Discounting family, she is, without question, the person who has known me the longest. Our mothers were friends through church, and we have hung out since we were little tiny babies.

She's the best artist I know in real life. She used to amuse me through boring church services by drawing little pictures and cartoons on the bulletins. Here characatures of the other kids were brutal, let me tell you.

She was my partner in crime. We grew up surrounded by a lot of good-looking, confident kids who thought nothing of ridiculing our non-Reebok shoes and lack of coolness. I hope she doesn't mind me speaking for her, but we were geeks. Outcasts. We didn't fit in. Beth and I were too damn smart. We read all the time! She and I just spent too much time in our little imaginary worlds, where we were magazine editors and adventurers and models and anything but skinny kids who didn't look or act like everyone else.

I've hung out with the other kids who didn't fit in all my life. My buddies have always been the anti-homecoming queens, the non-jock-girlfriends, the smart math kids, the anti-sorority chicks, the writers and dreamers and cynics.

We'd support each other, and boost each other up. But Beth was my very first partner in outlaw-outcast crime. And man, she was the best.

I remember walking together to dance class, giving each other little pep talks, promising we'd be "cool" this week. And of course, one of us would do something stupid, or be embarrassed by the instructor, or endure snide comments from the other girls. No matter! Beth and I would just sing chorus songs to her mother at top volume the entire ride home.

How cool is that? Wouldn't you just love to have your boss reprimand you in a meeting, forget cash for lunch, realize you're fighting off a cold, have your hard drive crash, and instead of heading for happy hour, just tumble into the back of a Suburban driven by your buddy's mom and belt out the song about "The ship Titanic, that sailed the ocean blue..."

Just last Christmas, I believe, she took me Irish jig dancing. I believe the bar was about 20 feet by 20 feet. Lordy. I tripped and sweated and drank Killians and laughed and had a hell of a time.

We're on the dance floor, doing some kind of "London Bridge Is Falling Down," tunnel-move.

Me to Beth: Dude, I hope all these people are enjoying the view of my pitstains.

Beth: I told you to wear long sleeves!

Anyway, I'm doing that thing again, where I get involved way too far inside my own head.

The point is, Beth and I go waaaaaay back. And it makes me kinda sad that she's 2000 miles away from me. (Then again, so is everyone else.) And I'm happy that we're in contact more now, because we weren't doing such a hot job of keeping in touch for a while there.

But even after all this time, there's still stuff we don't know. For example, I learned yesterday that my dear friend Beth is a (gasp) Republican!

A rapid, back and forth email discussion followed. Here you go:

Me: So, since when have you been conservative?

Beth: Since I registered to vote on my 18th birthday. Come on, with my parents, what did you expect?

Me: yeah, yeah... I believe that makes you and Neal the conservative voices of the Guest Stars [Another project we're working on. -J]. Cool! Oh, wait, Mollie's a Republican, too. And Neal deviates sometimes. Maybe someday we'll have "Jamiestar's Presidential Debates."

Beth: I know the first topic: underwires - outlaw 'em, or provide more funding?

Me: Damn, you're good. How about: Better vice-president... Buffy or Xena?

Beth: Assuming you would have to be a presidential candidate to debate, I would argue for Xena. If I was a dyke, I might not do her, but I definitely wouldn't do Sarah Michelle Gellar. And, of course, there's the classic debate: spit or swallow?

Me: Just don't inhale.

A few minutes later...

Beth: I laughed so hard I almost peed myself. Now who's good?