The Girl's Guide to Debauchery

Here's the post-best friend getaway report, straight from the now-sober fingers of a co-conspirator.

Kelli (my maid of honor) and I took a much-needed break last weekend by escaping to the Oregon coast. We'd planned three and a half days in Seaside, but one look at the stripmalls and hotels convinced us to make a beeline for Cannon Beach. Our room at a not-to-be-named hotel? The size of a closet, complete with large, noisy ceiling fan and window looking onto the hallway. After making 15 minutes of frantic phone calls in Kelli's car (at 9:30 pm - very late for beach towns), we managed to find one room left at a Cannon Beach inn. We limped down the coast, exhausted and starving, but relieved that we wouldn't have to spend the night in our cars on the shoulder of Highway 101.

Upon arrival, it was clear we made the right choice. Our ginormous inn had a pool, a jacuzzi big enough for a small hippo, a massage parlour, beachfront property...the list goes on, but the best part is that we didn't have to sell our belongings to stay there.

We spend the weekend waking up very, very late; cruising into town for fat-saturated breakfasts and window shopping; strolling miles of soft, sandy beaches and scoping out tidepools; eating ridiculously large dinners, followed by decadent desserts; and staying up late with movies, drinks, and long conversations. I discovered that I can still hold my own in small-town bars. We both discovered that overcast days and fair, Irish skin do not mix well. I may pop a seam in my wedding dress, but it was worth every damn bite of that chocolate souffle.

In case I haven't mentioned it, Kelli is the kind of friend every girl dreams of meeting. I've never been good at making friends, let alone best friends, but it all comes easily with her. We understand each other in an uncanny and occasionally frightening way; our lives tend to run on parallel tracks and always have. Moving away from her is causing me more heartache than anything else at this point, even though I know we'll be commiserating over e-mail and online telephones. Instead of focusing on that, I'm trying to be grateful for the countless memories and misadventures we've had, and to look forward to years more when we both come back to the Pacific Northwest. Sometimes, you meet people and you know your souls have met in the past, somewhere or somewhen. I shouldn't be so upset, because these are the people you never lose. I just have to have faith in that connection and in an old, irreplaceable friendship.