I have become close friends with Loghead's high school sweetheart. Weird, right? She and I have worked together for the last five years. That's what I get for moving back to his hometown area! We've always chatted, and been pleasant with one another... Strange how she and Loca Grande, his exwife- are a lot alike, but I am nothing like them.

Anyway, I've been on this health kick with Gibby, and we now walk a mile every day afterschool in my school gym. One day, she and her son came in and joined us. Now she and I walk and talk every day, while the boys play tag or basketball. NEver anything really personal. I knows over the years, she and Loghead have still kept in contact- when her mother died, when his grandfather died, when she was in a horrible car accident. And I've always been okay with it.

So yesterday, out of the blue while we were walking, she asked about Loca Grande. They had met a time or two, because I guess for a while in college he had been seeing both of them. And I know he told me once that during a seperation with Loca Grande years ago, he and this other woman had hooked up a few times. he told me that years ago, before she and I even worked together. It was in one of those horrible "tell me about your past loves" conversations couples go through when when they are first dating...

She goes on to tell me she knew Loca Grande was wrong for him all those years ago. That she tried to tell him there was something "off" about her. She said she was sorry Loghead had gone through all that pain, but it was impressive how he stood up for the skids and protected them. She said her mother always kept her filled in on the gossip. She even remembered hearing about him dating a young teacher many years ago, and how awed she was that someone woulr marry a divorced man with such young children. "I guess that was you," she said.

She told me she always worried about him ( in the way I think anyone still wonders and worries about their first love) but she hasn't worried in the last years that she has known me. "I see all the time how much you love him and his kids. Did you know in staff meetings when we share "celebrations," you are always bragging about the kids? I never think of you as a stepmom, I think of you as super mom."

Well, I admit, I lost it. I just cried and cried, and then she cried, and then we cried together. She told me she'd have to kick his ass if he ever messed anything up.

Wow. Sometimes you find friends in the weirdest places. But she said just what I needed to hear...