Laura -- Switzerland

Laura is the silent brewer. She's a great listener and she rarely tries to give advice. Her solutions are simple... be yourself because nothing else matters. She'd rather dance than argue. She'll buy you a shot and scream like it's Mardi Gras when the bar is empty. And, although she doesn't get out as much as she used to, deep down she's a real party girl.

Her time is spent mostly with her family. She lives with her mother (who also lives with her mother). I've personally tried living with my mother and grandmother in the same house... and that doesn't work so much for me. She, however, has been doing it for as long as I've known her and it seems to work for them.

Laura is not a leader, but that's okay because we can't all be leaders. She follows. She follows her family, her friends, her boyfriend, society, but most of all... she follows her heart. For this I admire Laura.

She's never made any excuses for herself. When she loves something, she loves it. When she hates something, she hates it. Her world is cut and dry... for the most part.

She'll be the first to tell you that she's not very book smart. I wrote every single college English paper that she ever turned in as her own. She had to constantly tell me to, "dumb it down" because the professor would know better. I hated to turn an A paper into a C+, but I did it for her. She calls me her walking dictionary because I'm always using a new word that she's never heard of. And when she's drunk she tells me to stop using so many big words.

Although book smarts aren't her thing, she's very street smart. She knows how to handle her own. She works her ass off and she makes good decisions.

She's the mediator. Her phrase is, "I have no opinion. I am Switzerland." I once asked her if she knew what she was referencing when she said that and she said, "That's a country, right?" I had to laugh and explain to her the politics of World War II. Now, at least, she knows what she's saying when she says that. If I'm in a squabble with another friend of mine, she won't choose a side (no matter how right I am). She explains to me that she's friends with both of us and she won't get in the middle of it. It pisses me off sometimes and I've gone so far as to call her a coward, but I realize now that staying impartial is actually harder than taking a side. Her friends, to her, have always been like family... and she hates it when a family fights.

Having spent the last 18 months with the love of her life, Laura desperately needs a girl's night out. She remembers only three years ago when her girlfriends were collectively known as "The Girl's" at Jan's Bar and Grill on 8th street. All the regulars knew who they were, and the bartenders knew what each of them regularly drank. They partook in the drama. They found out what it was like to have a drunken one night stand, and they knew the jukebox selections as if it were ingrained into their memories.

The girls loved to dance. They also played pool, threw darts, tried their hands at poker and even frequented a group game of dice. Although none of them were particularly good at any of those activities they always had fun.

Now Laura is practically married and prefers to stay in. It really is hard to imagine going out every night of the week to close down the bar like she used to do. Her fiance, Nathan, walked into her life a couple of Decembers ago and she's been head over heels for him since. She knew right away he was The One, and she hasn't looked back since. He's part of her family, her friends love him, and she loves him.

Nathan's just not a bar person, though, and there's a part of her that misses those carefree days when she and the girls went out all the time. The girls have changed, though, too. Jennifer doesn't visit home too much anymore, and she's going through a nasty break up. Julie is engaged and recently graduated, plus she now lives 50 miles away. And, as for myself, I have a new place of my own with bills piling up. I can't afford shots of tequila and jukebox money anymore. The four of us have simply gone our separate ways.

At Julie's graduation party she made the exclaimation that we need to schedule a girl's night every month, and the girls all agreed with her. Now... will it stick? Laura certainly hopes so. She loves Nathan, but she wants some of her former life back as well.

Jennifer... Aped Perfection

When you get a group of girls together, there are certain dynamics that take over the relationships. Some of them are spoken of, relished, celebrated and displayed. Others, however are sneaky, kept in the dark, silenced and kept at bay as long as possible.

Every one of my girlfriends will tell you they love me. They think I'm unique, fabulous, beautiful and sexy. And if they get you alone they might also tell you that I should really consider losing some weight, my attitude towards men will never land me a husband and on occasion I tend to drink too much. That's the faithful girlfriend though... she knows you inside and out... she might even know you better than you know yourself.

Underneath the appearances there are quiet pots burbling under pressure. When they burst, it's bad... but until they burst there's an unspoken race to see who can get whom boiling.

I know I make it sound evil, but on some level we are all evil.

When we were little girls the race was about grades. We were the goody goodies in school. Whoever landed the solo in choir, whoever got on honor roll, whoever landed the lead in the school play, whoever was the biggest teacher's pet... that person won the contest. More often than not it was Julie. She was always so determined.

We'd never admit we were competing with each other, but we were. Well, I take that back. Those of us who routinely lost the contest would admit that others were still in the race. I dropped out of the race back in junior high. Since then I have been a mere observer, but I will admit that every now and then I'll temporarily vie for something. But usually it's because I'm bored with every other aspect of my life.

Julie's main competitor was Jennifer. Though Jenn's mom couldn't afford it, she took her to the best beauty salon in town. She bought her the best clothes from the best stores in the mall. And she routinely told her she had to be better than everybody else. Jenn never really believed she was better, but, because of her mother's influence, she believed she should be.

Jennifer has the ability to see everybody's faults, including her own. Over the years she's managed to see the greatness in others, but her mother still tells her she needs improvement. The result is a really low self-esteem covered up by an aped cheerful attitude. She'll have you believe that she still believes in fairytales when she's broken hearted. She'll make you think that endless optimism is the way to go, but underneath it all she's the biggest pessimist I know. She's a walking paradox of personalities... and those personalities are kept under great control.

She used to vie with Julie over grades and achievements, but when Julie got her first boyfriend in junior high the competition really heated up. Suddenly Jennifer was flirting with boy after boy, and when she couldn't land a date, she'd flirt with Julie's boyfriend. This is a trend, that, really never died.

In college Jennifer finally got the attention from the males that she wanted. The guys in high school wouldn't touch her because she was branded as the good girl. When she went away to school she created a whole new persona for herself: slutty sorority party girl who can't hold her alcohol. She was still determined and she still maintained a good GPA. Afterall, she still had mommy dearest to impress. But when the sun went down she was doing keg stands and sleeping in a different bed every night.

Through the years Jennifer always let other people tell her who she was. She never really got to know herself. Anytime she came close to finding out who she was, she'd decide to switch gears and change all that. One month she'd be party girl. Another month she was student body president. Then the next month she was practically engaged to the love of her life. Well, to one of the loves of her life.

She desperately wanted that fairytale ending, but she couldn't keep her mind from wondering if she couldn't do better than this (whatever this may be). The downfall from having a mother tell you that you should be better than the rest is that you believe her... and it kills you to see somebody else be better than you at anything.

She met Guy last summer at a party. Guy convinced her she was in love with him, and then she tried to convince me of this. I didn't buy it, but I told her to do what she wants. She moved in with him after two months of dating, and another two months after that she was engaged. Her parents spent thousands of dollars to plan a wedding within six months. Two months before the nuptuals were to be held, he broke it off. Coincedently, he broke it off the day before Julie got engaged. Consider that competition lost, Jennifer... you almost walked down the aisle before Julie.

Now poor Jennifer has to sit idly by while Julie plans a wedding... the wedding Jennifer was supposed to have. She calls me constantly, afraid to confide in anybody else. I don't know what to say to her, because all advice I've ever given her has never been taken. It gets overpowered by her poor self-esteem and her determination to act like nothing is wrong. But something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.