Dear A,

I can't believe it's been almost 5 years that you left me in San Francisco to, of all things (!), move to Paris with your French husband. Really, how could you?! And it certainly doesn't feel like it's been 10 years since law school, where we encountered competitive classmates, intellectually-superior professors (well, maybe not those adjuncts!), and insufferably small penises (metaphorically...well, and perhaps literally, too). Remember our 70's style apartment in Cow Hollow, me -- chubby and oblivious -- and you -- skinny and toothless? Ahhh, good times. What ever did happen to those leather pants?

Well, here we are now, separated by thousands of miles and a whole language. Good thing we are both still bilingual in Spanglish and "talking shit."

We've been able to keep up with the big ticket items. Our marriages. My 2 offspring. Your fetish kitty. My forever-dieting dog. And I guess it's ok that you missed out on some of the smaller things, this side of the Atlantic: in no particular order, Jon Gosselin, Sarah Palin, Kate Gosselin, Heidi Montag, and Johnny Weir's latest fur-laden skate costume. Hopefully, our little letters to each other here will keep each other abreast (mine, still small; yours, still big) of all the big and little things that life is bringing us.

Love, D