Friday, September 17, 2004

My Evil Twin

It’s interesting how we meet people. Sometimes the circumstances make perfect sense (in a classroom, at a job, through mutual friends), but other times, the circumstances are just as random as could possibly be. As technology evolves, the world becomes a smaller place. At the same time, our personal circles become much larger. I have never been to Iowa in my life, yet one of my best friends is from Iowa. I didn’t meet her through work or through mutual friends; she’s still in Iowa and I’m still in California. I met her through the computer.

We are birds of a feather. We look the same, we talk the same, we act the same, we even think the same. Our children are only a couple of months apart, and our interests are nearly perfectly aligned. Sometimes it’s downright creepy, but most of the time it’s very comforting to know that there’s someone in the world only an IM or a phone call away who will ABSOLUTELY understand my point of view, no matter how bizarre or warped or even wrong it may be. The thing that makes this special is that we’re not family (the only other person who understands me so completely is my sister Kate). This non-family person gets me. She’s my new surrogate sister. :)

Of course I’m talking about Celti. Hi Celti!

We began discovering our similarities when we saw pictures of each other. Our hair, while different colors, is otherwise exactly the same—even the length. The more we exchanged comments through our own sites & other people’s, the more apparent it became to me that our thought processes run along the same lines. I don’t remember now who got in touch with whom, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’ve found each other. In this great-big world full of strangers, we have each found our twin in the other.

We are each, um, “blessed” in certain areas of our bodies. (heehee) While we may complain to each other about our bra straps digging into our shoulders or the additional weight we have to carry around, neither of us would really want to have a smaller bustline (well, not much anyway).

Yesterday afternoon, I went to my weekly weight watchers meeting. Whenever I lose weight, I think of it in terms of butter. Every one knows what a pound of butter looks like. One pound of fat. It’s easy to visualize; it makes the weekly weight loss seem more significant than just a number. I ran back to my desk and IM’d Celti: “Hey, I lost 1.2 lbs this week!” Her response to me? “Wow, that’s great! That’s almost 5 sticks of butter!” I just about died—I’ve never shared the butter analogy with her. It was freaky. Then again, it was also hysterical and comforting in a strange way.

And this morning, one of the bosses in her office asked her why she never had to take as much time off work as some other (slacker) woman did for her kid. I wrote back, “Tell them for her it’s a job, for you it’s a career.” She already did. Almost those exact words. Which proves not only do we think exactly along the same lines, but we’re also both brilliant.

We call each other “Evil Twin”, but the truth is she’s one of the nicest people I know. Disregard that sneer on her profile picture. That’s just to scare off the wimps and weenies. Disregard the giggle-look on my face over at Jay’s party. That’s just to endear people upon first look. We’re really each a combination of the others pictures. I’m really wearing a sneer inside, wishing all the wimps & weenies would stop breeding, and she’s a big-ol softie inside, giggling right along with me at the rest of the world. Believe me, I know. ;)