Happy birthday, Spucko!

My best friend Spucko boldly goes before me every year in turning older three months ahead of me.  That way she can warn me of any pitfalls of the next age.  Or that's the idea anyway.

Spucko and I have been friends for 15 years now.  We met in graduate school--my second year and her first year.  I was the president of the graduate student association, so it was my job to welcome the newbies.  Part of that involved playing hostess to newbies when they visited town to hunt for an apartment.  Luckily for them, I had a long, comfortable sofa in my apartment.  Unluckily for them, I stored my fencing foils hanging blade down from plant hooks in the ceiling over my sofa.  Many prospective and new graduate students woke the morning after arriving in town to stare up at the Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.  Spucko took it with aplomb, although she still gives me a hard time about it.

The one thing that made her visit to me different was that at the end of it, I hugged her.  At the time, that brought the number of people I was willing to hug to its all-time high of 9.  (At present, what with people dying and not being readily replaced on that list, the number has stood at 8 for many years.)

She was there when I broke up with my crazy boyfriend, Killer Nerd.  She was there when I wiped out drunk and blacked my eye and generally tore up my face while hiking back from the annual grad student drunk-fest.  I once raided her attic with a loaded shotgun.  We survived the Master's Exam and thrived on banana mead.  We used our superpower of Literary Ultra Violence against all kinds of unsuspecting poets.  We have been trading the same moving favor back and forth for so long, we don't know who helped who move first.

In short, it's your basic best friend thing.  Happy birthday, Spucko.  I love you.