Happy Birthday Mark!

Today is my ex-husband's birthday. I will not tell you how old he is because it will put you in the ballpark for guessing mine. My ex is one of my best friends. I say one of them because I have several best friends. Mark hasn't known me longer than all of my best friends. (That honor goes to Lori, who I have been friends with since high school in North Dakota and who now lives a half hour away from me and now I have my own car so I can visit with her whenever I want and if I have lunch with her I don't have to "save room for dinner".)

Mark probably knows me better than all of my best friends do. He also knows the dark side better than all of my other friends do. You can't live day-to-day for 13 years without glimpsing the demons in one another. Mark's dark side is actually very Gary Larsonesque (whose birthday is August 14). It's dark but you can't help but smile at its irreverence. Mark is a graphic designer and when I came out with my poetry chapbook earlier this year, Mark designed the book and painted the picture for the cover - he based it on one of my poems and true to his emotional intellect, nailed the interpretation.

Mark is a 6'3", handsome guy with salt and pepper mostly black hair with huge (think e.t.) blue eyes. He's a talented artist, smart man and basically all around true-blue Joe and why the chicks in Minneapolis haven't nabbed him yet is beyond me.

Whoa, I'm starting to sound like a yenta here. I guess I just wanted to say to Mark on his birthday, hey, dude, I feel incredibly lucky that we were once married and I feel even more grateful that we have become good friends who honor that connection with love.

Happy Birthday, Ex-Husband Mark - party like it's 1999!