It’s Friday night and I’m sitting in my car, smoking a joint which signals the true start to the evening. It’s been a long week, my cleaning job has sucked my soul dry for 5 more days and I’m so ready for the next 6 hours, the best 6 hours of my week. I am not proud of my life or of who I currently am. But on Friday night, in the small yet iconic town of Bellingham, Washington with my best friend Maddie, I am exactly who and where I want to be. It’s been a week since we’ve seen each other and I already have so much news stacked up to tell her. We don’t text when we’re apart but instead, save up our stories throughout the week to reveal in dramatic monologues over drinks at our favorite bar in town - Black Sheep. Black sheep is our bread and bread butter, a staple in this town and in our friendship. We greet each other with a laugh and marvel at how yet again, we’ve managed to coordinate our outfits without even trying. I order a tequila, soda water and lime (sugar free, hydrating, refreshing.) Maddie gets a vodka cranberry (for uti prevention.) We’re health conscious even in moments like these and are often the bane of tip hungry waiters who frown when we refuse their offers for more, more, more, drinks? and don’t even try to conceal their frustration when we ask to share a drink or request “just water please.” Maddie goes first, relaying the highlights of her week: an in-depth analysis of a first date, and the heartbreaking acknowledgment that she’s been ghosted by her sexy natreopath who she’s sworn she “had something with.” We are crying with laughter less than ten minutes in. When it’s my turn, I give my weekly update on the encounters I’ve had with Ryan, my work husband who has been revealed to be the real husband of someone else which I sleuthed by spotting car seats in the back of his Prius. The night takes us next to Temple Bar, which we’ve deemed the ‘Holy Meeting Place’ a fitting name for where we first met. The second half of my joint gets smoked on the walk there. This town is small enough that every bar is a ten minute walk or less away and we relish in the freedom and security it provides. I snap photos on my point and shoot to document the evening and soon, it’s time for the main event. We make our way to the last standing comedy show in town and purchase tickets. I decide to go all out tonight, to let loose in every way possible and order a wine while we wait to enter. It hits me instantly. I’m on the brink of pleasantly buzzed and too fucked up but thankfully I haven’t crossed over. We sit front row & return to our chattering; I am, again, dying of laughter and so is Maddie. Why aren’t we up on the stage we question? Our favorite comic, Chris appears and we yell ourselves horse, bordering the line between fangirls and hecklers. I’m honestly a bit sad to have our conversation cut short by the entertainment we’ve paid for, for it surely won’t be quite as entertaining as what Maddie and I could come up with ourselves. But the show is always a hoot and yet another staple in our weekend adventures. The lights dim, the room grows quiet, and my soul soars.
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