A Totally Gay Love Letter.

I've been lucky enough to know and love just a few people over the course of my 26 years. My pal Stephen is at the top of that very short list. And this muddled collection of flowery words is all about him. So, if you're at all squeamish about hot man-on-man action, now's the time to click back over to Youtube to watch dogs riding skateboards or people getting hit in the nuts with all manner of objects, cause it's about to get filthy up in this bitch.

Stephen's been a member of my "family" for going on 15 years now. We grew up at opposite ends of the same street. A snaking little suburban road that followed alongside the Mississippi river and connected our homes by the front doors. For the remaining pre-driver's license years of our youth, the trip could be made in under a minute with a pair of rubber tires and a set of handlebars.

Since our first meeting, we've had ups and downs (and ins and outs. See? Told you it would get dirty) and extended periods of estrangement, but Stephen is the one guy in my life who I know will always be there. And when we get together, we always pick up right where we left off.

He's one of only maybe two people on this planet that I can do absolutely nothing with and still call the time well-spent. He's an endlessly fascinating human being and not a minute passes between us that isn't well-populated by deep laughs, good conversation (sometimes intelligent, most times not so), and a subtle awareness that the good old days are in the here and now.

We can talk about anything, the two of us. Movies, music, and money (our lack of it) are the usual hot topics, but we're just as likely to riff for an hour on foreign policy as we are to scrutinize the decision-making process that went in to designing a bag of potato chips. Or dissect string theory and time travel for 45-minutes while the movie that spawned the debate sits on pause in the background.

Every conversation has the potential to probe depths of the unknown (dirty) or wallow in the minutia of the mundane, but either way, you know you're in for a challenge. Stephen is one opinionated motherfucker and he'll defend his position with all the conviction and tenacity of an innocent man on trial. I say this, of course, with equal parts admiration and frustration as I've, more often than not, found myself on the losing side of those parleys.

For a guy who holds so dear to his view of right and wrong, truth and fiction, it's absolutely amazing the way he's managed to accept me for who I am no matter which curve ball I lob his way. I was terrified, at 18 years old, that the guy would read me the riot act when he caught me catching a quick smoke outside his apartment. On the contrary, he confessed that he too had enjoyed a cigarette from time to time and I threw myself at him for a big, clumsy hug. Not because I was thrilled by the potential bonding we'd share over lighting up together, but because I had been guilty as fuck about it and, as usual, the guy made me feel better about myself just through his acceptance.

It's not to say that he allows me to stumble through life recklessly, though. He's never been afraid to tell me just how big an asshole I've been and like a disobedient mutt, when he swats me on the nose, I listen up. I listen because I know that with him, there's no ulterior motive. He's looking out for me and sometimes that means an angry e-mail or one of his patented snide comments that stings like a bitch, but makes the point loud and clear. When I confided in him that my relationship with The EX was circling the drain, he hit me with the truth and it sat in my gut for a week. But I knew he was right and when I finally called it off, it was the confidence he had in telling me the truth that comforted me in knowing I was doing the right thing.

Stephen stuck by me through the "Jennie Years." I was shacked up with a woman who had never said a kind word to him over more than 6 years and still he had the strength of character not to dance around in front of me, celebrating his victory when it ended. I still don't think I've heard him speak the words, "I told you so, dumbass," though it's got to be killing him.

Because that's what being a true friend is. A lesson I've learned from the man himself only just recently. He tells me when he sees me headed down the wrong path, then waits for me to choose. Whether I pick the right path or the wrong one, doesn't matter between us because either way we're meeting up on the other side and though I might hear a little grumbling, I know he'll still be there when the next fork in the road starts breaking the horizon.

Really, most of everything I've learned about friendship, I learned from Stephen. And believe me, I've had a lot to learn. Truth be told, I've been a shitty friend. Flaky, unavailable, selfish, lazy...the list could go on. He's taught me the value of friendship at its core through his steadfast honesty and support.

For a guy like me, whose mood turns on a dime between manic restlessness and destructive depression, Stephen keeps me grounded. His relatively calm nature keeps the world from tipping too far in one direction or another. Last week, I dropped in on him after work for a play date. On the way to his apartment, I was neck-deep in the foulest of shit.

The Ex had recently dealt me a staggering blow by talking to our five year-old daughter about our impending "divorce" without first discussing the move with me. I was heartbroken when, during a study session at the kitchen table, the blonde toddler said as matter of factly as toddlers do, "Daddy, what kind of house do you think Mommy and Acey (the beagle from hell) and I will have?" It was like taking the fat end of a Louisville to the chest. When I confronted The Ex about it, she blew up, calling me every four-letter word she knew, attacked my parenting, and did it all at a volume that the kid would had to have crossed state lines to avoid overhearing. The pain was still with me that night on the drive to his house (though another amazing friend helped me through the initial impact with all the beauty and sweetness she displays in everything she does.)

Anyway, on the drive there, I was sick in my gut and strongly considered calling off the man-date and retiring to my basement couch with a bottle of 80 proof whatever. I knew he'd give me a short bit of hell for canceling, but I've got a long history of flaking out and I knew we'd still pal it up later. Maybe it was the dread of walking back in to that house with The Ex still looming over everything or maybe I just couldn't muster up the energy to call him with the negative RSVP, but I showed up at his front door twenty minutes later, still feeling nauseous and all kinds of salty.

We climbed the three flights of steps to his apartment, during which I related the tale of The Ex's offense as well as remarking (unnecessarily) on the poor state of his jeans, shredded and thick with road salt at the ankle. We discussed my pain for as long as it took to breach his door and drop my coat over a chair at his computer desk. That was all it took.

I watched him roll through a video game for about 15 minutes before we launched in to a viewing of a ridiculously bad action movie. We sat in swiveling office chairs as the movie shamelessly exhibited 90 minutes of absolutely abhorrent filmmaking. Anywhere else, I'd have sunk lower and lower in to my putrid mood and gone home feeling worse than ever. But, as I sat there, totally uninterested in the flick, I was happy to be where I was. We quipped about the movie throughout, chain-smoked, and sucked down sodas and that was all I needed to start climbing back out of the trench.

Throughout the years when The Ex was The Current and then The Sorta-Is-But-Really-Not, I missed the dude. The nature of my "relationship" with the Ex prohibited contact with anyone, male or female, of whom The Ex did not approve. Stephen, as you might have guessed, was on that list as well. Sitting in that chair was when it started to hit me, shamefully 6 years late, that I had risked losing someone whose value to me is irreplaceable. I'd forgotten, or perhaps resisted remembering, the joy of bullshitting with my oldest friend.

A guy whose sweetness is usually shrouded beneath a quick-wit and sarcastic streak, but there all the same. A guy who is almost always the first and most enthusiastic audience for anything I write, sketch, or create. A guy who I once kicked out of my house as a child for disagreeing with me over the original color and design of a superhero's costume. A guy who told me, at 17 years old while were sitting in the back of my pick-up truck, that he was expecting the first of his children. A guy who probably wanted to knock my teeth out four years later when I told him I was expecting mine with The Ex, but refrained. A guy who still remembers what "playing Sega with Candy" means.

What I'm trying to say is, if I had to fuck a man. Gun to my head and everything. I'd have to fuck Johnny Depp...or maybe Brad Pitt (what can I say, I like the pretty boys). But when it was all over and it was time to cuddle, I'd have to go with Stephen.