddler and cat-- and does it all without a tenth of the moaning and bitching I would use to describe the same sort of events.

We were pregnant at the same time, and while I was covered in hives and moaning and gaining weight like mad and generally hating the state of my life, Beth was in the midst of a high-risk pregnancy, twice as nauseated as I was, *losing weight* because she was so sick, and yet she uttered not a word of complaint.

She's strong.  She deals with what needs to be dealt with-- finances.  Job.  Daycare issues.  The health of the cats, which has declined in recent years.  Psycho neighbors who don't understand that toddlers need to run and play.  Inconsiderate bosses who don't understand the pressure of having to pump in your office workspace. 

And she's doing it while pregnant *again*.  I wish I had a fraction of her gentleness and strength.

matastas is someone I can whine at about whatever is wrong in life, and when my perspective gets too skewed, he kicks me in the pants.  Again, we've been friends for-- how long, Matt?  You were 18 when we met in person?  I think?

He's been a steadfast friend through ups and downs.  I tend to lose friends, let contacts trickle out of my fingers, be too busy to keep up with folks from years past, but Matt has always made the effort to stay in touch.  On one very memorable occasion, he drove from Happy Valley to Ohio, and then we got in the car and drove to Columbia, MO to spend 18 hours there before driving back.  These days he spends cash and frequent flyer miles, and I don't ever hear a word from him about how we should come visit him.  Although we should.

He's funny, and generous, and he has a way of putting his finger *right on* things.  When Mike and I got married, Matt's gift to us was a pair of tickets to Phantom.  How many people do you know who would do something like that?

And I love him because he and my husband can sit for hours in front of the TV with beers, discussing sports and the newest Apple release and everything else under the sun.  When Mike talks to him on the phone, Mike's shoulders sort of sag a little, with a relief of tension, a 'finally!  someone I can just say something to and not have to explain!'

I love Matt for his friendship with my husband, as much as I do for his friendship with me.

mizkit and I met online almost 9 years ago.  I'd heard a ton about her from Sarah for the 2 years before that.  But I count our online gaming on Maddock as when we really met.

I adore Catie because she does all the things I wish I could do well, and she strives to do them better.  She EXERCISES-- specifically , she walks and swims.  And she's losing weight like a maniac! 

She WRITES-- and she's got several book deals.  But it wasn't the book deals that spurred her to write-- she wrote, like most of us, because the words have to come out.  The difference was, she always had this sublime confidence about her, this attitude that she was just going to keep writing, that nothing was going to stand in her way.

Me, I stop writing (and walking) at the drop of a hat.  Catie-- sometimes I think of her attitude as being  like a steamroller painted cherry red:  unstoppable, but damn, look at the gloss on that enamel and the rich color while it mows you down!

Catie draws, too.  And she reads, constantly, and she bakes.  My mother is *still* talking about the Fudge From Alaska.  (When it arrived this year, she opened it up, excusing herself with, "Well, my name wasn't on the label, but I knew it had to be fudge.")  She's talented in a million different directions, and I love her for all the things she does, and does better than me.

I'm still indebted to Celia for handing me mrissa's contact info and saying, "You should get in touch with her."

Mrissa is the kind of friend who you end up wondering, "Has it really only been X amount of time since we met?  It feels like I've known her since forever."

I love her for her generousity of spirit.  There are not many people who would travel from Eagan to Maple Grove to give someone they didn't really know a ride to the doctor's office, or who would send a suffering lonely Norski who lives in Vegas some lingonberry jam. 

There are even fewer people with a genuine love for both the older people in their lives and the babies.  I love Mrissa because she loves my Roo, among the myriad other reasons.  I love her for her stories, even the ones she hasn't shared with me yet because she's still working on the rewrites.  I love her for the way she takes care of her boys-- and what most people don't see, the way her boys take care of her, too.  I love her for being brave enough to live the life that she wants to, for having turned away from physics when it was making her crazy, for the way her eyes get wide when I say that she looks cute and harmless, and for simply being M'ris.

palinade's husband, Jim, is the one who introduced us.  I think the first thing he said to me on that trip was, "It's good to see you."  The second?  "Yeah, Stella, we're living in sin, don't faint."

I didn't.  And I was glad I didn't, because I would have  Really.  Missed.  Out.

Jenni is one of the most talented people I know with visual arts stuff:  notecards and beads.  (When a guy friend with no particular appreciation for visual stuff peers at a card you're writing in and says, "That's really cool.  That's one of the nicest cards I've seen.  Where did you get that?" -- then you know you've *really* got something there.)

But more than that-- she has a deep love for the written word.  She writes.  She edits.  She critiques-- and her critiques are some of the few I read, no matter what the subject matter, because * I can always learn something from them*. 

Plus, she and Jim spawned Pegleg Nate.  And she's a damned fine mother, to boot.  I know of very few people who are willing to stay at home, full time, with their children.  (I'm not.)  She does.  And she gives him all the love and attention a growing toddler needs-- which, let me tell you, is quite a bit-- and still manages to edit and write and make jewelry and cards.

Go check out littlejenni.com.  Go!

retrobabble is another friend who I am... just surprised that it's only been months that I've known her.  It feels like forever.

Have you ever walked into a room and just clicked with someone?  And then wondered later, 'why do I like her so much, when I should be rampagingly jealous of her talents and her looks?'

She's funny, and full of stories.  She's been everywhere and done everything (I haven't even left the continent), or at least it seems that way to me.  But not in the 'bored, worldly-wise' way!  In a 'oh, here's this great story about this place, you should really try to go there sometime'. 

She dances.  Specifically, Polynesian (Hatiian?) dance.  I couldn't get her drunk enough to do more than a step or two for me, but I remember going to the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii and trying to do some of the dance steps while the employees there snickered at the fat white tourists.   Ouch.

And she's beautiful.  She looks about 18, with gorgeous skin and gorgeous eyes, and when you tell her she's gorgeous and she doesn't look a day over 18, she takes the compliment with grace-- a rare thing.

I love Kelly for all the things she is and does, that I'm not and can't do, and for our similarities:  we both try to write in our 'free time', we both work a lot, we both love books, especially old books (Kelly!  I bought you a 1920's swashbuckle and derring-do novel at the library book sale last week!) that we can chuckle at the cultural assumptions implicit in.


shadowhwk is the only person from online gaming who had me fooled as to her sex and age for ...2 years?  I've now known her for 11 years, and I have yet to live that down.

I met her once, back in '98 or '99-- I was staying with some other friends, and it was a zoom-by trip, and I wished I'd had more time.  I could have listened to that beautiful voice of hers for hours.

She SIGNS, something I've always wanted to do.  She writes, and writes beautifully.  I've always struggled with the bits she gets right out of the gate-- character and personality in a few choice phrases.  She's finished a screenplay which placed extremely highly in the Project Greenlight contest.

She's finished EMS training, and anybody that can bump around all day in an ambulance has MY respect (I get carsick).

She's held a marriage together for years now, despite horses and job losses and job changes and everything else.  And yet, despite factors which would grind me into the dust, she perserveres.

That's you guys.  :)  I don't *need* reasons to love you all, but sometimes it's good to list a fraction of the reasons that I have for loving you all, in public, so that you know that you are deeply appreciated.