I dislike most people. I’m not talking evil people like Gaddafi or Palin although I wouldn’t want to share a Turkish bath with either of them. No, I’m talking about most normal everyday people, they seem to disappoint me quickly and thoroughly – they chew too loud, they misuse the word tedious. It’s rarely anything substantial, I tend to make quick, snap decisions and hardly ever change my mind. For instance:  I was recently befriended by a neighbor until one morning we went out for coffee and she put 8 packets of sugar in hers…UGH.

Because of this…personlity flaw, I have few close friends. It’s a small but elite club.

Fourteen years ago I started a new job and met a man named Jeff and it was a like I had found my long-lost twin – you know if my twin was a gay man who was born ten years before I was. We immediately became friends, we would commiserate about annoying customers over early morning bagels. We were together the day that the police came and carted away our only other coworker, arrested for embezzlement. This arrest got me out of the mailroom and into  a desk right next to my new friend.

Four years after I moved into that desk, I was sitting on Jeff’s patio drinking a vodka cranberry, explaining to him that I had decided to leave San Diego and move back east. He was the first one I told and I remember leaving his house that night saying “I want to stay in touch, years from now when I have a family ‘Uncle Jeff’ can come and visit and tell them stories about a place where it only rains three times a year.” I said this in jest because at the time could not fathom the idea that one day I would be mature enough to have a ‘family’.

In the past ten years there have been only a handful of days when we haven’t ‘spoken’ on one medium or another. Tomorrow, for the first time since I became a Mom, Uncle Jeff is flying in to discover what life is like living with a toddler. It’s going to take a lot of vodka and therapy but I have faith that we are all going to live through it.

I admire his courage.  I am also very glad that he is a quiet chewer.