Verification

"How much breakfast food do you think we've consumed in one another's presence?"

Michelle and I have weekend brunch down to an art. We know when to go out (prior to 10am) in order to get a table without having to wait. We've learned how and when to share food. At this point we could probably order for one another.

It's early-ish (9:30) on a Sunday morning and we're having coffee and Creole inspired brunch and chatting about our next trip to NOLA when, during a comfortable lull in the conversation (the kind that comes with someone who has known you for over a decade), I mentally start to add up all the brunches we've had together since I came back from the North Country. And all the brunches we had when she came to visit me in the North country.

"Oh, God. A Metric ton."

A cinnamon roll the size of Hennepin County gets deposited on our table and she adjusts her answer "Metric tons."

***

I am . . . not great in social situations. Awkward is the word. I am incredibly, embarrassingly awkward in social situations. I don't like being the center of attention under any circumstances. I have been known to go hide in the bathroom when it looks like party games like Celebrity or Charades are immanent so that teams get picked without me. I will happily stay in the kitchen cooking the meal rather than actually interacting with my guests. My favorite way of being with my friends is to all be in the same space reading separate books.

I'm also not great with social cues.

As such, I like independent verification of friendship. Unsolicited invitations to dinner on a weeknight. A text asking if I want to go to the Minnesota History Center. An email saying "Hey, the kids really miss you, when can you come out?"

It's an odd thing, I know, but for a long time the vast majority of my friendships were conducted via text or the internet (thanks, North Country) and I grew to like it when there was something . . . more to those friendships. An offer to go out of the way to pick me up on the way to the cabin. An unexpected delivery of Cafe du Monde to my doorstep when I've been talking about missing New Orleans. A note in the mail. A long videochat on a Saturday night. The kind of stuff that takes just a tiny bit more effort than a "Hey I saw this article and I thought of you" email just knocks me out.

Partially, I suspect, because that's the way I show people they mean something to me. A poem or a pie sent through the mail, a random text on Wednesday after lunch saying "Hey. I'm glad you're a part of my life," handing over my copy of Eleanor & Park immediately after reading it and saying "You're going to love this book and cry."

That's part of it, as I'm sure part of it is just checking to ensure that I've understood the appropriate social cues, and that I haven't misjudge what, if anything, I mean to another person. The larger part is simply social ballast. The knowledge that there are at least some of my relationships that go beyond the casual. People who notice and care when I'm lying in sweat and sickness in the bathroom, who miss me when I'm gone on vacation, who care about me enough to know that I want my birthday to be Great Gatsby themed and what it means when I spend the run-up to Valentine's Day listening exclusively to Billie Holiday. 

***

"Hang on just a sec." 

I pull my angry, disgusted self together for a second and shut my damn mouth. My hair is still wet. My skin is bright pink an a little raw. I've showered four and a half times in the past twelve hours. Michelle and I are at the the breakfast place across the street from my house, a place we've been a million and one times since she started college down the block forever ago. 

"I'll have the breakfast sandwich and home fries."

The waitress takes her menu and turns to me. 

"The largest glass of water and cup of coffee you have. And some oatmeal." As the waitress is walking away I add, under my breath "And possibly some cyanide." 

"It couldn't have been that bad."

"Shell." I take a breath. "He approached oral sex with the same enthusiasm and technique with which he probably approaches a Chipotle burrito." 

Her eyes widen less in shock and more to indicate that our server is standing behind me because she forgot to ask what I wanted on my oatmeal. 

***

"So many favors have passed between us now that they are no longer distinguishable as individual acts, just as a bright haze of loyalty." 

In my copy of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore I've underlined and turned down the page (34) that the above quote came from. We read Penumbra for my bookclub last November and I've rarely geeked out as hard in public as I did when we discussed the book (my bookclub is around 100 people, so raising my hand to take the microphone requires an intense geekout). It was funny and odd and ohmygod preposterously nerdy. It was my second favorite book that I read in 2013 (Love Minus Eighty beat it narrowly because of the sheer holyfuck emotional catharsis of reading it. It beats WHO for ability to make we cry.) 

Returning to the point at hand, I loved every minute of Penumbra because I would never suggest it to Michelle. 

Kindly sit still, I 'm getting there. 

It's a book about geeks and the way we love other people. It's about the kind of fierce loyalty that springs up among people who deeply, passionately, unironically love dorky things, be they D&D or rare books or computers or cryptography. It's about friendship that no longer requires verification. 

I love it because while I can't give it to Michelle to read (too many geek shibboleths and not enough historical drama or evil dictators) it's a book about our friendship. About how my mother's phone number is in her cellphone and we're one another's emergency contacts. About how she knows to pick me up and take me to The Happy Gnome when I'm sad or to widen her eyes and shake her head discreetly when I'm being too loud about an awkward sexual encounter when we're in public together. How she once drove 100 miles to see me while I was in graduate school and we sat outside in chairs on opposite sides of the patio (she in the sun, me in the shade) and read separate books and drank Arnold Palmers without speaking for six hours and at the end of it said "That was really fun."

It's the kind of friendship where I can tell her "I read a book you would hate but it reminds me of us" and describe the whole thing to her anyway and know she won't understand, but will listen anyway. And at the end of the conversation, when eggs and cinnamon rolls and coffee and chicory arrive and I say, a little awkwardly "I want to write a blog about how much I love you, would you mind?" She'll reply "Jesus, it's about time."