Not Just for St. Patrick's Day. Or breakfast.

OK, so the plan was to write a post about my best guy friend, the King. I wanted to do that both because Monday was the King’s birthday and also because in the last year and a half I’ve hardly ever written about him, so it’s SO TIME! This was the plan. The plan was also to post this on his actual birthday, and to have it be this cool post that would be all heart-warming and funny and maybe people would read it and get throat-lumpy and tell their friends “I read this post today about this one woman’s friend and it was touching and so I’m giving you my last Pop Tart to show you that I love you like she loves this friend and just… just… wow.”

These things, and so much more, were the plan.

Then again, the plan was also to keep writing regularly and be fabulous and pithy and beloved by all. And be skinny. And make grown men weep and grown women envy. And the skinny thing – did I mention this? Anyway, the point is that I don’t seem to be able to work to the plan recently, and this King post is, painfully, NO EXCEPTION.

I TRIED to write the post. I tried a bunch of times, and all of them were a stupendous combination of lame, boring and painful to read. No, painful to write and agonizing to read. A post that would beg the question: read this or gouge my eyes out with a melon-baller? Decisions, decisions…

This is the thing: The King is naturally cool. Always has been. Has always been the coolness barometer of our group, and all the groups that he’s been part of. He’s funny (officially funny, not just my opinion. He was once voted as the funniest person of all Hippyville) and smart and bright and over and over he’s the guy that everyone else wants to impress.

And I’m no exception.

I have only told a few people that I’m writing this blog. I knew he knew about it, but the day I heard he’d actually been reading it I was floored. Then when I heard that he was some level of impressed with it I preened and glowed and used phrases like “how special am I? Oh yes, so very special!” until a tranquilizer dart was required to stop me. So in trying to write an homage to this friend of decades and decades, knowing that he might read it, I just kept getting inside my own head. (a scary place, full of saber-toothed Smurfs and gravy-flavored jello and the theme from Shaft playing as muzac in a terrible loop.) It has to be as cool as he is, or else I should just bail on the whole idea and instead bake him something made of chocolate and money.

And in the end I realized that my own nerves here were my best homage to the coolest guy I know. Dude, in all the years I’ve known you and known all the people that you and I both know, you’re the only one who’s laughter makes me feel REALLY funny because I know you don’t laugh at just anything. You’re the King of Cool, and its so amazing to me that I keep getting to be your friend, because that means (at least I have decided that it means) that I’m at least cool enough to rate a place in your court. All hail the King – Long may his Coolness Reign!