Hi, my name is Pam.  I was roommates with Jones and Bayba a long time ago, when we were all very young. I won’t bore you with the details of how we all came to become roommates, but suffice it to say that for me, it was a miracle. Before knowing these two, I had a tough time trusting girls at all.  Something about having a few bad experiences growing up blah blah blah. Then I had the lovely fortune of sharing a room (a giant amazing room) with these two, and learning to trust, love, and even be friends with girls again.

At the time, I had this crazy life of being a college athlete/punk rocker/vegan, who had moved out of my parents house probably a little too soon. I spent most of my days running around with a couple of my guy friends, and slacking my way through junior college. But Bayba and Jones were different.  They went to the State School, they had majors, they dressed respectably, and they trusted girls. They became such a lifeline to me.  We spent many a night up late, talking about everything and anything.  Discovering new hilarious things on the internet, quoting each-other as if we were all hilarious comedians (I assure you that it really seemed like we were at the time), and counseling one another through the ups and downs of college life. They showed me that there was beauty in being a girl, and that I didn’t have to hide behind a rough exterior for protection. They taught me that I could just be me, and that was good enough. This was crucial during this time in my life when I was trying desperately to figure out who I really was.

Jones is probably one of the most talented and the most intuitive person I will ever know. (Unless I meet Ghandi or something) When we first lived together, I had just gone through the toughest breakup of my life.  My feelings were deep and poignant, and I was a basket of heartache. One night I sat and shared what was in my heart with her. She listened intently, and then wrote out a poem which completely explained how I was feeling. It was so therapeutic to feel like my feelings were relevant, and that someone completely understood me. I think that was the moment that I started to trust girls again.

I also owe my marriage to her in part. You see I am married to a ridiculously good looking man. One whom was the new guy at church when I met him, and with whom I fell instantly head over heels. (When I say instantly, I mean like the world went fuzzy and all I could see was him from that moment on.) Have you ever fallen hard for someone who is insanely good looking. It hurts your soul. When I met this particular hot guy, we hit it off and things progressed slowly between us.  But while that was all going on, everyone else in the world (well everyone else at church) was trying to fix him up with their sister or their daughter, or themselves. All girls who were awesome, and all girls who looked a lot like I did.  I kid you not, I could name these girls and show you their pictures next to mine, and you would not be able to tell which of us was which. (In fact, some of my Samoan classmates thought one of these girls and I were the exact same person for months.) Anyway it just killed me when I would hear about how some people all went on a group date, and my hot guy crush was fixed up to be there with someone who was a lot like me, but not actually me. It was so nerve wracking that at one point I could not take the pressure of how much I liked this boy and how tough it was to just play it cool and wait for things to progress. So one day I walked back into our gigantic shared room and pronounced to Jones that ‘I could not take it anymore, I could not date the hot guy, so why doesn’t she just date him.’ (She was after all beautiful, and amazing, and I would rather see him go to someone I loved than be lost forever to my one of my clones. They were nice girls really, but in that moment I was not their biggest fan.) Jones however very calmly said “No, you’re dating him.” That sentence still burns in my mind as the moment she convinced me to endure the pressure of loving a super hot guy. And to this day I am grateful for Jones cool head, and for her faith in me.

Soon after that experience, we were all at a church activity, where the theme was the dating game or something. A bunch of guys had anonymously brought items for auction, and girls were supposed to do something to bid on the items and win a date with them, or something like that. Well somehow Jones and I heard that the hot guy (that I loved by the way, did I mention that?) had brought a Scooby Doo themed item. So when it was my turn to bid on something, I wanted to win that thing and get paired up with him. The game required that I along with a few other contestants each write a poem as a bid, and the donator of the auction item would then pick from all of the poems which one he liked best, and would then be paired up together with the winner for the rest of the night in a date type of scenario.  The whole thing is confusing, I know, so in summary: I had to write a poem to try to win a date with the hottest guy on earth. Luckily I had Jones in my corner.  She helped me write the most ridiculous and amazing poem ever, and of course it was chosen as the winner of a date with…the wrong guy. As it turned out, two guys had brought Scooby Doo themed auction items, (who knew?) and we wrote an epic poem for the wrong one. The rest of college seemed to go that way too.  Such amazing poetry in the midst of such epic failures.

But the story does have a happy ending, because I did actually keep dating the hot guy. I am still dating him. Thanks for your help holding on to this one Jonesie, you’re the best friend a girl could have asked for.

Bayba is like a bowl full of fun with sprinkles of laughter, and she has the most ridiculous (Not to mention contagious) sense of humor in the world. Did you read the post on how she liked to dress up like a crazy character actress? Well I got to be the person who paraded her around our apartment complex dressed like upside down man on the night that she pulled that little doozie.  And you better believe I walked her right by the complex Christmas Party that we were ditching out on, so all of our neighbors could be baffled by her sophomoric charade.  It was amazing.

But there is another side to her, (Not her super responsible neat and tidy side, I have no use for that side of anyone.) Her good with kids side. She is the oldest child in her family, and she would tell us stories of all the adventures she would have with her siblings. Not normal sibling adventures, but epic like crazy sibling adventures. I can’t even think of any right now, but I remember thinking how awesome she must have made her siblings’ lives growing up. Also at the time that we were roommates, I worked as a part time nanny for several families. I thought I was pretty good at my job. I kept the kids alive, and they were usually fed and in bed by the time their parents got home from their outings. But Bayba was amazing with them. Sometimes when I was double booked she would take a job for me. And then she would come home and tell me all about how she had conducted a giant free reign whole house game of hide and go seek with flashlights, with the kids. Normally this might make someone worry about their job security, knowing that the temp they hired was way better at their job than they were. But not with us, she was more like an inspiration to me to worry less and play more when it came to kids, and to try to make life really fun for them. I still think about that now as I am starting to raise my own family. How can I make this experience more awesome for my kid? (I even have a Pinterest board entitled “How to be the fun parent” where I collect epic ideas on how to be as fun as a parent as Bayba is.) I will tell you one thing, Bayba’s kids are the luckiest kids in the world. They probably think it’s normal to put on a three act play in their living room on a rainy day, or to make rocket-ships out of tupperware and slide down grassy hills in them, but it’s not.  It’s just Bayba.

-Pam