Angela

It really began innocently enough, well, maybe not so much. I was in Texas getting away from the mess here and was being carefree and totally irresponsible, in other words, I was hanging with my friends.

I was staying with my friend, Penguin, who has the distinction of being one of the only people on Earth to have seen me completely flat out, sailor drunk. I don't drink much, but one hot summer night at a bar(s) in the Oaklawn area of Dallas the drinks kept flowing and I kept drinking. Before I knew it I was seeing pictures of the night I had no memory of. Evidently we had quite the time and there was photographic evidence to verify the events of the evening.  I only wish I could remember even a little bit of it. Those pictures, by the way, will never be made available to another living soul, just sayin'.

I'm so off track now. Penguin, after the Night of the Drunken Diva, asked me to go to see the play "Mame." One of our friends was in it and we wanted to be there to support him full force. Penguin told me we would be meeting up with this chick named Angela. I didn't know her, or how she was about to change my life.

Penguin and I stopped to get a bite to eat while we were waiting for Angela, AKA The Green Eyed Brat, to show up. She was going to drive us to the play. Penguin and I finished our meal and were waiting in the parking lot when this shiny, new Cadillac CTS pulled up in front of us.

Behind the wheel was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. I was awe struck. Penguin got in the back seat and I rode up front with Angela. I couldn't stop myself, I had to text Penguin, who was barely three feet away from me, telling her how amazingly hot this girl was. I didn't know it at the time but Angela thought I was texting Penguin about how much I disliked her.

I can usually carry on a conversation with strangers, but for some reason I couldn't find words to say. This new girl intimidated the hell out of me. She seemed to have it all going her way. She had an amazing personality, she was funny, articulate and drop dead gorgeous.

What I didn't realize at the time was that Angela was about to become the closest friend I've ever had. I know how it began, but I don't remember how it evolved, only that for the first time in my life I felt there was another person on this Earth that I could tell anything to and she'd understand. She never judges me and flat out tells me when she thinks I'm wrong. I can tell Penguin anything as well, but there was a connection between Angela and me that is unexplainable.

What I came to understand was that Angela was me. She'd lived my life, she knew me, almost better than I knew myself, and I knew her.  She thought the same way I did, she'd had many of the same life experiences I'd had, even her kids' names matched my kids' names. She has Josiah and Alexander and I have Karli Alexandra and Josiah.

Before Angela came along I had never felt that connection with another person, this chick got me, she totally got me and I got her. We would talk for hours and the conversation was easy, not forced, not awkward, it flowed. We knew what the other was going to say before it was said. We would sit and drink, talk, laugh and cry.

There is a problem though. She lives in Texas and I live in Oregon. Facebook helps, as does Facetime on the iPhone, but I miss her. I have friends here, good friends, but there's just not another Green Eyed Brat, and right now I need my Green Eyed Brat.