It's All Fun & Games Until a Trannie Starts Crying

me(@mstygerlily) & my candy (@candice202)

best friends 1983 'til death do us part

SIEMPRE

(neither of us are the trannie in the title...lol)

Friends....How many of us have them?

I know a lot of people.

Not saying I'm popular or anything, but I have a tendency to make friends where ever I go. I'm that girl. Maybe it's 'cause I'm sociable. Maybe it's because I speak the same way I write. Whatever the reason, my personable nature makes people either love me, or hate me 'cause they're not me.

So, Saturday afternoon I was taking my disco nap before going out for the evening's festivities when my phone rang. Normally, during nap time, I shut the phone off, but I had a, ahem, friend in town that I was waiting to hear from, so I left the phone on.

BIG MISTAKE

The phone call was from Isabelle.

Isabelle & I were always cool in undergrad, she's a few years younger than me. We were both "life of the party" kinds of girls so we would do our duty by appearing at social events, but we never really talked on the phone or hung out over each other's houses. (I never even knew where she lived.) We were both fabulous and well known among the social circles @ our universities, but we weren't exactly in the same clique. Just two fun loving ladies with a few friends in common and a desire to brighten the world with our fabulousity.

Oh yeah, and Isabelle used to be Isaac.

Isabelle has been undergoing the gradual changes to go from being an organic boy to being a constructed girl. Hormones, breast implants, fake nails, eyes, & hair.....Periodically, I get updates through the "children's network." Some story will float through the airwaves about her latest stunts and all around fuckery. I'll chuckle, perhaps pass the story along and then she becomes an after thought.

When she called me, I was confused and instantly thought I shouldn't answer the phone, but then she called again.

Isabelle was stranded in NYC without her wallet and with no money.

"What about your friends?

Will they stand their ground?

Will they let you down?"

Isabelle was at the airport, crying with her purse, her passport, and no money.

In hindsight, I recognize what a set up this sounds like, but in my early afternoon half sleep haze, I felt sorry for her. Fool that I am, I offered her some $. Some cab fare and some $. Dinner some cab fare and some $ and a place to get changed up for the evening's events.

Somehow, that translated into her coming to my house, leaving her bags and assuming she was staying with me for an indefinite amount of time.

When I told one of the homies, he cracked up. So did the other 2 Laurens and a few of our friends. Apparently this is Isabelle's M.O.

She always leaves her wallet. She always comes to NYC with no $, and she always leans on one, or a few, of her "friends" to sponsor her while she's there.

I apparently was the only one who answered the phone this time. Everyone else had had their fill of her antics and was not willing to be her purse strings this go'round.

When I found out I'd been had, I was initially tight. Then I thought about how tragic it is that this grown ass man...ooops woman, was still pulling college age stunts. See, at this age Isabelle should have figured something else out to do with her life instead of using people like she does. Technically, she should have her shit more together and be more self sufficient. What was cool or bearable in college doesn't always fly in your 30's....so I've been told 'cause you know your girl is eternally 27.

I started to mull the situation over in my head and I realized it has less to do with her being a grown ass woman, but rather with no one ever having taught her how to be a real friend. Everyone was content with what she provided in terms of entertainment, of spectacle, of flash, but few really wanted to know her hurt, her angst, her pain.

She is a mooch because everyone around her allowed her to be in exchange for the fabulous hot ass mess of a performance that is her everyday life, which totally rubs me the wrong way.

After dinner, Isabelle proceeded to get fall down drunk, and cry her eyes out about her in flux gender. The vexation from just finding out that I'd basically been had made me sympathetic to a point, but I had things I wanted to do, and people I wanted to see.

I gave her $80 a phone charger, and left her somewhere in the meatpacking district.

The next day, I communicated with her via text to make sure she was ok and tried to arrange her bag pickup. She ended the convo by thanking me and telling me I was a great friend.

2 days later she came and got her bags and kiki'd with me as though nothing had even happened. She was endearing, calmer, and apologetic about her antics. Even offered to take me to dinner, though I'm not holding my breath in anticipation. In her defense, she had just had a hormone shot and that is essentially the equivalent of trannie PMS, on serious drugs.

Isabelle made me start to evaluate the title of friend. If something happened to her, I would feel bad, but how bad would I really feel? How much did I really care about her day to day well being? Does the fact that I wasn't willing to derail my plans for her mean I'm not the great friend she described me as?

Now that I'm a Twitterista, a Facebook Freak, and a BBIM Beast my network of "friends" has vastly expanded, or has it?

How many people who I assign that label to who would do for me what I was willing to do for her?

Those who know me, and I mean know me know me, know that if you're my peoples if I've got it, and you need it, it's yours. I've NEVER been the type to do things for others with any expectations other than that's what you are supposed to do for people you care about. I am there for my friends because that's what you're supposed to do.

With the title of friend being assigned so easily and with so little merit or value other than one small shared coincidence, ("You like Muppet shoelaces? Me too!") who really is your friend?

For me, there has to be some sort of years and authentic shared life experience that I can attach to a person to truly consider them my friend. If we've known each other for some time, I start attaching adjectives and qualifiers to describe the type of friend you are to me.

"This is one of my best & oldest friends in the world!"

"This is my roll dawg..."

"This is my HOMIE! We've been friends for a minute!"

"This is one of my dearest friends."

"This is my best work friend."

"This is my GIRL from high school..."

I probably have about another 5-7 of those phrases I use.

Over the years, my friends have called upon me for a host of reasons.

There was the car window someone needed a ride to go smash.

A ride to the clinic.

A place to stay when a parent was abusive.

A place to hang when a bf had broken a heart.

A home for the holidays when travel costs didn't match college pockets.

Someone to beat a dude's ass. (Yup I did that...more than once.)

Been a confidant.

Been a bar sponsor.

Been a designated driver.

Held hair while someone vomitted.

I did these things, and waaaaaaaay more, 'cause my friends, my true friends, are like family to me.

Growing up, my brothers and I were close in age, but much younger or much older than all of our other cousins. We had extended family in the form of uncles and aunts who lived near us, but we found ourselves longing for relatives in our own generation. Since none were to be found, we invented relatives....cousins mostly scattered around the DC metro area

In 1983, I met @candice202 and my life has forever changed. We communicate sooooo many times a day, it doesn't even make sense. No really, we're ALWAYS talking via some method of communication. I call her my conscience 'cause there are few decisions she doesn't weigh in on.

We jest and call each other besties/bffs but in reality, she is my sister, minus all the bullshit drama and competition sister go through. This isn't to say it's always peaches & sunshine. If anyone other than my parents & my brothers know how to say something that can cut me to my quick, it's her.

We come for each other & go in REAL HARD on all elements of our lives, damn near daily, but I know that if I needed her or she needed me, there is nothing that could stand in either of our way to get it for each other.

I am beyond blessed to have a friend like her, and listening to Isabelle's sob story, even if she did say it more than Kanye's apologized in the last few days, made me realize how few people have someone who would ride or die like that for them.

Thing is, I'd do for most people I call my friends what I did for Isabelle, and like I said earlier, there are a lot of them.

That breed of fierce loyalty is hard to come by, and some of you may not rock for your peoples like that. I do, and that's what made the situation with Isabelle so tough for me. I want to be able to be cold enough to leave people out on a ledge and have them "get your own your own" (said in Big Pun voice.) But for whatever reason, I can't do it and honestly, I feel ok about that.

If she called me again, I'd probably help her again. And again and again and again.

That's me. Take it or leave it, but I assure you when you need someone for something you hate having to even think about going through, I'll be right there with you hating it too.

SMOOCHES!!!!

SHINE ON!!!!