Jov My closest friend. I have known her for about 8 years and she really is too good of a friend to me. She's always been there for me and willing to help me out as well as my family. Her and her family put me and mine to shame in all areas. She's disgustingly perfect. It's hard being her friend from that point of view. She is engaged to marry Mike, a pretty nice monkey-loving fellow, in 2005. She asked me to be her maid of honour!

Now Mike brings with him a whole slew of people, who have sort of let me join their very cool group. There are his longtime friends: Shawn, (the best man), a couple of Christophers, a Jeff , a Nora (a bellydancing woman with the most infectious giggle and a love of life who I've become really close to), Kasia, Michal, Michal's sister Agnes, and another Mike make up the core group. Most of those people will be in Mike and Jov's wedding. Then there's Trevor, Adrian, Dave...what I'm getting at is this a huge group of people. I'm finding that the size makes it hard to form deeper friendships (so I know some of them better than others), but also it's probably the fact that I haven't known them for very long. I have only good things to say about the people I do know, though: they are all very nice and welcoming and any feelings of not belonging I have are not due to them.

Mel is a friend I met online back near the end of 2001 (we bonded over the conversations on how mediocre the men in this city are) who has turned out to be a great friend. She's hilarious (I spend too many hours laughing with her on the phone), a great listener and generous. Once you're her friend she makes it her duty to show you how much she cares. It's great. She's in New Orleans as I write this, attending her sister's wedding.

Shan-On is a blogging/diaryland friend that I met in April of 2003 because we're both in the same city and we went to the same highschool, which is pretty neat. She's a fit girl with a very busy life and someone I admire too. She got married in July 2004 and they also bought a new house in the boonies...and a new pug for their new backyard!