The Girl From Southie

December 13, 2020

So, I guess it’s time I told you about Annie.

I’ve tried to write about her, and us, many times but I always delete it. It’s sort of like she’s a secret that I feel the need to stow away in my pocket. Mine.

 

When I first started blogging, I knew absolutely zero and it felt like this huge thing that I had to research and study and it stuck in my gut and my throat like a juggernaut. My friend Cynthia encouraged me to just DO IT, even though I was hugely ignorant and scared out of my skin. “It’s kind of like having a kid,” she said. “If you wait until you’re ready, you’ll never do it.” So I did.

And I sucked.

I was so damn dumb that I had to ask what an Avatar was. I was lucky enough to have Greg from high school who could help me navigate how to even set the dang thing up. My photos were horrendous (okay, they are still not good but those first ones–Jesus). My writing was conversational but hesitant; I was afraid to really write the way I felt/talked/am because Dear God, I might offend someone. *

I spent hours and hours reading cooking blogs on the Internet, studying Blogrolls of the ones I liked. I took notes, hoping to find inspiration and a whisper of a clue. In that process, I stumbled across Annie’s. The photographs were gorgeous. Just, whoa. But it was her voice that really resonated. She knew her shit but she didn’t whack you over the head with it. She seemed real. She had a life and a partner and an adorable dog. She seemed approachable…maybe.

So I did what normal people do. I wrote her this huge neurotic barf-o-rama of an email, asking a bazillion questions and oozing insecurity. I should have deleted it, and I thought about it. But I was three glasses of wine down and fuckit, y’all and I hit send.

She wrote back. She was kind.

And so it began, the tendrils of a friendship.

We are complete opposites–she is measured and logical and studious and confident. And I’m…yeah. And then she mentioned that she was from South Dakota and this North Dakota girl called her a “Southie.” Cause hey, in Dakota speak, she is. You Jersey folks don’t own the term, ya know? Annie’s Southside. Yeah. And we laughed and laughed.

Then she sent me a parcel of hog fat from a local farm because I’d told her I was terrified of making pie crust.

Gauntlet. Annie throws it.

The girls (then so little!) marched around the kitchen chanting “Hog fat, hog fat, hog fat Whooo!” So we made pie. And it was good. Peach. And no, I still don’t make my own pie crust because I suck at baking, but Mama helped me with those pies and we had such a good time.

 

 

The weirdest of beginnings, and such a lifeline. We so don’t belong together. But we do.

Annie–here’s your introduction. The stories are coming. You ready?

 

 

*guess I kind of got over the tentative voice thing?

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