And Yet Another Amazing Friends Happens to Have a Birthday...

Dearest Karen/K-Fish/Mixologist Extraordinaire

Happy Birthday (One Day Late). As some of you know I have made a habit of writing happy birthday letters to my friends on here, somewhat because I want them to know how much I love them, and in a way because mostly I am super bad at telling people how I feel about them to their faces. And a tiny part because I am narcissistic and want them to know what their original “birthday” means to me, even if I met them some twenty five years after their entrance into the world.
So Karen, Happy F’in 26! To you Twenty Six might be different than it is to other people. Maybe because you were raised different than most people. For those sheltered in St. Louis it might be down right strange, or awkward. I can swear on my life you would have no idea how many times I have joked about “Ozark BBQ.” Because to you Karen, Ozark BBQ is my first Chili’s where I learned the super neato craft of waiting tables. Or being someone’s bitch for tips. It’s like being a hooker Karen, only I am certain that hookers get paid much more than we do. So I would be a liar to say I haven’t done your voice 18,000 times using the words “Ozark BBQ.” But the bottom line Karen is I know your “Ozark BBQ” is a part of your life none of us will ever understand and those times in your life are the times that made you who you are today.
That’s what makes you Karen; you aren’t an open book. In fact I find you to be one of the most intriguing people I have met here in St. Louis. You think you lay it all out, but in a way you are some sort of weird mystery to all of us. Not the kind of mystery Michael Fitzgerald reads that have strange titles, strange names all involving cupcakes or strudel and some kind of killer but, a real true mystery. You have to be one of the smartest people I have ever met, and yet Karen you know how to “shake it likes it’s hot” and be down right crazy. So sometimes you wake up and wonder “what the hell did I do last night?” And sometimes I have an answer for you, and sometimes I don’t. And sometimes what you did was excusable and sometimes it wasn’t. I for one am not a stranger to doing the inexcusable. And really, Karen, as they say “well behaved women rarely make history.” And I’m not saying that is an excuse for every time one of us fucks up or does something really stupid, and it is certainly no excuse to do bad things, but Karen, I think, for the cards you were dealt you are really doing ok. I think you love Mason more than any of us will ever understand, and I know you had kids young, and I know Karen you are smart enough to end up doing the right thing.
I think you will continue to come into your own and figure this life thing out. And I only hope that when you figure it out you will remember those of us that are still trying to figure it out.
I think you should be proud of last night. Most of us would be honored to find that we had twenty friends, in one town, willing to sit down and eat dinner with us. Mostly Karen, I think you should be proud that you will forever and always be the only "Karen Fisher". The only Karen Fisher I feel is worth knowing. The only Karen Fisher I feel proud to know. You are unique and funky. And I know there wasn’t a person in that room last night that you wouldn’t have gone to the ends of the earth for if they asked you too. You are a better person than most of us are. And the rest of things Karen, will work themselves out, or you will work them out ,because you have to be hands down the smartest Karen Fisher I will ever know.

I love you Karen, and, more importantly, so many other people do as well!

Katie Lauren