The End of An Era

My best times during my last year in Liberal Yuppieland were my Thursday night trysts with a beautiful, vivacious brunette.  No, not those kind of trysts you sicko...  My girl R and I would get together at her apartment (I didn't have cable, and something about mine being too cat-centric) with a bottle or two of decent wine, a huge veggie pizza, and enough junk food to take a decade or so off our life expectancies.1

It wasn't just about Michael's familiar stupidity, Jim's vague je ne sais quoi that makes him strangely attractive, or even Dwight's comic weirdness.  R and I had stumbled upon each other while working for The Man, found out we had much in common, good and bad, and it grew from there.  We were both, ahem, unexpectedly forced to move at the same time, by coincidence became neighbors, and became even closer as we helped each other through some icky times.  I miss having someone around who knows me, the good and the bad of me, and from whom I don't have to hide the ugly.  What can I say... even a bottle of mid-range Riesling is still cheaper than the co-pay for a therapist. She's the kind of friend that doesn't come along often, but one I hope will be there for life even if we're never again co-located.

I don't know that I'll ever have the kind of friends here whom I can call crying at 2AM, or to whose house I can bring my knitting without being rude.  It's not just R and all my friends as individual people I miss, but having the comfort and familiarity of that support system. 

So Michael Scott, and most importantly R, I am raising my glass (of tea) to you this evening as I watch the last episode of The Office as we knew it.

1 The one good thing about having a problem with sugar, is the ability to double-dose your diabetes meds when you want/need to pig out.  My theory is, the drugs keep you from getting fat - or at the very least, from going into extreme sugar shock.