Ok, I don't have a whole lot to write today, but I feel like writing anyways. I guess some updates would be good.

I don't know whether or not I still have my mad crush. It literally comes and goes. Right now I don't feel it at all, but then it will hit me. I don't think anything could ever become of it though, so I may as well just forget it.

I'm still not even close to divorced. I'm ready to be, but my ex-penis doesn't have a lawyer yet.

I don't know where things stand in the whole Pete/Hoochie drama. I have asked to not hear about it, and this has so far been respected.

Ok, I've been alluding for a long time about an issue I had with a person I'll refer to as Sandy. Here's the whole, long story:

Pete and I had been together since my sophmore/his junior year in high school. Yes, he was a year ahead of me. This means he went to U of A a year before I did. Actually my whole group was at least a year ahead and were all friends that year before I got there. Pete would call me daily and tell me pretty much everything about everyone. I basically knew them before I ever met any of them.

Anyhow, when he went back to college after Christmas break, he told me that Rob had a girlfriend, Sandy. This was mildly amusing to him, for reasons I wouldn't truely appreciate until I met them 8 months later, and that I find fuckin' hilarious now. This lasted a few weeks, and then they had a break-up which devestated Sandy. Again, knowing what I know now, this is funny, not sad. Pete called me and asked if he could give her my number since I was apparently so good at talking to people who were in crisis. I said that was fine, but I guess she was normal enough to not feel the need to call a total stranger. Anyhow, Pete became close with her after that. He talked about her a lot. He even admitted to me at one point that if he HAD to go out with anyone in Arizona, it would be her (shudder). He did change is mind soon after, but that is besides the point.

I spent my last three months of high school HATING Sandy. I had never met nor spoken to her, but that didn't stop me from despising her. I think I was just scared and insecure (what 18 year old about to move 2000 miles away from home wouldn't be?) and needed a scapegoat. But I digress.

Flash forward to the end of the summer. I finally break free of my family and go to college. When I first came face to face with her, I almost laughed out loud. She was so ugly it bordered on gross. I couldn't believe I had ever been threatened by her.

We hit it off well initially. We spent the day together along with Rob and Olivia, and then stayed up all night talking. Not about anything very personal, but still talking. She seemed like a fairly decent person, and I felt bad for saying the things I had been saying.

This didn't last long however. She had been very close friends with Pete the previous year, and was incredibly resentful of my presence. Plus, it became almost immediately clear that she was Queen Yenta. It seemed anything she heard in confidence was immediatly broadcast. If there was no drama occuring naturally, she would create some. Somebody was always mad at somebody else, and somehow she was always involved in it. I dealt with her in group situations, but didn't care to get to know her one on one at all.

About two years later, I found out that some of what I had thought wasn't true. I was with her and Jackie, and found out that Jackie had told her something in confidence about a year and a half earlier. This was something that would have made great gossip, but Sandy had kept that confidence. It made me question my own assumptions of her. I had to admit that I could still be holding some of my initial jealosy and judging her unfairly. So I kind of tested her (I know this is incredibly juvenille, but I was 20 and stupid) by giving her some personal information that I didn't really care if it got out. She held them, and slowly I started to get to know her. She started opening up to me about her background (she comes from quite possibly the most disfunctional family in history, and this is coming from somebody who is a counselor by trade) and what she was going through at the time. She told me she was bi. She was graduating that December, and was scared shitless about going back to her family. Anyways, we really started to become friends.

She graduated that winter and moved back to the Bay area, where she had grown up. She called me quite a bit. That summer, Pete and I came out to visit her. I hadn't been to Northern California since I was about 7 or 8, and I absolutely fell in love with the city. I decided I wanted to go to grad school out here. It wasn't because she was there. It did help that there would be somebody I knew, but I also knew I would need some space from her. I DID NOT move out here to be near her. The fact that she thought that should have been my first clue of the trouble to come.

During my senior year at college, Pete and I decided that we would get married that summer. We had been engaged for three years and living together for two, so we both felt it was time to make it legal. Our friends threw a suprise engagement party for us. She flew out to be there for it. While she was there, she gave me this letter that she had written about how close she felt to me and hwo much my friendship meant to her. Being the flattery whore that I am, I thought it was great and allowed her to call herself my best friend.

While I have never used the term best friend lightly, I have also never seen it as an exclusive term. I use it to describe any person not related to me who I love as if they were. Right now I would say I have about eight best friends. It's a level. I don't believe in ranking human beings.

To Sandy, best friend was an exclusive honor, and no other friends were even necessary. Any other friendship I had became a threat.

When I had my wedding, I chose Marie as my maid of honor. I had been friends with her since I was thirteen, and we always said if we ever got married we would be that for one another. It was a no-brainer. Sandy was a bridesmade, along with Jackie, Olivia, and the obligitory relatives. There is no way I could have picked one of them over the other two (Wendy knew in advance there was no way she could make it). Anyhow, Sandy was absolutely devestated by the fact that I had chosen Somebody Else as my maid of honor. She chose the rehersal dinner as the appropriate time to get drunk off her ass and confront me on this.

I don't know why I didn't end our friendship as soon as I got back from the honeymoon. I had to know this was only the beginning. But I was moving to a new town where she was the only friend I had. I suppose that was part of why I put up with it.

The next couple years were chaotic for me. She proved the positive side of herself in her support of me. When my dog got critically ill while I was out of town, she tracked down my family to see what could be done. When my mom got sick, she was there for me and supported me. But when my mother died, it was not her, but Jackie who I called. This was not because I loved one more than the other. I don't know why I chose Jackie. It wasn't something thought out. I guess in our 'college family' she was the nurturer. It seemed natural for her to be the one who I called. It took a few months for the effect of this to register.

Jackie was going through her own trauma at this time. Her own mother was sick (a fact I didn't learn until months later) and she was working two jobs to support her mom and brothers. I withdrew from everyone, and I guess even life itself for a few months. I don't really even have any memories of this time period. But I do remember that after I told Jackie, I didn't hear from her again for a few weeks. I made the mistake of mentioning that to Sandy.

She told me that Jackie had told her that me calling her like that made her very uncomfortable, and that she didn't think we were that close. For some stupid reason I forgot all her old drama shit and actually believed that. She was also, unbenownst to me, talking to Jackie somewhat regularly and implying that I was talking shit about her.

While we were still friendly on the surface, there was a lot of tension between Jackie and I for a long time. And Sandy was getting posessive in other areas too. She was getting very jealous of my time. When I had first moved out there, we had set aside one day a month that was our time just the two of us. I thought this would mean I would be fine as long as I got together with her the one time. Well, now she was complaining not that she didn't see me enough, but that we only got to be just the two of us on that one day. Apparently, getting together with her at any time 'didn't count' if it was a group thing. There were a few times I almost ended the friendship, and once I went as far as to give her an ultimatum.

When I graduated from my masters' degree program, Jackie, Wendy, Olivia, and Wyatt all came out to celebrate with me (this was before Wyatt moved here and was in fact when he decided to). Sandy was being whiny and bitchy to everybody. She got upset that I didn't sit next to her at the dinner, and that I didn't go home in her car. When we got back to my house, she stormed off and went for a walk.

During that time, Jackie and I had a long talk. I told her how I felt like she wasn't there for me and she told me how she felt like she was lesser than me. We hugged and cried for about two hours. We both forgave eachother for what we were mad about.

Well this was absolutely not ok with Sandy. She went full blast trying to convince each of us that the other was two faced. As the week that they were there went on, she became more and more hostile. She pulled me aside at one point to complain that she and I were getting no alone time, despite the fact that she had taken the whole week off to spend with ME. I told her that if she wanted to be with only me, she should have taken off a week where we didn't have all this company.

Jackie stayed on a couple of days after the others left. The three of us went down to Sandy's house for the last couple nights. The first night there, we were watching the First Wives Club and saying how that could be us in 30 years. Sandy appeared to fall asleep. When the movie was over, Jackie was crying and appologized again for not being there for me when my mom died. We then spent the next six hours talking. I don't even remember what about. Just catching up on life.

The next day, Sandy told me that she hadn't been asleep and had heard everything we said. I don't know if it was denial or just an incredible amount of naivete, but I actually thought she was complaining that our talking kept her up. So I apologized, but said that had she told us we would have gone into the other room. She said that she listened to see if we would talk about her. I pointed out that in six hours, we hadn't said anything about her. She was still mad and asked me what I thought it meant that she had to go to that length to see if I would 'betray' her. I told her it meant she was a paranoid freak.

As the day wore on, she got more and more openly hostile towards Jackie. She flat out told her that she just wanted to spend the time with me. I told her she was being incredibly rude. This was greeted by about two hours of silence.

After they left, she calmed down a bit. I knew that our time as friends was limited, but didn't really acknowlege it.

That November, Wyatt moved up here. The two of them had always gotten along, but I knew his presence would threaten her to no end. That December I was going to Israel for the bulk of the month. I only had one day the whole month of December where I could have possibly done anything social. Since Wyatt had just arrived, I proposed we all do something together. That was the proverbial straw that finally killed the camel. She was infuriated that I wouldn't make the one day I had OUR day. She had a huge tantrum and walked away from me. I told her after that that I just couldn't do this anymore. This friendship was taking way too much out of me and I just couldn't do it anymore.

This was about two and a half years ago. I still have no idea why I let this go on as far as it did. Was it the flattery of having somebody who loved having me around that much? Was it the fear of having to make new friends? I to this day don't know how I got into that or why I stayed in it. It disgusts and frightens me. But it is over, and I know I'll never be back in a situation like that again.

-CRbE