My Friend Shanna

This is going to be about my friend Shanna, but I guess since no one reads this piece of shit blog, it doesn’t matter to anyway when I say “skip over this”, because it’s just for her benefit.

To preface this entry, it is important to say that before Shanna, I never had any gay friends.  I had only ever had girly girl friends, and rarely did I ever have guy friends.  You’d think that as a giant homosexual I would have surrounded myself with people with common interest, girls being the biggest one.  But this was not the case for me, most likely because I went to a tiny high school and all of the boys were actual morons.  Some of them continue to be morons, I’m sure.  Though I could not say this is the complete truth, as I have unfriended almost every single person from my high school save for possibly 14 people.  All of them happening to be girls, and one member of the faculties son, who I like to keep tabs on so I know he’s not growing up to be an asshole.

Anyway, I had only ever been friends with straight girls.  I did not intentionally set out to do this, as for a long time, it was a very lonely way to have friends.  First of all, I wasn’t exactly out in high school.  This stems from the fact that if I was, every single person (not an exaggeration) there would have been privy to this information by lunch time (I went to a tiny school).  I was not ready for that kind of exposure at the tender age of 14.  Because not only would every kid have known, but every single member of the faculty would have as well.  And that’s just a daunting thought when you a) have not informed your parents b) many members of the faculty are actually like your parents and c) many members of the faculty were (and continue to be) very judgmental.

You might ask how this pertains to Shanna, well I’m fucking getting there.  When I was 16 I set out to find a job.  This tasks was made slightly more difficult by the fact that I had school Monday – Friday and on most days I was there until 5 at night except Monday (out at 4) and Thursday (out at 3:15).  I know, it’s weird.  So I applied to work at the movies, because why the fuck not.  I had been there a couple months when this girl started working there, college age, really weird orangey red hair color, and totally gay.  I knew this because I have awesome gaydar, even my super gay boss at the time didn’t know (she has a knack for accidentally hiring lesbians unknowingly, as this continues to happen to her).

Of course, upon meeting Shanna I got over excited about the possibility of having a gay friend that I scared the shit out of her by jumping into our new delicate friendship with the hard hitting questions, namely, “How do I come out to my parents?”  This scared Shanna, as it should have.  That’s generally a question one saves for their school GSA club (which I didn’t have) or someone you’ve known longer.  But that’s just not the kind of person I am, I just straight up ask what I wanna know.  Unless those questions are about feelings for other people in which case I pretend those questions do not exist.

I thought Shanna was the Bees knees.  She was in college, was out, had a girlfriend, and was super awesome.  I finally had someone I could talk to about girls without feeling weird.  At that time in school my only friends were made up of one super Christian, (I’m pretty sure she only kept me around so she could say she had a gay friend), girls who were obsessed with boys, or girls who did not like to talk about other people like that.  My other friends who I could have talked to about these things had graduated and had left me to fend for myself.

And so for the next year until I graduated and went to college I had a big gay sister.  She would listen to me talk about “South of Nowhere” or obscure gay movies no one had heard about.  My little gay brain blossomed and I saw that there were other people out there that appreciated boobs as much as I did.  I finally had someone that I was never in any danger of getting a crush on which was awesome.  I went to college and stopped worrying about gay stuff, and I just started to be Tory, it became less about defining myself as gay and more about defining myself as nerd, student, friend.  Shanna stopped being my big gay sister and just started being my super awesome pal (companion, platonic partner?).

I have this problem where I outgrow my friends, and we lose all interest in each other.  This generally happens after four years of friendship, usually the span in which I am stuck with them, usually coinciding with school years: middle, high school, and college.  Shanna is one in only a handful that I have never outgrown, and I am confident in saying, that I will never outgrow.

Through college we didn’t text often, but enough to figure out that we were both alive and having a good time.  I once texted her that I had finally made out with some girl while I was completely hammered at a party and she texted back “was it your hand?”  This joke would have been funny if I A) hadn’t been shitfaced and B) This hadn’t been the first girl I had kissed since high school sophomore year (I wasn’t kidding when I said (actually don’t think I mentioned it) I was the only out gay person or gay person period at my school).  This joke offended my drunk minded brain so much that I refused to talk to her for two months.  No worries, we moved passed it.

I also like to drunk dial people, top of this list is usually my 30 year old friend who I like to leave messages for and Shanna, who I called drunk after my senior homecoming at school.  It was during this phone call that someone poured a drink on top of my head from the balcony over the front stoop of my dorm.  Now, any other friend might have asked if I was ok, but this is what Shanna did, “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”  This continued on for some time.

Shanna and I like almost all of the same things.  I’m going to say all because I have yet to find something we don’t both appreciate in some form or another.  Shit we get ourselves into: We both really wanted to see the Glee 3D concert film.  We decided this was two embarrassing to do when other people were around so we went to the earliest show that we could find during a weekday, pulled our hoods up, and sat in the very back row of the theatre.  This then turned into a super awkward event as a bunch of preteens and came in and sat in front of us, so then we looked like creepy pedophiles.  Upon leaving the theatre we both made a pact that we were never going to talk about the fact that we went to and saw it.  This pact held for less than 10 hours, Shanna got drunk that night and told people.  She is a horrible secret keeper.

I also went on her first date with her awesome girlfriend Stephanie.  This is less weird than is sounds since neither of them at the time knew it was a date but I did.  Ok, that’s as awkward and weird as it sounds.  And to top it off, Steph had to change in my tiny ass car, and then it started pouring, and she threw a rock at me.  It was the start of a beautiful friendship between the three of us. 

Sometimes I feel really bad that Steph has to put up with us.  I mean, Shanna and I am some point in time are going to get a set of harry potter tattoos with mine saying “I solemnly  swear that I am up to no good” and hers will say “mischief managed.”  Not a lot of girls would let you get a tattoo with some other girl, but Steph said ok.  Also Shanna and I have our own yet to be filmed show, based on Troy and Abed in the morning, only ours is called “Shay and Tor Tor in the morning.”  Steph also has to deal with us getting overly excited about fanfiction.  In fact, instead of having this be a whole blog out Shanna, I feel like it should be a giant apology to Steph.  Sorry that I come over on Friday nights and getting super hammered a lot, Shanna invites me over and I have to go.  That’s the thing, Shanna says let’s do it, and I have to.  How does getting shitfaced in Salem on a Friday night with a bunch of our friends during a Halloween weekend NOT sound like a good idea?  Well it certainly doesn’t NOT sound like a good idea, I can tell you that.

And to close out this novel, this is what we text about:

Me: What are your thoughts on a power rangers phone cover?

Shanna: You should get one obviously.  It would always be morphing time.