3 Reasons I Love My Friend Angela K.

(1) I love Angela because:

The other night, I went to see her in “Pageant of the 4 Seasons, a 99¢ Only Modern Something!”, the latest 99¢ spectacular from Ken Roht (genius) (love you Ken) at the Bootleg Theatre. Angela’s one of my favorite people to watch onstage—I genuinely think that she should be the star of everything—or at least the star of most things—and she was great the other night. After the show, we were talking in the lobby and Angela told me that she had something for me. A gift. Very exciting, I’m intrigued. And then she tells me I already have it. It’s the same book my brother Matt gave me for Christmas. It turns out, Angela and her then-boyfriend Eric were at a book store THREE YEARS AGO and they saw this book and Angela said, “I think Erik Patterson would like this” and she bought it for me and then she proceeded to forget to give it to me for the next two years, then I started this blog and Angela thought “I should really finally give that book to Erik Patterson because it’s perfect for his Year of New Things,” and then she wrote me a letter about how she’d been meaning to give the book to me for two years and she put it in a big manila envelope, and then she put that envelope aside and it sat there for a whole nother year (why isn’t “nother” a word?) (it should totally be a word), and then I wrote a blog post about how one of my favorite Christmas gifts was this awesome book my brother Matt gave me, and then Angela’s now-husband Eric read the blog post and he called Angela and said: “Hey, guess what Erik Patterson got for Christmas?” And she didn’t know, because why would she? And then Eric said, “he got the book you’ve been meaning to give him for three years!” And so then, finally, after all of these years, when I went to the 99¢ show the other night, Angela finally gave me my book, and it makes me doubly happy because (a) it was one of my favorite gifts this year and (b) getting one of my favorite things twice is way better than getting it once and (c) one of the things the book tells you to do is to see how much faith you have in humanity by writing your name and phone number at the beginning of the book and then abandoning it somewhere and see if you ever get it back, and while I generally have at least a smidgen of faith in humanity (if not more) (depending on the day), I was freaked out by the notion of leaving a book (that I love) out in the world and then waiting for it to come back to me, but now that I have two copies of the book I’m not as afraid of leaving one of my copies out there (jeeeeez, that makes me sound like I really do have zero faith in humanity, but the opposite is true, it’s just that I’m really particular about my books), and (d) this is a really long #1. Anyway, how freaking cool is Angela Kang for holding on to a gift for three years and finally giving it to me??? I understand that the previous sentence could be read sarcastically, but I mean it as genuinely as possible, because seriously: she never gave up on the gift and I love her for that.

(2) I love Angela because:

She has a “shame box.” I have a “shame box” too, but I never thought to call it a “shame box” until Angela mentioned that my book had been in her “shame box” for the last three years. Basically, a “shame box” is a box where you keep things that belong to other people that you’ve had for too long and every time you look at them you feel shamed because holy crap I was supposed to give that to that person way too long ago and I’m a horrible person. Of course, I like to think that the very act of having a “shame box” makes you an unhorrible person because even if your follow-through isn’t always the best, your intentions are still good. Anyone else have a shame box?

ITEMS IN MY SHAME BOX:

a. “Walk the Line” on DVD, which I borrowed from my uncle’s family over a year ago and which I still have not watched.

b. a random video-camera tripod that I think I borrowed from my dad but which I’ve had for so long (over three years) that I’m not quite sure who it belongs to

c. a little framed photo that belongs to my friend McKerrin that she had brought to a rehearsal of a workshop we were working on at the Gang in 2002 and then accidentally left behind (but it’s been awhile since I’ve looked inside my “shame box” and I think—though cannot be certain as I write this—that I gave this back to McKerrin the last time I saw her)

d. several photos that belong to my friend Leo, who was my roommate (that’s weird, what are you supposed to call someone who is ostensibly your “roommate,” but roommate is really the wrong word because we didn’t share a “room”) (should I say apartmentmate?) (flatmate?) during the summer of 2002. Leo and I were home at the same time so infrequently that it became a joke and we started leaving messages for each other in the living room, but our messages quickly devolved into photo messages and it became a contest to see who could leave the most random photo for the other person—like, I would leave a photo of my grandmother and then he would leave a photo of himself wearing a fake beard and then I would leave a photo of my stomach and on and on. It was a fun game. Every time I’d come home, I would be excited to see if there was a new photo on the photo pile (because we never took any of the photos away, we’d just put a new one on top of the old ones, until they were all just piled up there) (again, I haven’t looked in my “shame box” for awhile and I think that maybe I actually have returned Leo’s photos, but they were in the box for so long that they still exist in the “shame box” of my mind)

(3) I love Angela because:

She once left a comment on my blog that read, and I quote:

I totally want to have business cards made up that list me as: Angela Kang, A.O.E.P.P. And when people ask what it stands for, I'll say (in a bad British accent): "Authority on Erik Patterson's Penis". (I don't know why it needs to be said in an accent. It just does.)

Best. Comment. Ever.

Which isn’t a surprise because Angela’s pretty much the coolest person ever, too.

And therefore she is the authority on my penis.

(Thank you for the book, Angela!)