She is the friend that doesn't need explanations. She is the friend that makes you want to read better books, listen to better music, have more in-depth discussions about everything under the sun. She is the friend that will fake being sick to get the creepy guy in white sassoon jeans and mustache to quit hitting on you. She will shove a guy down to the ground who keeps trying to feel you up on the dance floor. She is 5' 2" and I can pick her up one armed.
She will not go to Wal-Mart because they built a wearhouse where an endangered species of desert tortose lived. She does not eat food with a face, but doesn't preach to me when I do. She runs 7 miles a day and rides her bike when a car is really not necessary. Animals make her cry. People make her laugh. She has the ass of a 12 year old boy and makes me wish I worked out harder.
She has loved her husband for one year less than she has known me. Their love spans continents and years, and would make you weep to hear it. They had a 21 dollar wedding cake that had a T-Rex on it, and they were married on the side of a mountain. She is one of the smartest people I know. She is one of the funniest people I know.
We met in college. A professor of mine told me I needed to meet one of his former sutdents. We instantly clicked. I quit a job that day to go hiking in the desert with her. She taught me to love the desert, and I still get happy seeing red sandstone and sage brush clinging to Navajo sandstone. I have never had to explain a joke or reference to her. She was there for me when I found out I was pregnant with my son, and was there when I needed to leave my first husband. She has said the singularly most beautiful thing to me that I have ever heard anyone say.
I love her more than my own sisters, whom I love dearly. And today she is older and I miss her.
