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Ok, here’s resuming my Kickstarter rewards. See the thing was, if you contributed a certain amount to my Kickstarter project, your reward was to have a blog written about you. I have a lot of you to do… you narcissistic fucks! Just kidding! You were helpin’ out The Madge and I appreciate it!
So today I need to talk about my little Jilly Jill. Jill Sweeney-Bosa. She was a nice Irish girl, Jill Sweeney when I knew her college. Then she goes and marries some Italian dude or something. I met Jill my sophomore year, she lived in my dorm. And then senior year we were apartment mates.
I can honestly say, I don’t think I have ever laughed more with someone in my entire life. Sorry. I have a shitload of funny friends but Jill takes the cake. Like I wouldn’t tell her to go on stand up tour it’s just… our sense of humor is so in-sync it’s ridiculous. Always with the pop culture references. The other was our habit of constantly changing the words to songs and singing them like we didn’t really know what they were. You know, like you’d catch your Mother singing the wrong words to a popular song, because she really thought that’s what it was?
Some of my favorites “Don’t yank my schlong” instead of “Don’t get me wrong” by the Pretenders. “It’s really humid” instead of “I’m only human” by Human League. (which also included the words “born to lick your face” instead of “born to make mistakes”) Good times. Good times.
Also in the high tech age of 1986 we convened nightly in the living room to catch the MTV countdown on our state of the art black and white TV. Back then, that’s the only way you could see videos, and yes MTV still played them. We waited anxiously to sing to “Fight for your right to party” by Beastie Boys and to do the hammer dance to Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer”. We were dorks.
Jill was so freakin’ funny when she told a story. Still is. One of my favorites is her telling a story of how she tried to escape this fraternity boy who we all knew and became an infamous womanizer. (but God he was my secret ultimate man if he wasn’t such a playboy, re: douche). So little tiny Jilly from New Hampshire is getting hit on by uber preppy fraternity boy from Newport, Rhode Island. I don’t remember the specifics, but she ends up running out of the fraternity house party and across the street to our dorm. He follows. She ends up running upstairs to her room and hides in the closet. He follows, looks around for her then leaves. Like I said, don’t remember the specifics but to hear her talk about cowering in the closet is hillarious. Ok, you had to be there.
One of my most memorable things is, and I don’t think I’ve ever told her this, the night she saved me. Saved me from drowning in self-pity. See Jill and her bestie and another roommate of ours Amy came to my wedding. They were the only old college friends of mine that came, I don’t think I really invited many. That’s a long story for another time. Anyway, ex had comandeered the guest list to be 90% his, 10% mine. Hey, I was only 26, I didn’t know better. My ex gets completely hammered with all of his college buddies at the wedding and completely ignores me. But he is dancing with all of his old “girl buddies” at the wedding.
I was pissed. I was sad… hurt, disappointed, you name it. But I sat with my girlies and they said “screw it, he’s just drunk, don’t let that ruin your day” So we went out on the dance floor. I had a lot of fun. I remembered Jill’s message for years, every time he started to spiral I thought, I (and the kids) are not gonna’ get dragged down with him. I still tried to carry on and work hard and make the best life possible. During marriage and after marriage. It’s been hard but I always picture Jill and Amy saying “Oh no you don’t, Madge! Knock off the pity party!”
Jill, I love you for always reminding me that I have value. You always remind me that I’m funny, smart, and strong. You my dear, are a whole lot of funny, smart, and strong and I love you for it. And I want more Sophie stories!
Oh and it case you’d like to buy my book, you can find it here. It’s on sale!
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