“I’m not sure you’ve ever once bugged me”

Let me start this by saying that Rick knows about this friendship, he approves and I am a strong believer that if Rick and Greg were in the same room I would quickly get pushed off to the side so they could talk fishing and smoke together.  I’d become the afterthought and I rather like the idea of Rick and Greg meeting one day so that Rick gets to know the person I know so well.  But this entry is not about Rick, but I can’t write it without saying Thank you to him for getting me and allowing me to be me. I love you tenfold for that.  And I’m pretty sure that Greg thinks you’re cool too because you make me immensely happy.

So….this is the entry about Greg.

He calls me Kripsy.  He’s done it forever.  He told me the other night when I didn’t want to bug him by calling back late… “I’m not sure you ever once bugged me” and it made me realize that in 10+ years of friendship we’ve never had one falling out and I sure hope I’ve never once bugged him because he’s never once bugged me either man.

I’ve been wanting to blog about my friend Greg forever!  Yes forever.  I write this blog post a thousand times in my head and I never get it right and I’m pretty sure I won’t get it right here.  I have a friend named Greg. Greg and I have been friends since the late summer of 1998.  That means that we’ve been friends for 11 years.  When I met him my son was 5 years old.  My son will soon be 17. yah “I KNOW!!” (said in my best Craig Ferguson imitation)

Greg and I met online in a chat room. In other words, Greg and I have never met.  Yah we think it’s all weird too and so does everyone else pretty much.  We’re weird, its ok.  I cannot for the life of me recall which chatroom and really it no longer matters.  Greg was there for me when my ex-husband was cheating on me and leaving our bed at 4 in the morning lying to me about going to work early, often just leaving before 4 a.m. and explaining or saying nothing, leaving me lying in the dark feeling rejected and miserable.  When I met Greg, he too was going through a breakup.  Oh we were a sad state of affairs each night hashing through out simliar pain with one another, but we’ve both gotten past the past and the current lives are fantastic…we’re having much more fun sharing the happy stuff, trust me.

In the years since we met, we’ve both been through a lot of ups and downs and right now, we both happen to be in very very good places.  He has a new girlfriend and he’s deliriously happy right now.  THAT makes me happy because I’ve been gushing to him for years now about just how much I love my husband.  However, when I first met Rick and I was gushingly happy and faling in love and Greg wasn’t in that place he was still super happy for me and how happy I was.  That’s a true test of a friendship….when your friend is happy when you’re happy even if their own life is in the shitter.

It’s hard for me to write about Greg without wanting to get sappy and philosophical.  I mostly want to get across that he’s been there for me and chose to be my friend when I was an absolute mess.  When I had no direction, no focus, no mental clarity and on and on and on.  Greg was there.  He listened and he and I formed a friendship despite my misgivings.  Sure, he’s not perfect.  Oh man is he not perfect.  He’s had his own struggles in differentw ways.  (mostly all those women who don’t love him back even half as much as he loves them! Stupid bitches!!)

I’ve gone through my share of online friendships….some of which have made it, one of which burned out like a massive blaze in a giant forest full of gasoline trees and another that is lukewarm on it’s best days which are fewer and farther between’er.  Greg and I have remained friends.  Good friends.  He really taught me what friendship was about…(him and Carla that is..) and I have him to thank for eleven years of him hanging in there while I grew up, branched out, took chances, remarried, enrolled in college and generally got my shit together. And every time I reach a goal or find success, it is Greg that is happiest for me and it is Greg’s approval that matters because he knows how far I’ve come and so his congrats mean the world.

Greg paints.  Sometimes that’s the only definition of who and what Greg is that’s necessary.  He doesn’t just paint in my opinion he creates art.  Everything about Greg screams artist and while I was initially fascinated by that, I now see how much it can also be a double edged blade.  In this photo my favorite painting is the girl in the upper left. I’m sure that anyone who’s read it long enough has seen that image before. I adore it…he was painting it when we met and it just tugs at my heart when I see it. I don’t know why he painted it or who it is…it’s not me…but it resonates within me and makes my ribcage hum when I see it.  I consider it “my” painting and that’s the best kind of art.  And no he didn’t paint it for me…and I’m pretty sure he’s sick of hearing me gush over that one painting.  (I do love a lot of his others…)

Greg is always being told he look’s like the “white snoop dogg” and I can’t say that’s far off, except I don’t know snoop dogg and I do know Greg.  Greg looks like Greg to me.  Greg is honest, upfront, crazy, thinks off the wall things and generally makes me laugh. I love his voicemails and the way he answers his phone all crazy saying anything that comes to mind. “Hello Jello Pudding line, we can’t help it if you have the runs”.  Just one example of thousands. 

Recently it occurred to me that Greg has always been there.  Always.  I can’t remember a “before Greg” anymore. I recently broke down and told him how I felt. I stumbled through it all and I don’t even remember what I said but at some point I do recall saying “I have a brother but I don’t have a brother..”.

Greg  let me babble on and on…..and he didn’t say much. He knows me. He knows I’m no good with emotional diatribes.  And at the end of that above sentence I said something like “I want to print out your picture and put it on my desk and when people ask me who that is I want to say “That’s my brother Greg” and then brag about how you paint and play drums and write poetry and come up with great fiction story ideas and and and…”

A few days later I called Greg to check in on his newfound paradise/love situation and he said “Hey sis what’s up?”  and it…gosh I’m writing this and I can’t even find words to tell you….but tears immediately flew down my face and I answered with as calm a voice as possible “not too much, how are you today?” or some such other normal response…I can’t even recallw hat I said…I only know that some gaping hole in my heart mended over.  We’ve been friends for ten years, he’s been my brother for a few weeks.  It matters to me.  I can’t stop thinking back to that moment.  Someone got it…got what it is to muddle through life not feeling like you belong.  I’ve often told Greg he has a lovely familly…but it makes sense because Greg is an amazing person.  He’s good to a fault..so good that people don’t seem to know what to do with all of it.  It’s like being handed a priceless hummel figurine and not knowing how to handle it.

This is the shot he texted to me one day a few weeks ago.  It cracked me up because it’s the crazy Greg I know and consider a brother.

One day I broke down over the phone with Greg (hey we’ve never met in person…..did I mention that shit? lol) about how Rick and I couldn’t have babies and why and everything that was happening and how I felt and he designed a tattoo for me based upon that conversation.  You can go see it and much more here. 

I love it.  It depicts everything I was saying and feeling and I don’t know how he did it but it makes perfectly good sense to me and..Rick wants to get it on his arm and I want it on my leg.

                                                            
When I got my little writing gig, I tested the waters by telling Greg first…..he wrote back:

Sweet!!

Congrats Kripsy,
 
I think you will excel in that setting. good4U!!!

I think King has a new book coming out b4 xmass.

Im very proud of you Kripsy, you have come a long way since we first met and that my friend I think is awesome.

party on Kripsy!!!

g

That email mattered…a lot.

 

This is my favorite photo of Greg…chillin’ with a cup of coffee….because this is who I know him to be.  If you don’t have a Greg in your life…a surrogate friend willing to take on the job of being your brother because you so desperately are lacking one…..you are not as lucky as me.  I have a biological brother, I haven’t seen him since 2001 and he barely uttered a hello to me.  He’s 36 and I don’t know him, his choice.  But I finally have no reason to want for one…..I have one.  Hey look it’s my brother Greg. He paints and shit….er..he paints shit…er….I mean he can paint shit….I mean he’s an artist and he’s my friend.  He’s cool so you should commence being jealous now that you don’t have a Greg.