I Friggin' HEART You, Man!

We were moving from Duluth, MN to Mobile, AL and one of my daughter's friends wrote her a gigantic farewell note on a huge card, saying "I F*$&ing HEART you, girl!"

It always stuck in my head.

I can picture that kid saying something like that out loud--she was hilarious. She and my daughter used to serenade me with hairbrush microphone versions of Justin Timberlake songs--a manic, comic duo. For her, I invented Back Seat CD Roulette because at the time I was driving a sort of sporty sedan, and for lack of storage, always had bunches of CD's floating around in the back seat--I would just grab them from there when I wanted something. Every time this girl got in the car, she would jokingly complain that there was no room for people in the back because of all of the CD's. I, in turn, would fret about people sitting on my CD's and breaking them. The rule (the only rule) to Back Seat CD Roulette was, if you were a kid and you climbed into the back seat of my car sat on one of my CD's, you had to pass it up to me and I would immediately play that CD. Didn't matter what it was, you had to pass it to me. My goal was to get them to be careful with my stuff--I knew that they would rather move a CD that they didn't want to hear than sit on it.

And that is how Charlotte Fabini met Van Morrison.


In exchange for "I F*&$ing HEART you, girl!", my daughter very sentimentally gave her friend her guitar. Her first guitar. Granted, it was a piece of sh*t guitar, but still...you don't give your guitar to just anybody, right?


You said good friends are hard to come by
I laughed and bought you a beer, it's too corny to cry**

I friggin' HEART you, man!


And THAT is my big love sentiment for the day...when two people who spend their time together in some "thing" that is impossible to understand, you can only enjoy. When they realize that they don't want it to ever, ever end. It's crazy, but it's good crazy. In the grand scheme of things, this thing they have amounts to the rarest of planetary alignment--two souls who met again for the first time, and yet....who wants to be serious? I friggin' HEART you, man!


Anybody else got a thing like that? Mine is like some kind of funny life preserver, designed to protect me from ever feeling too crappy. Feeling doubtful about life in general? Just expose yourself to Person A, and somehow your heart is magically healed, your perspective perfectly adjusted. It's a beautiful thing.


**Indigo Girls--Joking