Want Justice?

I'm addicted to watching Judge Judy, and while I admit some shame associated with this fact, at the same time, it's gratifying to watch this woman scream at idiots and for people to get what they deserve - good or bad - in any sense.  Every bit as entertaining as the show are the commercials, which clearly reveal the supposed demographic of this program.  Endless ads for ambulance-chasing lawyers, laundry detergent, Stanley Steamer, and new programs coming out soon starring Flavor Flav - who, by the way, has enjoyed a remarkable career of late by being simply vile and incoherent, and this is a complete mystery to me.  I often wonder who the audience might be for any show with this individual on it, but there obviously is one since he keeps popping up on a host of networks.  Like I have room to complain when I'm watching Judge Judy, but still.  

My favorite commercials are the ones for prescription medications; the most recent amusing one is for Detrol, which claims to help with bladder control.  The little stick figure on the ladies' room door leaps off the front and counsels the poor woman who is embarrassed by her sudden, frequent urges and is "afraid her friends will find out."  The stick figure also offers to give her some literature from Detrol on "how to talk to her doctor about bladder issues."  Seriously?  Are there ANY women out there in the world who don't discuss every single personal somatic complaint with any other women who will listen?  I talk to my girlfriends about periods, bowel movements, post-childbirth unpleasantries, hemorrhoids, yeast infections - you name it.  Women never shut up about these things, and I consider that a positive side effect of female friendships.  We should be able to talk about everything, and what's embarrassing about a bladder control problem in the first place?  I should be in marketing; whoever writes this shit doesn't know anything about how women operate.

This observational babbling is not in vain.  I'm pissed off to the Nth degree with DU again - and a certain chair of the department from hell - and instead of venting it all here AGAIN, I thought I would offset my rubbish mood with a positive affirmation.  The aforementioned commercial made me think about the kinds of conversations I've had with girlfriends, and then it occurred to me that my life has never included very many close women friends, but the few I have I feel incredibly blessed to know.  I love Jamison like no one else, and I adore my child and dote on my dog, but relationships between women are of a particularly special breed, I think, and compare to nothing else.  

My sister feels like an actual extension of my person; without her I do not exist as a whole and no one knows my mind like she does.  I never have to speak my mind, but when I do she listens patiently as if she doesn't know what I'm going to say already; when I'm upset or hurting or needing I never have to say it, and only hearing her voice makes everything better.  When it came time for her to have her beautiful daughter, it was my pleasure and joy to be with her when she pushed, and to coach her when the epidural wore off - twice.  Her husband is a wonderful man but when she cried out with each increasing contraction, I knew that it was me who should hold her hand and talk her through it.  Only women can do this for one another - it's inexplicable and the most perfect man in the world cannot genuinely know it.  That's not derogatory, either.

Meridith is my soul sister; our lives have changed and no longer intersect in terms of space and perhaps even notions about the universe or world-view, but I can always sit with her comfortably and talk about anything at all and whether it's been ten minutes or two years, time never seems to pass in between.  There are few people in the world that I share a natural comfort with - comfort to be entirely myself, that is - and there is no one else who knows me the way she does.  She knew me when I was awkward and shy, when I was coming of age, when I lost my virginity, when I was hurtful, when I screwed up, when I excelled, when I behaved abominably in the course of finding out who I was and wanted to be - both to her and others - and when I was at my absolute worst and when I hit my stride.  

While there are others I have not mentioned here, I cannot end this list without mention of Laura.  I love that we can talk about absolutely anything, that we share a common trauma of graduate school, and yet our friendship transcends our commiseration.  This bond has a special value to me because I don't have many girlfriends and I don't form these relationships easily or frequently.  I don't trust many people with ~me~.  

Jennie, Sarah, Pam - these are special women too, and I'm sure I'm being conservative, forgetful even, but rather than recount my anger and trauma today, I choose to be blessed instead.  

And I am.