What do you mean you don’t have a best friend you call when you’re on the loo? Or who you send pictures of the new underwear you just bought?  That’s just crazy talk!  I think today I’m gonna tell y’all about my American twin – no, really, she pretty much is.  People have been asking about her a lot lately and they find it hard to believe that firstly my best friend is American and secondly that we met on the big bad internet…

Turns out she’s now the friend that knows so much about me that I either have to keep her on forever, or kill her cause she knows too much! LOL!

Going back a little, if I’d thought for one second that coming out of my funk would have made Colin’s productivity increase by a factor of 10 – I’d have tried harder to come out of it sooner!

Thursday night, on our way home from the dance studio I checked my phone. It’s a friend of mine asking if there’s any way to avoid paying Ticketmaster fees by perhaps using another site. I asked Col (my fountain of all things information-y) and he said maybe, it depended on the gig.

I ask her what the gig was and she said ‘John Mayer in the Woodlands’, well, that about did it for me! As soon as we got home I was searching for tickets!

Mayer has been my nemesis for the last number of years, any time I visited Amber in Iowa, he released his tour dates after the flights were booked and it was always for the week before or the week after I was there! *curses*

When I moved to Houston it got worse – everytime I’m in Iowa, he’s in Houston, every time I’m in Houston, he’s in Iowa – damnit man stay still!

Not only did I get Mayer tickets, but it wasn’t long before Amber suggested I plan my next visit to Iowa to coincide with the Stephen Kellogg gig that she’s going to see in early October – and less than an hour later, I was booked to go, Col’s progress has never been so speedy!

Friday morning, I woke up and he’d taken the laundry downstairs, taken both the rubbish and recycling (which we’ve never put out before today) out and he’d lifted all 5 boxes (and posted them) from my living room floor! I’m a lucky lady to have such a productive hubby! 😀

Anyway, John Mayer is not my top musician and truth be told, I’d much rather it were a Matt Nathanson gig we’d bought tickets to (but he’s still working on a new album!).  But I’ve wanted to see Mayer for years and I am seriously excited that I got tickets.  I don’t really know where to start with my music story, some people ‘get’ music, some people just like listening to it.  For me, music has always been a huge part of my life – from a very young age.

As a teenager, growing up and especially the years after I met Amber and she introduced me to these musicians my music almost defined who I was.  Actually, since 3 or 4 people have asked me about her lately, let me rewind a little and tell you about Amber, I could write for days and days and post thousands of pictures, but i’ll keep it as short as I can (hahaha suckers!)  In April of 2004 I created a ‘livejournal’ account. I’m an emotional and expressive person and although everyone recommended me against putting my thoughts and feelings in a semi-public forum on the internet, I did it anyway.  I wrote in it multiple times a day, I joined ‘communities’ for various things, mainly for meeting new friends.

In December of 2004, I got up to a comment on my livejournal from ‘Bambier’,

“I just friended you – feel free to friend me back if you’d like or tell me to chase myself 🙂 Some people are touchy about friending others…I update… far too much most of the time… usually around 3 times a day during the week… yay for getting paid to play on LJ 🙂 I won’t bore you on here – you can check my profile or my journal or whatever if you’d like :)”

I added her back, we connected on a level I never had before and have never connected on since.  We emailed every day – (probably hundreds of times a day! LOL!), about everything, anything and nothing.  She instantly became my best friend and I turned to her for absolutely everything – it didn’t take long for her to know me better than I’ve ever known myself.

2006, I took the plunge, I booked myself a flight out to meet her – yes, she could have been some pervy old man concocting some elaborate plot to lure me to the States and keep me in a cupboard (but as things transpired, she was just some pervy young girl who got me drunk and fed me yummy food! LOL!).

The plan wasn’t overly straight forward, I’d fly into Chicago where she’d pick me up and we’d spend St. Paddy’s day.

From there, we’d drive down to Iowa (where she lives), stopping in Madison, WI to visit her friend Ange for a night and after my trip to Iowa was over I was flying on to Atlanta to visit my brother and his crew down there.

It was going to be the trip of a lifetime for me – and man, I had no idea! LOL!

For, like, almost half a second when I walked through the arrival lounge I panicked.  What if she was some pervy old man? or what if we didn’t get along as well as we had done online? But as soon as she saw me, grabbed me in a bear hug and started talking to me like I’d just gotten off the bus from across town, I knew that I’d be just fine!

We walked all over town while we were in Chicago – and they don’t call it the Windy city for nothing.  I was soooooooooo stupid, I didn’t bring a coat, I told Amber I was used to cold weather, declined her offer of a coat and walked around in a t-shirt and a light denim jacket for most of the time in Chicago and getting lost and being unable to find Navy Pier in the freezing cold, windy weather, resulted in me getting sick with the worst chest infection!

On St Patricks day, my dream of seeing the river being dyed green, died a death – as it turns out, Chicago decided to dye the river green the week before, something I’ve never really forgiven them for! lol!

Amber and I started our drinking early on St. Paddys day, with a huuuuuuuuge margarita, we got totally plastered and by noon we ended up going back to the hotel and were almost calling it a day.  When we got back to the hotel, we went into the bar – which was, for the most part empty.  There was a small group of people (I can’t for the life of me remember how we got to talking, possibly they overheard the accent) there having a drink.

Before long we were all getting on like a house on fire and our day ended at around 4am after they’d taken us for a night out on the town in one of the clubs in the city – I swear, it was the most random fun I’ve ever had.

When we were done with Chicago, Amber drove us to Madison, WI to see her friend Ange.  It was here, in a car bopping through the streets after a night out that I heard my first ever Jason Mraz song – ‘Geek in the Pink’, everyone in the car was shocked I’d never heard of him and before long Amber had filled my computer with everything she’d ever had by him (which was a LOT) and my obsession was born.

Madison was the place of a lot of firsts for me, the first time I had a jaeger bomb (which I insisted I hated but persisted to drink them), the first time I stole something (I stole a random guy’s baseball cap in a bar), first time I was introduced to ‘Guys’n’Guitars’ which is a name we gave to a ‘genre’ of music that Amber introduced me to during this trip.  It was quite the visit! lol!

When we eventually got to Iowa, the fun continued.  I was introduced to a family that Amber is practically adopted by and who pretty much adopted me too! LOL!

The Stacks are a big part of my visits to Iowa, we always have good craic and it was actually thanks to Sue that I not only got on the ice to skate with the local hockey team during my first visit to IA in 2006 but also that we got on the ice of the same hockey team’s ice rink earlier this year to have our Engagement pictures taken!

In 2007, Amber then came to Ireland for a visit.  It was my birthday and we had a ‘Flash B*stards night, where everyone got glammed up and had a night out on the town…after a hockey game of course!

In 2007, Amber and Aaron drove the 24 hour (yes, they were freakin’ crazy!) trip from Iowa to Houston, TX to meet up with us while we were here on one of Col’s business trips.

In 2008, I went back to Iowa (without Col) for my birthday and although I don’t have any jaeger pics, I certainly have fun pics and am pretty sure there WAS jaeger! lol!

Later in 2008, Amber came down to Houston again (without Aaron this time) to meet up with us on yet another of Col’s business trips.  This time, bringing a passenger with her, as she was in the first trimester of her pregnancy with Averie.

In 2009, I went back to Iowa for Kelly’s baby shower and to meet little miss Averie for the first time.  Col came up after a while, for a week or so and I came home wanting to kidnap the adorable little girl that my best friend had just given birth too.

I should probably write in here how I thought – and even she’d probably admit, I’d be the first of us to have kids and when she got pregnant I’d hoped that she’d have a really ugly baby.  Why? Cause ours is the kind of friendship where we’re pretty dang honest.  Know how if someone has an ugly baby, you say ‘oh he’s just adorable!’ and you pretend like he’s a beautiful baby, even though he’s a boot? Well, I’d have told Amber straight, ‘holy crap your baby is ugly’.  However, as it happened, she had the most BEAUTIFUL baby I’ve ever seen!

I’m also seriously proud of her and I texted her for the most part of her labour – which, terrified the crap out of me.  She’s the strongest person I know and she was in so much pain that she cried, which left me under no illusions that when I’m in labour, if i’m not unconscious I will DIE! lol!

So far this year, I’ve been to Iowa twice (and hopefully I’ll be twice more before the year is out and Amber will be down here for the wedding).  I went up in March, because Kelly had had her lil bubba Carter last year and I’d taken my sweet arse time getting my butt up to meet him!

(My hair and make up is all done fancy in those pics above cause that was the day Col and I got our engagement pictures taken on the ice at the arena!)

It’s been quite the ride, these last (almost) 6 years of friendship.  It’s safe to say that Amber knows me better than anyone (probably including Col), she knows more about me than anyone else (which is always dangerous so we’ll have to be best friends forever! lol!) and although I’m pretty exhausting for the most part (with my soap opera style life), she’s never once told me to hit the road (so she really deserves a freakin’ medal! LOL!).

She’s been by my side through some of the darkest days of my life.  The days where I felt like, not only could I not pull through, but I didn’t want to either.  When I have a crappy day, she’s always at the end of an email ready to listen (or read), tell me to ‘suck it up’ (she doesn’t do well with the soppy stuff) or to distract me long enough to calm down from whatever had me in a tizzy.

She’s been by my side through heartbreak – quite literally by my side, stroking my hair and giving me hugs while I’ve cried oceans of hysterical tears because I had been screwed over by some guy and thought my heart was going to stop beating.  She’s introduced me to people, places, foods, music and so many other things that I’d probably have not been exposed to were it not for her and she’s definitely added, or helped me add, more strings to my bow.

If there’s a conversation topic out there, chances are we’ve talked about it.  We’ve sang together, we’ve laughed together, we’ve cried together, we’ve hurt together, we’ve shopped together (we do this bit extremely well!), we’ve crafted together, we’ve drank together, we’ve dieted together, we’ve bitched together and everything in between.

I quite enjoyed writing that…who knows who’ll be up next! 😉