Dear Jim,

I wanted to have this posted for you at midnight, but I was busy being a psychopathic manic at midnight, so you’re welcome.

I tried to remember how long I’ve known you, and I can’t quite put my finger on it. Two years? One?  I honestly can’t imagine eve not knowing you, kind of like we all get with our kids after they’re born and finally start sleeping regularly.  You know, after the “What the holy fuck were we thinking?” months.

I know it sounds grossly chicky to say that I think fate brought us together, but that’s exactly what I think.  I think that the fact that you and The Donor are damn near the same human being completely, the fact that your wife and I are also so very similar, except in the waistline of course, and that our children already know and dig each other, even though they’ve never once met,well…I just don’t think that type of across-the-board friendship can just be written of to chance, or worse, to mommy blogs.

The last time I saw you, you picked me up from the airport and as you drove towards my hotel room to drop me off, before I even thought about what I was doing I had your iPod cranked up with Stone TemplePilots on and the windows open and my feet on your dashboard.  That is going to be, by far, my favorite moment with you, just because I was comfortable like I never am with anyone and you didn’t yell at me and then grab an Armor-all wipette. I mean, seriously; I’ve slept with people upon who’s dash I wouldn’t dare put my feet.  But you let me, and you didn’t even say anything; you just smirked at me the way I’ve seen you towards your sister, and there aren’t words for how happy it makes me that you can see me that way.

Just as fate saw fit to bring us together, it’s seen fit to keep us across international borders from each other. I was due to have shots with you tomorrow at BlogHer, and I even got so lucky as to get offered one whole overnight with my whole family, your whole family, and s’mores.  And though this should be a no-brainer, CIC has had a happy fun time yanking me around by my work permits for a few months now, and until they give up my visa, I can’t leave the country. Which is really making working for you a bitch, by the way. What you do, what I have to learn, is way harder than you told me, jerk.  I so totally need an in-house training day, oh my sweet pink baby lord. Lucky for me, you’re a sucker for blondes, and I know this about you, and I will use this to as many people’s advantage as I can before it all betrays me and goes gray.  Then I’ll have to get a skill or something, huh?

I was so sad yesterday when I told you that I for sure wasn’t coming to Chicago, that I wouldn’t see you on your panel, that you’d have to get Tanis extraordinarily drunk to make her answer to Mr Lady, but mostly that I wouldn’t be able to wish you a happy birthday, in person, with shots.  Which actually turned out to be alright, because yeah, I so totally didn’t get you anything for your birthday.  There’s no way I’m encouraging your Lego fetish, and I already gave you the coolest Star Wars gift ever devised by man, and I completely forgot to ask The Donor to make you the mixtape I was planning on asking him to make for you.  So at least I don’t have to show up empty handed, right?

Or, I could say that I’m not going to see you and then my lawyer could work a miracle the likes of which we haven’t seen since Jesus turned a bunch of people into alcoholics that one day and I could manage to get the visa that will ensure me s’mores with your family and the work training I need to have before you fire me, and this could happen at 8:30 in the morning on the morning that my non-refundable, one day only stand-by plane ticket to Chicago is good for and The Donor might be willing to be righteously late for work to rush me to the airport and the guy behind the counter could be super-helpful because I leaned so far over his counter by boobs damn near choked him I used my nice manners and said please, a lot, and I could board a plane at 2 pm on your birthday that will put me in the same city you’re going to be in tomorrow and I could call that your present, from me, The Donor, Canada and Unite Airlines.

Or I could get you a tie. Your call.

Happy birthday, my friend. I am blessed to know you. And that’s a fact.