Want to take a little time today to recognize a birthday for a good friend of mine who currently resides in the Windy City. Her name is Lauren and while she goes largely unrecognized on this blog or by name in conversations I have with other friends - she’s been a “constant” of sorts in my life for well over a decade.
One of the best things about Lauren and I, is that we have an incredible story about how we first met. The story may differ a little bit, but we can both agree that we drunkenly befriended each other in a small bar in Royal Oak, Michigan called the Gusoline Alley.
For those who know me, I’m really bad about remembering persons, places and things but I can recall a lot of what happened the night we first met. For example, I know that Lauren was having drinks with her then roommate April and she had a purple - print shirt with crazy lapels.
She inv
ited me and my two friends to join her at her booth and she began to pepper us all with a drunken list of questions. One of the things that took me aback was that she insisted that my friend Jocelyn and I were not only a scorching couple (which we weren’t) but that we would be happily married one day.
The evening ended after a few drinks - we all exchanged phone numbers and Lauren and I began our 10+ year relationship.
In that time we’ve been a lot of things to one another. We’ve been friends, foes… we once partnered up in posting bail for a mutual friend at 4 AM.
We once agreed to actually be Boyfriend and Girlfriend but that didn’t exactly go very well. See, I broke down and said to her that we should give “dating a try”. I however had a weekend trip scheduled to Canada with my friend Ted and Phil, so I asked her to be patient till Monday so that we could hash things out when I got back.
After spending 2 days in Ontario, I returned to Detroit and told Lauren that things were going to fast and that we needed to break up. I managed to talk myself out of being in a relationship over the weekend and gave Lauren one of the best “Rollie is a dick and this is why” stories all in one foul swoop.
We’ve famously have gone through periods of talking for hours on end and we’ve gone through periods of total darkness where neither her nor I communicated to one another.
Reasons for the blackouts were mostly my fault. I have a terrible temper and its made me miss out on a lot of things. One of which has been a number of birthdays for Lady Lauren and that’s why I wanted to take some time today and let her know that I care, respect and love her very much.
Happy Birthday La-La-Lauren,
- Rollie