Trips down memory lane are best accomplished as a sort of long-divorced shared experience.  The things she remembers about me and the things I remember about her are colored by 20 years of intervention, twenty years of All New Life, and boy is it fun.  We're riffing sometimes, making some neat threads in email that wind from harrowing horror to huge fun all in one sentence.

And her writing is supremely intoxicating.  She's writer.  I mean, that's her vocation.  So the words are beautifully placed, frantic and so well crafted.  She writes these dialogs between her and her kids, no shit, check this out:

The chasm between age ten and thirteen. (S is my daughter)

Me: It's a show about little blue people/creatures/guys. It's animated.

S: huh?

Me: A Show about little blue characters. How they live, play, etc.

S: Why would someone make a show about blue things?

Me: Cause.

S: What do Murfs do?

Me: Smurfs.

S: What do Smurfs do? Elle's sister, Danni, made up a song that goes, "da dad ada do, I'm a Goof-Ball."

Me: They do Smurf things, like us. It's just a show about little blue people who do the same things we do.

S: Is there a bad guy?

Me: Yes. Gargamel.

S: Does he smell? They should have named him Gargasmell.

Me: uh huh.

S: What are the Murfs names?

Me: Smurfs. They have Smurf names like Smurfette is the girl and the others are Brainy Smurf, Handy Smurf, Papa Smurf.

S: Where's Mama Smurf?

Me: There isn't one.

S: Why not?

Me: I dunno.

S: There's only one girl and a dad?

Me: uh huh.

S: Did they do it to get the other Smurfs?

Me: No.

S: gross

Me: THEY DON'T DO IT.

S: Does Brainy Smurf get good grades?

Me: I guess.

S: Why don't you know? Why would they call him Brainy Smurf if he didn't get good grades? Elle got a B in Math.

Me: I assume he got good grades...I never saw a school.

S: I've heard you should never assume.

Me: ?

S: Are any of the Smurfs going out?

Me: I dunno...they all like Smurfette.

S: But she's their sister...?!

Me: I guess...

S: If Papa Murf is the DAD!!!!

Me: Smurf. Well, yeah, I dunno.

S: What do you call that again?

Me: Smurfs

S: No, the other thing with the sister?

Me: Incest.

Now she is 13. And our exchanges go like this...

S: fuck

Me: (silent cause I'M BUSY)

S: ah, fuck

Me: (still busy)

S: fuck it. fuck it all. fucking fuckers. All of em. Fuck.

Me: Who's a fucker?

S: fuckin' ALL of them. Fuckers. I fucking hate them. Fuck.

Me: (Still busy yet obliged) who?

S: THOSE fuckers!

Me: Which fuckers doth you speak?

S: The fucking fuckers who are ruining my fucking life.

Me: Your life is too young to be ruined.

S: Still, fuck em. Y'know.

Me: Clearly, nope.

S: I mean, like, they're totally fuckin' with me. They're all a bunch of fucks.

Me: (still busy but I CHOSE to get pregnant) Who are we talking about?

S: Y'know, like, in school and shit, we're like, y'know doing the genocide thing, and like, those fuckers, y'know they're all alike. Fuck em.

Me: You mean Nazis?

S: Like, YEAH, Nazis are fucks just like the rest of those fuckers. I mean, like, they're TRUE fucks. Y'know?

Me: Yeah, as opposed to those false fucks. For sure.

S: LIKE, you're not listening to me. FUCK! You don't care what I like have to go through like with all of those fucks!

Me: (Still willing) Babe, you're my Schmoopie and shit but I don't know what you're talking about when you reference "those fucks". Can you give me a little more?

S: ugh. You should know...

Me: (looking for Xanax) Should know whom, Sweet Pea.

S: You suck. I hate you. Don't call me those fucking sugary baby freaky names. Hold me.

Me: (anchored now and unable to hunt for pharmaceuticals and STILL HELLA BUSY but trapped) Are you mad Babe? Do you need to talk?

S: I just fucking hate them. They're the cause for everything wrong in this fucking world. Fucks.

Me: que?

S: you're stupid.

Me: AND BUSY!

S: boys, Man.

Me: Ah, yes. Let me get Andrea Dworkin on speed dial here and she can give us directions to the new dys-utopic island where there are no males. Doesn't that sound like heaven...can you imagine S., no war, virtually no violence, equality, good pay, no exploitation, no objectification, no free subscription to Cosmo with each Brazilian bikini wax, did I mention no violence? Pack your bags. Saddle up. I'll teach you how to really blame the patriarchy. Let me just tell your father and brother goodbye and good luck, and we are off to our Brave New World...maybe we'll run into the Onion Girl or a Handmaiden!

S: You fucking read too much.

I mean, goddamn. 

Which has lead me to think that maybe I missed something by not having kids, which probably sounds stupid to those of you who have kids, but you have to understand, as an avowed non-breeder, kids just don't appeal to any aspect of my existence.  Maybe they will at some point, but we're already hitting the "too late" period.

Who knows how we'll end up, but I suspect we'll eventually adopt an 18 year old just to have the "we kicked them out of the house" experience.

The strangest part of this whole dialog between my friend and I is, it's firmly put my head into the past.  I am normally prone to fits of nostalgia, as you well know, but this is different.  She knows things about how and where people ended up that I'd not known about, and the realities are interesting to say the least, heartbreaking at the very worst.

But it is all refreshing, hearing from her and reconnecting with that section of life and time. 

I'll have to drag some of those stories out, and write them down.  For now, I have to fret and fume at a meeting with people who don't understand networking, but require it at a level that we're incapable of supporting.